It's Time Affleck Gets The Attention He Deserves

Rating: 9/10 (21 November 2012)

It's not an accident. There's a reason that Ben Affleck continues to shine as a filmmaker. As an old professor of mine once said, "Consistency will expose you...either for good, or for ill." And consistency has exposed Affleck as one heck of a filmmaker. He has now directed three films, and every one of them have been tremendous. First there was Gone Baby Gone, a film that was at the top of my list of best movies of 2007. Then there was The Town. Now, even though I didn't think that The Town reached quite as high as GBG, the difference between them was negligible at best. It's like saying which one is better: A million dollars or $950,000? Obviously a million's better, but I'd take the 950 Gs in a heartbeat. And now we have Argo. For me, so far, this is hands down the best movie of this year. Now that might change over the next 6 weeks or so, but I don't see that happening. Once again, Affleck directs in a way that makes it very evident that he has complete control over every detail of a film. I mentioned this in my review of The Town, but I'm going to mention it again. There are very few directors who can achieve that type of meticulous control, and still deliver an almost perfect product. And make no mistake about it...this movie is darn near perfect. Especially considering the fact that I knew how everything was going to turn out, and yet towards the conclusion of the film, I was on the edge of my seat. And so it's time now. It's time that Affleck gets the attention that he deserved to get with Gone Baby Gone, and The Town. And the attention better come in the form of two Academy Award nominations: One for Best Picture, and one for Best Director. If it doesn't happen this time around, then the Oscars will have comprehensively, and epically failed to accomplish their goal of nominating the very Best Pictures of the year. The only thing that I'm disappointed about, is the fact that we're probably going to have to wait two years or so before Affleck's next film. But I guess that's o.k. I'll just pass the time with a few more viewings of Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and Argo when it comes out on Blu-Ray.