A couple weeks ago, I saw the Blu-ray for “Terminator
Salvation” at Wal-mart. While I had
enjoyed the first two movies, I wasn’t a great fan of the franchise. Nor did I find the third movie advanced the
overall story in a significant way. But
I noticed the movie was on sale for $8, and that Joseph McGinty “McG” Nichol
had directed it. While I had enjoyed his
two Charlie’s Angels movies, I had fallen in love with his recent action/comedy
“This Means War.” So I picked up the movie,
figuring you can’t go wrong for eight bucks, right?
When we got home, my wife noticed a sticker on the cover
that promised eight dollars in movie cash toward another Warner Brothers
film. As “Terminator Salvation” is a
2009 movie, I figured this offer would long since have expired. But within minutes she had printed off a
coupon. We reviewed the movies currently
in cinemas, and discovered we could use it on “Argo.” Critics have universally praised it, and the movie has won so many awards, that we decided to see it the following weekend.
The movie is based on a CIA operation to rescue six U. S.
Embassy employees during the 1979 Iranian Hostage crisis. In order to accomplish this, operative Tony
Mendez flies into Tehran pretending to be the producer of a Sci-Fi movie. He buys the rights to a script, casts actors,
pays for preproduction artwork, and advertises the movie in trade
magazines.
During the week, we bumped into a couple we hadn’t seen
lately. At one time, we regularly
spotted each other at our local cinema.
They asked what movies we had seen lately, and while I told him about the films we had seen in the last month, I admitted
that for several months previous, we hadn’t attended the cinema. For us, it had always seemed that we had too
many other, more important tasks to do. They also had not visited the cinema for several months. In their case, they had simply grown tired of attending movies. They had even tried to enliven the experience
by seeing movies in 3D, or IMAX, or with D-Box, but this had only increased the
cost. “D-Box?” I asked. “What’s that?” He explained that you sat in special chairs
that moved and shook, in order to simulate action occurring during the
movie.
The next day, we went to see “Argo.” The movie starts off like a staid reenactment,
but grows increasingly interesting as Tony Mendez champions a plan that
everyone else sees as impossible or crazy.
Having watched the crisis unfold in my youth, the movie reawakened so
many memories from that year when every TV News report spent a few moments
discussing the Iranian Hostage Crisis.
By the time Mendez and the Embassy employees start navigating the
obstacles at the airport, I had to unclasp my wife’s hand, as our palms were sweating. So I held her arm instead. Within
minutes, my hand had somehow migrated back into hers. At some point during this, the foot of the
person seated behind me started vibrating the back of my chair. It was so strange: I knew how the story would
unfold. We all knew that Mendez and the
six Americans would escape. Yet it wasn’t
until the plane finally left Iranian air space that my seat stopped vibrating,
and I could extricate my damp hand to wipe it against my shirt.
The next time we see our friends at the gym, I’m going to
tell him that you don’t need costly upgrades to reenergize your movie-going experience. You just need to choose your movies more carefully. And if you see one like “Argo,”
paying for D-Box is a real waste, because you’ll get that for free anyway.
Dragon Dave
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