Winner of 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture, The Artist is an awe-inspiring ode to the silent era of cinema and is filmed with such fine elegance & precision artistry that it was too difficult for me to wipe the grin off my face while watching it. An enthralling work of indelible charm, every frame of this silent feature pays its tribute in the most respectful manner possible but also succeeds in carving out its very own identity in the process.

Set in Hollywood during the years when talkies were being introduced into cinema, The Artist focuses on the relationship between a major silent film star & an aspiring young actress who bump into each other during the premiere of the former's…

Boy, was I disappointed.

I was looking forward to this film, of course fuelled by the hype surrounding it, the Oscar nominations it got and the prizes it had already won. For me it was merely a gimmicky, thinly stretched exercise in style.

Now don't get me wrong, I really appreciate what they were trying to do here. Anyone who wants to make an ode to cinema has got my vote and I applaud them for that. I just feel by wrapping it all in a flimsy, incredibly shallow plot they caused me to lose interest.

Dujardin's performance has been praised a lot, but I found him to be very one-dimensional. Sure he has got incredible charm and an unmistakable…

✅76%
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Is The Artist Best Picture worthy? Not necessarily (for me), but it was a weak year for nominees. The best films were ones that would have never been nominated for Best Picture (for the most part). Is this a bad movie? No it isn’t. It isn’t necessarily a film that had me intrigued within the first 20 minutes, but it slowly sucked me into its world. It’s the last of the Best Picture Winners I needed to see before making my video, and I’m glad I was able to see it. It’s extremely well-made and directed. It isn’t the kind of film that speaks to me, but it all comes down to what you’re looking…

In the past couple of years we have had a number of films look back to fertile periods of cinema’s history; from Scorsese’s love letter to the pioneering greats in Hugo to the Spielbergian fan-fiction of Abrams’, Super 8. Whilst both were undoubtedly affectionate towards those movies that inspired them the end results were rather lifeless and never quite recaptured the true brilliance of the film’s that initially influenced them. Despite the plethora of awards I was fully expecting The Artist to be another handsomely made but hollow facsimile of past greats, but on this occasion it pleases me to be very wrong indeed.

The Artist ended up being not only a loving homage to the silent era of Hollywood…

Trapped in a world and mindset of silent cinema.

"I'm unhappy ... So are millions of us."

I came into this excited to finally see the Best Picture winner that paid homage to the silent era, but it was not long before I got turned off by how gimmicky it was. Honestly, I would have much rather watched an actual great silent movie then this modern film pretending to be one.

The story of a silent film actor struggling to come to terms with the rise of the talkies has been done before in great movies like 'Sunset Boulevard' and 'Singin' in the Rain' ... and both of those sadly did not win best picture. There is also plenty of…

I was grinning like an idiot the entire time I was watching this film. Hard to pinpoint what exactly makes it so effortlessly endearing – I mean, there are many things – the slapstick is great, the music's lovely, the dog is adorable, the whole movie is just an energetic whirlwind of visual witticisms and delightful touches. But I think the real goodness comes from how confidently it flirts with the boundary between authenticity and kitsch... every scene is so well-rendered in the language of camp and irony that it makes the moments of cold, stark drama all the more horrific and powerful.

There is so much meta-commentary here on the magic of film – the way we surrender ourselves…

An excellently crafted film which sweeps you away with such passion into its bright vision of 20s cinema that you may forgive what lies under its veneer.

The cinematography and lighting are both superb, each shot motivated and the limitations of a black and white colour palette turned into strengths with shadow, and composition which puts most movies to shame. The scene coverage felt appropriately narrow to bring to mind a tiny enclosed soundstage, but also diverse enough to be truly engaging in the edit. The sound design isn't quite where it ought to be in a film which so deliberately plays with unconventional sound design, but it didn't overstay its welcome.

All the technical aspects mask off somewhat the…

Went in with high hopes and was just...well...bored.

Having watched several silent films in my quest to complete the AFI 100, I thought this would be a nice Best Picture Oscar Winning film to dive into.

The problem was that the story felt like it borrowed way to much from other films (and not just of the silent era). This entire movie felt as if I were watching a pitch from Robert Altmans "The Player" come to life: "Its City Lights meets A Star is Born, and we already have "Eddy" the cute little dog from "Frasier" singed on to play the comedic side kick. It will be his big comeback."

The main characters felt very one-dimensional. Although it was…