THE ARTIST (Hazanavicius, 2011) - I usually use frame-grabs instead of posters here, but come on, look at it. Is there any other way to convey what you’re in for with this movie? Ok, maybe it downplays the silliness a bit (the dog truly is marvelous), but you see style, romance, and old Hollywood glamour. I say old Hollywood, and I mean it - the movie’s silent, and frequently quite funny about it*, but it reminded me more of the 40s and 50s with its crisp black and white, its dancing and its wide-grinned star (doesn’t he look kind of like Fredric March above?). I found it utterly charming, despite the fact that the lead’s pride is kind of overblown - and Jean Dujardin’s thick French accent got the biggest laugh of the movie at the screening BF and I attended.
*the movie opens with a movie-within-a-movie displaying our star promising (through intertitles) that he won’t speak, his wife complains that they never talk, etc.
