Another few hours, another write up. I might have to quit here... quickly losing energy and must store some up for the Oscar onslaught on the morrow.
One thing that's really been bothering me about The Artist backlash is the notion that the movie doesn't really understand silent films, drawing as much from 1930 and 1940s and even 1950s cinema visually and aurally as it does from the 1920s. My very erudite response to that criticism: So what?!?
A pure "found film" is not what Michel Hazanavicius and team were going for here which you can see quite obviously in [SPOILER ALERT] the dream sequence and the finale which both work like sound films [END OF SPOILER]. I love that Jean Dujardin pulls so liberally from Gene Kelly (1940s and 1950s) rather than strictly silent movie stars for example since The Artist is polyamorous in its loves. People have reduced it to a love letter to the silents but it's just as smitten with the very tumult of movie stardom and the idea of Hollywood in general and those things span decades. We're still in love with them in 2011!
MY BEST ACTORS
Each year it seems like I have at least one acting category -- two at the most! -- that closely align with Oscar and Best Actor is where we might meet sorta see eye to eye. Crossing my fingers for Michael Fassbender's Shame to resonate with enough voters, though I've predicted otherwise.