Saturday, January 21, 2012
Silent Night
So I saw The Artist this week. It was pretty fun and cute. I could probably have done with about fifteen fewer minutes of it, but I say that so often these days that I really should create a macro for it. It is, as I suspect you may have heard, a silent film, which is a bit weird at first (it made it much harder for me not to notice the people eating candy loudly down in front of me), but ultimately not such a big deal. The main thing you end up noticing is that the score is gorgeous, even though they somehow failed to get John Williams. It's actually kind of nice to not have people talking over it.
As to the acting, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it may be the finest work that John Goodman has done since Coyote Ugly. (No, don't fret, he's not in it very much.) James Cromwell is there but doesn't do a whole lot, which is fine, as is Penelope Ann Miller, who I always confuse with someone else, although I couldn't tell you who. I think most of the cast is French, though, or I should probably say "Freedom." I do want to give a special shout out to Berenice Bejo, whose name requires two accent marks my keyboard cannot provide, for being maybe the most adorable thing ever. Except I have to take that back, because the dog in the movie is without a doubt the most adorable thing ever. Sorry, humans. Dogs just do it better.
Anyway, I thought the movie was quite fine. And given what a mediocre year this has been generally for movies, I'm not surprised that it's racking up so many awards. If only Rob Lowe's Drew Peterson movie had been a theatrical release instead of a Lifetime classic, I might be singing a very different tune.
So I saw The Artist this week. It was pretty fun and cute. I could probably have done with about fifteen fewer minutes of it, but I say that so often these days that I really should create a macro for it. It is, as I suspect you may have heard, a silent film, which is a bit weird at first (it made it much harder for me not to notice the people eating candy loudly down in front of me), but ultimately not such a big deal. The main thing you end up noticing is that the score is gorgeous, even though they somehow failed to get John Williams. It's actually kind of nice to not have people talking over it.
As to the acting, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it may be the finest work that John Goodman has done since Coyote Ugly. (No, don't fret, he's not in it very much.) James Cromwell is there but doesn't do a whole lot, which is fine, as is Penelope Ann Miller, who I always confuse with someone else, although I couldn't tell you who. I think most of the cast is French, though, or I should probably say "Freedom." I do want to give a special shout out to Berenice Bejo, whose name requires two accent marks my keyboard cannot provide, for being maybe the most adorable thing ever. Except I have to take that back, because the dog in the movie is without a doubt the most adorable thing ever. Sorry, humans. Dogs just do it better.
Anyway, I thought the movie was quite fine. And given what a mediocre year this has been generally for movies, I'm not surprised that it's racking up so many awards. If only Rob Lowe's Drew Peterson movie had been a theatrical release instead of a Lifetime classic, I might be singing a very different tune.
