News

This shouldn't be exciting, but is

Ali

13th June 2011

If I had told you a decade ago I was excited that casting had begun on Ben Affleck's new movie, you would have laughed at me and called me a girl. Well, here we are, a decade later - Ben Affleck is casting his new movie, and I'm excited. Now who's a girl?

Ben Affleck would probably prefer you didn't call it a comeback (or sing it in a LL Cool J-esque fashion) but his star is mega-high these days, after the ace double-whammy that was Gone Baby Gone and The Town - two of the best American thrillers of the last five years, and Affleck's first two films as director. Some might say all memories of dreck like Paycheck have been erased (delicious pun very much intended).

Having made Boston cool again, Affleck Senior is busy prepping his new movie, Argo, which sounds like it'll complete a triumvirate of crazy-intense action thrillers with Benjamin Geza Affleck at the helm. Here are five reasons why we're jazzed about Argo and looking forward to putting Affleck's career as a smirking chin-jockey in our reah-view.


Argo sounds awesome. It's an Iranian hostage drama set in 1979 (I smell Oscars) which sees six US diplomats captured in Tehran. The official government line? They pretend they were location scouts looking to shoot a new (fake) sci-fi movie. It's Galaxy Quest meets Syriana!


The cast will be top. First to join is Alan Arkin, whose range spans from 'pretty great' to 'amazing'. Arkin will play Lester Siegel, a Hollywood producer (reckon he's Jewish?) and CIA veteran who has to free the men from the American embassy. It's Munich meets Little Miss Sunshine!


B-Fleck to star, yo. After receiving acclaim for his directorial and acting abilities in The Town, Ben will direct and star in Argo. He pulled out of Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby to do so, and no one pulls out on Baz Luhrmann. It's Gigli meets One Day In September!


It's all true. Argo is based on a 2007 article in Wired by writer Joshuah Bearman (which you can read here) and is genuinely unbelievable. To keep up the pretense of the film, the government wrote a script and even took out ads in Variety. It's The Player meets Three Kings!


He's totally winning the break-up. Fuck you, Jennifer Lopez. Fuck you all the way back to the block. It's The Break-Up meets Persepolis!
Also, secret reason number six is that it gives me another excuse to post this video of Awesome Drunken Ben Affleck. Good night.

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