Argo: A Cosmic Conflagration

Last night, Heather and I went to see "Argo" (Affleck, 2012). In light of having recently seen "Sneakers," I kept thinking of "Argo" as a heist movie. The con man is a CIA agent, working for the forces of law and order; the mark is the Iranian revolutionary movement; the goods are six American diplomats; the oddball heist crew consists of Hollywood insiders and a few CIA agents.

Set in 1980, at the height of the Iranian/American hostage crisis, the film focuses on six diplomats who escaped the hostage-taking. Their safety is compromised, and the American government wants to bring them back. The con involves Agent Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck, who directed, plays Mendez), pitching a harebrained scheme to his superiors: He, and the six, will masquerade as members of a film crew who have been location scouting in Tehran.

"Argo" is based on a true story, and it includes within the fictionalization real audio and video from the events portrayed (Carter's voice, news footage imposed onto TVs throughout the film, etc.). But the film does a good job of bracketing fact from fiction. The first moments comprise a brief documentary on the history of U.S.-Iran relations. We fade out to "Based on a True Story," followed by the title. At the end, as the credits roll, we see images from the film matched with the real photographs that were re-created within the fiction.

Situating itself between two very clear presentations of factual information affords "Argo" a level of verisimilitude that would otherwise be lost, without confusing the viewer into believing that the events portrayed happened exactly as they were portrayed. The fiction is heightened by the fact.

The real-life poster for the fake movie.

Not that it needs much heightening; the film is incredibly well-paced, switching from the cooped-up tension of the hidden diplomats to the high-level negotiations between Mendez and his bosses, to the shocking violence on the streets in Tehran. And there is comedy.

John Goodman and Alan Arkin co-star as a makeup artist and producer, respectively, charged with conning the Hollywood press into making a big enough deal about the movie that it provides believable cover for the diplomats. These two play like a pair of character actors in an old studio-system film, lightening the tension just enough to let us catch our breath. Their scenes--buying the script, the costumed read-through, complete with Chewbacca and 3-CPO knock-offs--had me laughing out loud.

The whole movie, in fact, plays like old-time Hollywood: The dashing-but-damaged leading man, the humorous sidekicks, the simplistic villains, the rah-rah ending. We do see some nuance politically: The factual opening sequence reminds viewers of the many missteps of the U.S. government's interactions with Iran. Additionally, while there are no sympathetic characters within the ranks of the revolutionaries, neither are they portrayed as purely malicious (those portrayals go to the more militant Revolutionary Guard). A scene where a young Iranian student reads a statement for the news cameras is movingly intercut with news reporting of a Texas riot where Americans savagely beat an Iranian-American man. Such images evoke the response of Americans to 9/11, while the embassy plot is similar (unintentionally, of course, since the movie was only recently released) to the recent attacks on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi.

In short, "Argo" is tonally timely while remaining formally timeless, and totally worth watching.

TNT and Cupping: Coffee Lingo Explained

The logo of the sponsoring group: A stylized latte design.

This week was bookended by coffee. The first event was the TNT: no, not the explosive. TNT is shorthand for Thursday Night Throwdown. Not all throwdowns are on Thursday nights, but most of them get called TNT anyway.

This throwdown was on a Thursday. And what, you might ask, is a throwdown?

It's a latte art contest. Baristas, using only the milk pitcher, pour hot foamed milk into espresso in such a way that it leaves a contrasting, white-on-brown design on the top of the cup. These designs can be as simple as a heart or as complex as three hearts nested within a squiggly fern. Two baristas create art at once, set their cups on the judging table, and the judges pick the best one. Everyone pays to play, and the winner takes home the pot.

I didn't win (I didn't even make it out of round 1), but I did get to hang out with some of the most interesting and welcoming people in Chicago's coffee world. We ate pumpkin cupcakes and sipped locally-brewed beer and talked while we watched the other competitors throw down.

So when Heather and I, along with our friend Ashleigh, attended a coffee cupping party this past Thursday, we saw familiar faces.

Cupping is like wine tasting, but for coffee. Unlike a TNT, you don't need to know how to work an espresso machine; you just need a functioning sense of taste and smell. Normally, a public cupping features 3-5 coffees. Participants smell the grounds, taste the coffees, and talk about what makes them similar and different.

At this event, there were more than 30 coffees on the table, all from top-notch roasters the world over, and all sourced from Kenya. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to taste some of the best and most interesting coffees out there. It was also very loud.

The smelling portion of a cupping is fairly sedate: all the coffees are in 6-8oz. glasses. Participants pick up a glass, shake it, and smell the escaping gasses. The only sounds are the clink of the glasses going back to the table and the occasional "Mmmm" or "Hmmm?" as people react.

But once the hot water is poured into the glasses, participants can't pick them up (they're hot!). So everyone has a soup spoon, which they dip into the cup, fill with coffee, and slurp. The slurping is loud, short, and explosive. The coffee should be vaporized, hitting all the taste buds in the mouth at the same time. A polite sip from the soup spoon will not leave a correct impression (as Ashleigh learned: "When I slurp, they taste better," she said).

Imagine, then, a coffee shop, crowded with people. The room smells of coffee, and on every open surface are glasses filled with grounds and hot water and small bags with notes like "Stumptown Portland: Nyeri AA Kenya. Crisp grapefruit and honeydew in a full body." Concrete floors and open ceilings reverberate with a low chatter, but mostly with SLLLURRRRP, HISSSSST, and the clink of spoons on rinse cups.

As we left, walking down the hallway, the sound of slurping followed us.

Sneakers

Awhile back, I mentioned that I might write about Sneakers (Robinson, 1992). Slate wrote extensively about this movie a few months ago, so I tracked it down at the public library.

It's a lighthearted but complicated heist movie. Those of you who know me know that I have a weak spot for heist movies, particularly funny ones, so it's not surprising that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.

While it's not over-the-top hilarious, the comic performances are what make this one stand out. Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, David Strathairn, Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix, and Ben Kingsley all feature to some degree, and they all (with the exception of Kingsley's attempt at an American accent) do a great job of making us laugh, and at making us believe the story.

Which, by the way, centers on a group of misfits, led by Redford's Mart Bishop. They break into banks (slight spoiler to the opening scene coming up, but don't worry about it) at the request of the banks, as a live-test of the banks' own security. They're all criminals to some extent, and nerds to a greater extent.

Already, the concept is reflexive: the con men conning for the good guys, the break-in helping prevent break-ins. It is about fooling the system, and the system includes surveillance cameras. The sneakers themselves use video and audio for their own ends as well (extensive film-student ramblings re: the cinema eye pointing back at the viewer, etc. cut for length). Yet for all its self-consciousness, Sneakers never slips into self-parody.

When you watch it, think of the scene just after the scrabble scene: the characters gather around the computer. In the cutting to and from the computer screen, we are reminded that these characters, funny, pratfall-prone, and pedestrian as they can be, have a high reverence for knowing things. Of course (as must be the case) they end up knowing too much.

Nonetheless, for a movie set and shot in the 1990s, it communicates a surprisingly earnest and prescient concern for the power of (digital) information without beating us over the head with it (an exception to that last clause: Cosmo's (Kingley) speech at the top of the ladder).

A funny, thought-provoking, and suspenseful movie with an A-list cast. What more could you ask for?

You could ask for a stronger female lead, especially from a movie that wears its progressive politics so proudly. You could ask Ben Kingsley to re-dub his dialogue with a British accent, since plot holes are easier to overlook than poor delivery. You could ask Robert Redford to find Paul Newman and bring some of that Sundance Kid charm. But really, you can't have everything.