Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Argo: the review

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The opening of Argo recaps modern history between Iran and America: we wanted their oil, we crapped on their politics in order to be sure we’d get that oil, and in 1979 the people had finally had enough and kicked our puppet dictator, the Shah, out. When Jimmy Carter allowed the Shah to come to the US for medical treatment, furious Iranians took out their anger on the American Embassy, and we got the endless hostage standoff. 

Argo is the story of the six Americans from the embassy who managed to flee during the takeover and hide out in the Canadian ambassador’s residence. The Iranians are very close to figuring out they don’t have all the Embassy employees they should have. If the Iranians find out the Canadians have the Americans, there’s going to be hell to pay. The Canadian government is going to close down their diplomatic mission anyhow, because the chaos is spreading and pretty soon all North Americans are going to be in the line of fire. The American government can’t do anything overt without inflaming the situation further, so the guys at State come up with plans to get the six Americans out. Such as, they can bicycle their way across Iran.

The experts over at the CIA — such as director and star Ben Affleck — tell the State Department those plans are DOA, and if they go through with it, the Americans are DOA too. At which point the challenge comes: “You have a better idea?” 

Hollywood loves having itself portrayed as the good guy, so I expect that this movie has a good shot at being Best Picture next year. I haven’t seen Lincoln and I know perfectly well Big Epic About War And Race is always a lock, but Small Action Pic About Middle East Turmoil is pretty damn relevant too. 

There are absolutely no surprises in this movie: there’s a Big Problem, there’s a Big Plan, nobody believes in the Big Plan except the little guys, there are hitches in the plan, but since we know to a T what the plan is we in the audience know how well it’s succeeding.

This movie works so damn well because of 3 things: 

  1. If you remember your history of the time, or you’ve heard any of the publicity about this movie, you know how it’s going to turn out. Since we have no public schools dedicated to memory of the six Americans, you can probably guess how it turns out too. Act 3 is still wildly suspenseful. Seriously, damn good job there, Director Affleck. 
  2. The direction of the action scenes is really good. You know what’s going on at all times and who’s doing what to whom. Seriously, if the whole writer-director-actor thing doesn’t work out for him, someone re-hire Matt Damon as Bourne and have Affleck direct the next one. 
  3. While there are no big surprises in the storytelling, there are some definite fun little ones: historic (John Chambers: special effects guru and CIA helper-ally-facilitator!), character-based (I’ll leave that one to be the fun little twist it turns out to be, but it involves one of the six Americans), and irony-laden (the “feel-good” ending for one of the Iranian characters). 

There’s no extraneous character stuff. There’s no derring-do at the CIA (talk about your office job). Argo is reminiscent of the political thrillers of the 70s in more than just art direction (which is awesome, and have I mentioned recently how much the 70s sucked?), and it’s a nice change of pace from the bloated, moronic “political” thrillers that we usually get.

The brain systems interrupt

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The best thing I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is: not only can you not trust what anyone else thinks, you sure as hell can’t trust what you think. 

Except for that bit of wisdom. That, you can trust. 

Yesterday, I went running. I think I’ve gone running three times this week. My running schedule has been sporadic since summer (read: if I run more than once a week, it’s an awesome running week), but I know I have to keep it up, because I learned something very, very important about running. It keeps my mood even. Running has worked better than any psychoactive drug for keeping me cheerful and upbeat. 

I went running with Rob at Rancho, and we had a pretty good run and I felt great about it, both physically and in terms of endorphins earned.

Today, I used Freedom and turned off my computer for four hours. I got so much done in terms of applying butt to chair and getting stuff done that I realized I really have to make an Applescript that simply runs Freedom at 9am every weekday and turns off the Internet for four hours. I love it when I have a really productive writing day. 

So, to recap: I ran yesterday, and I had a great writing day today. Anyone want to guess how I’m feeling right now?

That’s right: like crap. I have the voices in my head telling me…well, telling me all those things that your voices probably tell you. It can be summed up as “Everything you have ever done is wrong, and you’re a bad dancer to boot.” The kind of voice cacophony where it becomes hard to breathe. 

The first thing I have to do is remember: You can’t trust your own thoughts. They’re just thoughts. Just because you’re having them doesn’t make them any more or less true than any other thoughts. There are days when I think I’m a damn snappy dancer, I’ll tell you that. (Those days are rare, because in point of fact I’m not a good dancer, and I’m okay with that, frankly. No part of my ego is dependent on my ability to feel the rhythms.) 

The second thing I have to do is what I call a systems interrupt for my brain. I think various branches of psychology or pop psychology call this process by different things. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the mystery schools called it some variant on a spell or incantation. Which seems fair, because this technique works wonders. 

Okay, so you’re having one of these bad days, where all you can do is focus on every single thing you’ve ever done wrong (or failed to do at all). What you say inside your head is:

Thanks for saying that, brain. Now shut the fuck up.

Say it out loud if you have. Say it a lot. Say it until the voice in your head shuts the fuck up. Say it every time the voice pipes up. 

This process works. The first time I heard about it, I thought, Well, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I swear to you, since I started doing this a few years ago, since I began immediately talking back every time the voice said anything, bad days have gotten a whole hell of a lot rarer. (Which is why a day like today is really such a bummer — I’ve forgotten how to deal with them.) 

You have to take control of your own thoughts. They’re not particularly true just because you’re having them, and they can be discarded. 

And make sure you’re getting a decent amount of aerobic exercise. At least walk a few times a week. There really is something to the whole endorphin theory of emotional management.