Ben Affleck‘s Argo is probably going to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards this coming Sunday, but even if it somehow loses out to Lincoln or Zero Dark Thirty the film remains a tremendous success. All three of Affleck’s directorial efforts have received critical praise, and the acclaim and the box office have increased with each release, leading to this film’s seven Oscar nominations and $200+ million gross. He may still be a young filmmaker, but it’s clear he has much knowledge and respect for film history and his contemporaries. His commentary for Argo is sprinkled with references and mentions of homage to past films, performers and directors, and along with the movie itself show him to be a director worth watching… and listening to. Keep reading to see what I heard with this week’s Argo Commentary Commentary…

Now that he’s had his screenplay Argo produced as one of the highest-profile films of the year, and one of the front-runners for all of those little golden statues that are going to be given out during the upcoming awards season, screenwriter Chris Terrio finds himself in the position of suddenly being a sought-after talent. So what’s his next move going to be? Variety says that he’s going to be writing a crime movie for George Clooney and Paul Greengrass. To be more specific, Clooney and Grant Heslov, the team behind Argo, will be producing this new feature, Paul Greengrass will be directing, and Clooney will also star. There isn’t yet any word on what exactly this movie is going to be about, but seeing as Argo was such a success, Terrio has had several scripts strong enough to appear on the Black List, Greengrass earned himself quite a few fans with his handling of the Bourne franchise, and George Clooney is one of the few bankable stars left in the business, one would have to consider this new project to be one of the highest profile currently in development, even with no other information available.

Here’s a character description that will give you pause: “Lawrence is attached to play Lydie, an educated, headstrong woman who was adopted as a girl by her aunt Virgina and uncle Ernest. She…eventually becomes Ernest’s wife.” Yeah, about that. Variety reports that Jennifer Lawrence has signed on for the role of Lydie Marland in screenwriter Chris Terrio‘s Ends of the Earth, a fact-based tale that will center on “the controversial love affair between an oil baron and his adopted daughter, which destroys the empire they built together.” However, the Marlands had one hell of a life, and while the particulars of their relationship weren’t necessarily the biggest part of it, it will likely make for some damn fine cinematic drama. Not familiar with the Marlands? Super, neither are we! But a quick trip to the old Wikipedia thinking engine turns up a ton of facts of note about Lydie and Ernest…

The way I see it, the upcoming third film by director Ben Affleck has three big things going for it. The first is that with Gone Baby Gone and The Town, Affleck has proven himself to be a very strong director. The second is that the premise sounds like something that could make for a really great movie, and it even gets Affleck out of his comfort zone of telling stories about Boston. And the third is that it just cast one of the best and perhaps most underutilized actors in the world, John Goodman, in an interesting sounding role. So, what is Argo? It’s an adaptation of a 2007 article that appeared in “Wired” called “How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans From Tehran”. It tells the story of six American Embassy Workers who escaped from captivity and went into hiding in Tehran for months during the Iran Hostage Crisis. In order to get into the country and get the escapees out, the CIA created a fake film crew for a fake science fiction film that was supposedly going into Iran to do some location scouting. The film was supposedly called Argo, and they went as far as to come up with a script, concept art, and promotional ads that ran in “Variety”.  Goodman will be playing John Chambers, a real life makeup artist who won an Oscar for his work on Planet of the Apes, and who was brought in to help sell the