To score Oscar nominations in the all-important best picture and best director categories, all you have to do is make one of the very best movies of the year. To actually win those awards, though, you have to persuade members of the academy, often one by one, that the people spreading vicious innuendo about your movie are full of crap.
And so, on Friday, Dec. 7, Ben Affleck and three other members of the creative team behind "Argo" attended a luncheon for journalists and academy members at the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York. They were joined by Tony Mendez, the CIA officer who conceived and ultimately executed the stranger-than-fiction plot to smuggle six State Department employees out of revolutionary Iran by disguising them as Hollywood filmmakers. "Argo" is based on that true story, and Affleck both directed the film and plays Mendez in the film's lead role. His first objective...
And so, on Friday, Dec. 7, Ben Affleck and three other members of the creative team behind "Argo" attended a luncheon for journalists and academy members at the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York. They were joined by Tony Mendez, the CIA officer who conceived and ultimately executed the stranger-than-fiction plot to smuggle six State Department employees out of revolutionary Iran by disguising them as Hollywood filmmakers. "Argo" is based on that true story, and Affleck both directed the film and plays Mendez in the film's lead role. His first objective...
- 12/10/2012
- by Michael Hogan
- Huffington Post
This story first appeared in the Oct. 26 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. In 1980, THR ran an ad promoting the "original" faux film Argo -- so perhaps it's only natural that THR helped Ben Affleck find the original "producer" of it. Photos: Ben Affleck at 40: Portraits of 'Argo's' Leading Man, Director and Oscar-Baiting Auteur THR's own Bill Higgins recently located makeup artist Robert Sidell (E.T., The Waltons) -- now 75 and living in Vegas -- who had posed as the fake film's producer. When Higgins ran into Affleck at a dinner and told him about it, the actor-
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- 10/18/2012
- by Merle Ginsberg & Gary Baum
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Filed under: Movie News
Bryan Cranston is hot. After 151 episodes of 'Malcolm In the Middle' he went on to co-star in 'Lincoln Lawyer' and the upcoming 'Larry Crowne' and, of course, is the bedrock of the hit AMC series 'Breaking Bad.' And he's also on the roster of such interesting films as 'Drive,' 'Contagion,' 'Red Tails,' 'John Carter,' 'Total Recall' and 'Rock of Ages.'
Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, he's in negotiations to join Ben Affleck's CIA thriller revolving around the 1979 Tehran hostage crisis, 'Argo,' which has had to have been one of the best-kept secrets of the last 30 years. The film is based on a Wired magazine article about a real-life covert mission in 1979 mounted by the CIA and the Canadian government to rescue six American diplomats held hostage in Iran -- by...
Bryan Cranston is hot. After 151 episodes of 'Malcolm In the Middle' he went on to co-star in 'Lincoln Lawyer' and the upcoming 'Larry Crowne' and, of course, is the bedrock of the hit AMC series 'Breaking Bad.' And he's also on the roster of such interesting films as 'Drive,' 'Contagion,' 'Red Tails,' 'John Carter,' 'Total Recall' and 'Rock of Ages.'
Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, he's in negotiations to join Ben Affleck's CIA thriller revolving around the 1979 Tehran hostage crisis, 'Argo,' which has had to have been one of the best-kept secrets of the last 30 years. The film is based on a Wired magazine article about a real-life covert mission in 1979 mounted by the CIA and the Canadian government to rescue six American diplomats held hostage in Iran -- by...
- 6/29/2011
- by Harley W. Lond
- Moviefone
John Goodman is reportedly negotiating to join Ben Affleck's Argo, the period political drama about a real-life covert operation to rescue six U.S. diplomats during the Iran hostage crisis in 1979. The kicker, and where Goodman comes in, is in the unusual circumstances of said rescue, in which the Canadian government enlisted Hollywood make-up and effects experts John Chambers and Bob Sidell to help the Americans escape in disguise as crew members of a fake science fiction film.
- 6/25/2011
- Movieline
- It manifests itself in the projects he is attached to (most of the time as writer and/or director) – whether the issue is foreign policy, politics, counter intelligence, international intrigue, George Clooney is a magnate such material. After picking up the screen rights for the just announced Our Brand is Crisis and The Innocent Man recent performances in Syriana, the Smoke House shingle is adding another ‘covert’ operation to its ‘to do’ list. I’m not sure if this will adopt a tone closer to Escape from Alcatraz or Midnight Express, but we can only hope that Clooney and his Smoke House partner Grant Heslov make an interesting true story into an engaging screenplay. Variety reports that Warner Bros. Pictures picked up the film rights to Joshuah Berman's Wired magazine article on the real-life intelligence tale and set it up with Smoke House to produce. Of course, this also
- 5/3/2007
- IONCINEMA.com
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