My current prediction is that Argo will win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The thing about making movies based on true stories is that it’s hard to keep them suspenseful. This is especially so when the story is so famous, and everything but the smaller details are rather well known.

Ben Affleck’s fantastic new film Argo is based on such an event: The Iran hostage crisis from 1979 to 1981, in which 52 employees of the American embassy in Iran were held captive after the United States government foolishly gave asylum to the country’s loathsome, brutal king. Argofocuses on the six employees who escaped, hid at the Canadian ambassador’s house, and were smuggled home to safety and a massive hero’s welcome. Continue…