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Argo

BudLiteGood morning, y’all. Icepocalyspe has arrived, and gone by. I hate to keep ragging on folks that seem really dedicated to trying to do a good job, like the folks controlling the Whiz-O-Meter at Channel 11 News, but they make it too easy. The rumors of our demise were greatly exaggerated. We got snow, we got sleet, but so far everything is passable. I bet I’ve got more ice in the ice machine at the pool than on the ground. Good news, and we are happy to have dodged the bullet!

The best news is, we kept power and I didn’t have to spend date night with my neighbors. It might have been a very emotional experience for many members of my posse here at TackyToo to have to sit through our date night movie. No, I’m not talking about the lovey dovey stuff, I’m talking about the subject matter of the movie. In memoriam of the Iran Hostage crisis’ thirty fifth anniversary, I had Mulva look for the movie “Argo” on her trip to Walmart. It was not to be found in the $2.99 bin. I think Mulva had to pay $9.99, but it was well worth it.

Now, why the movie may have caused distress to many members of the TackyToo Republican Party, is that the movie is about a successful spy operation that didn’t involve American Black Ops. Unlike movies about other American ventures, it didn’t resolve in the wholesale slaughter of all the foreigners when the operation went South. It was a movie about an operation that actually worked by using intelligence instead of firepower. How neat is that?

By the way, the story is about real events. Where the movie takes literary license is that it is presented as being an American led operation. It was not. The story is about how six diplomats at the American Embassy in Tehran were about to be in the same hostage boat as our other folks were. The six Americans sought asylum at the house of a Canadian diplomat, and from there the fun began. Through a series of quick moves and quick thinking, the Canadians got the American diplomats moved to a house that was considered safe. There they contacted officials in Canada for help in getting the Americans out of Iran.

Enter Ben Affleck as a CIA operative charged with the mission of getting the Americans safely home. Let me interject here that Ben Affleck is not my favorite. Don’t know why, it might have to do with a curiosity with his bust up with Jennifer Garner, can’t say. Affleck is a much better director to me than actor. I think the success of the movie proves Affleck’s directing skill. The movie received seven Academy Award nominations, and won for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing. Not too bad for a movie that didn’t have Matt Damon in it.

Anyway, Affleck’s character concocts this wild story about a Canadian film crew that was going to use Iran’s deserts for a science fiction movie. Affleck and his crew arrive in Tehran, meet up with the Americans and start the ruse. All of the Iranian officials have to be convinced that the movie deal is a real project or Affleck has just added more hostages to the mix. The displaced Americans have to pose as members of the film crew that had already entered Iran to scout locations, but were then trapped by the revolution. Everyone has to appear to be a Canadian to leave the country with their new Canadian passports. Good tight drama all the way through.

The movie takes its title from a line uttered by John Goodman, which was hilarious when delivered. It was also the name of the ship which the Greek myth “Jason and the Argonauts” is based on. It’s nice to have a PG reference to tell the kids. It would also be nice to tell the kids the true history of the events. Outside of the Ben Affleck character, the operation was nearly all Canadian.

I would have been compelled to point that out to all of my neighbors if date night had exploded into a TackyToo sleep over. Fortunately it did not.

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