Congratulations on your guesses Roger... pretty spot on and you were right to reassess some of your initial choices. When that happens, was it more instinct or judgement?

IMDB, which you have previously stated is a nice consensus of what the average movie goer likes and dislikes, currently has an 8.4 rating for "The Artist", the highest of all the Best Picture nominees, followed by "The Help" and "Hugo".
I do think that "The Artist", just like "The King's Speech" did last year, can become a hit once its released to more and more cinemas, just because it is almost impossible to dislike it. Interesting characters, an obstacle the leading man has to overcome, a happy and uplifting ending, it is a film for audiences of all ages, and one that can be appreciated for many different reasons.
I think that is part of the reason it won Best Picture Oscar, since the other two serious contenders, "Hugo" and "The Descendants" did not have that broad appeal, one a movie that only true film lovers would be excited for, and another a drama with hints of comedy, which we all know some audiences may have trouble grasping, or at least fully appreciating the subtleties and nuances that the script is filled with.

Like you say, "The Artist" was not the best film of the year, but out of all the candidates, it was the one that best fit the bill for broader appeal.

Dear Roger;

2011 for me was a great year for good movies but a bad year for great ones.

This is as good time as any to start talking about the Sight and Sound 2010, 10- best pictures poll.Historically politics and historical significance have had a significant role in the voting, and since we're dealing with an English publication this may continue. I propose an historically significant top ten and a real top ten.

Historically significant:

Battleship Potemkin
Birth of a Nation
Sunrise
City Lights
Citizen Kane
Bicycle Thieves
Breathless
Rashomon
81/2
2001 a Space Odyssey
Pulp Fiction

Greatest Works of Art
Passion de Jeanne d'Arc
Vertigo
Cries and Whispers
Citizen Kane
The Virgin Spring
Grand Illusion
2001: A Space Odyssey
Rules of the Game
Lawrence of Arabia
City Lights
2 directors with 2 films?Yes and it could be worse: Ambersons, Touch of Evil, Barry Lyndon,Skammen , Long Day's Journey into Night, Hour of the Wolf,A Passion,Frenzy,Day of Wrath, La Bete Humaine. And just under the top ten, Jules and Jim, Two English Girls, The Story of Adele H, Contempt, and so on

And another category: Most fun great movies:
Notorious
Jaws
Raiders
North By Northwest
It's a Wonderful Life
Bringing up Baby/
The Big Sleep
The Lady Eve
Stagecoach
Pulp Fiction

Most Accomplished Most Artistic Directors: Bergman far above the rest
Eisenstein
Griffith
Renoir
Hitchcock
Ford
Hawks
Kubrick
Welles
Altman
Truffaut
Scorcese
Bunuel
Ozu.

Given that I can ,and that I'm stuck in my own language and culture, my idea is to try to identify the best of the best, in the same way that I might try to choose between, or among, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael,and the father of them all, Giotto., Giotto changed art more than anybody since Praxiteles, or maybe Suger, but damn, Leo and Mike and Rafe did a lot of great stuff. But the one I'd keep if I had to keep one is
Giotto. Similarly with film I would keep Bergman, Hitchcock, and Kubrick. In 10 years I'll probably add Tarantino, the most influentilal director of the last 20(! )years, and probably the next 20 years.

I think if there is any dissent or dissatisfaction with the oscars it should be directed at the entire awards season starting from november.

For a long time now the academy stopped being inventive.It just happens to validate the general consensus that is already formed by the time the nominations are released.

The last time the critics opinion matched with that of the academy which matched with that of the general public is with The Godfather when it became the highest grossing movie of all time.

Its just a sign of changing economics of the industry more than anything.

Whenever someone adamantly informs me that they will never watch black and white, I point out the spectacle provided by "King Kong" and how ,even by watching the later versions, it's still the 1933 film that contains Robert Armstrong's scene stealing rapid fire delivery as Carl Denham. Then I remind them of the suspense replete in Hitchcock's adaptation of Robert Bloch's "Psycho" and, finally, I present as incontrovertible evidence of the value of going the monochromatic route the unrelenting terror of Romero's "Night of the Living Dead". In the instance of the latter, it's a well known fact that Romero only filmed in black and white due to budgetary constraints..and yet such a happy circumstance it turned out to be. Every attempt to remake that film has fallen short of the mark set by the '68 picture. To deny that being shot in black and white didn't intensify the sense of foreboding hanging over the grungy aesthetic of the movie is to acknowledge having never seen it.

As to silent film..I've regrettably only seen one so far (I plan to rectify this with some of Chaplin's work sooner rather than later. I also want to see "The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari" ) , ironically also in the horror genre: Murnau's "Nosferatu". That was a good,creepy movie, featuring a vampire who was far more unnerving than many of the later incarnations. A film like Coppola's "Dracula" may have impressive sound and fury, but Schreck's Orlok is the one who makes your skin want to crawl off.

Great piece, Roger. Kudos yet again.

Lovely, Roger.

I'm part of the "coveted youth demographic" the Academy supposedly wants back, and The Artist was my favorite film. Teenagers can appreciate quality too!

Tree of Life may have been a great film - I missed it - but NO ONE I know who saw it on video really liked it, and a few gave up before the end. It was considered "a slog'. The one person I know who DID like it saw it in the theater.

I agree that most of the films were worthy of Best Pic nom, but I must say Extremely Long and Incredibly Boring, which I DID see was not. And the critics on Rotten Tomatoes, who were are less than 50% positive, agree.

My theory is, the failure lies directly on the shoulders of Tom Hanks, who chose the wrong story and source material for his movie about 9/11.
If you liked "A Separation," it was because the conflict was outside the frame.

From a review: An astutely observed examination of ordinary people living under a system that seems to exist solely to ensure that its citizens are imprisoned, if not physically than psychologically, within its irrational rules.

For me, A Separation failed because there were no heroes, no one brave enough to speak out against the lunacy. But, that was also the politics of the film. In order to stay out of prison, the director couldn't speak openly against the tyranny. He couldn't run the risk of having his friends and co-workers arrested.
From an interview: The question then arises: how would Farhadi feel about his film being remade in the US with Hollywood stars? ‘I’d be quite pleased if they were to do that. Of course, I would prefer it if I was directing it myself, or at least supervising.’ ‘Javier Bardem would play Nader’s role,’ he says, like the thought had been playing on his mind for some time. ‘Max von Sydow would play Nader’s father. ‘Natalie Portman! Simin would be played by Natalie Portman in the remake!’ Hollywood, are you getting this?
Good luck on getting Portman to sign on. I sensed this interview would be his last.
WE could define the problem this way: if we take the Hollywood route, the film would have a hero who tries and fails, tries and fails, until he finally realizes what he's doing wrong and finally succeeds. In A Separation, no one did that. They were as immersed in failure at the end as they were at the start. In Hollywood terms, that's not a great picture. The writer didn't do his job, didn't find a way for the hero to triumph. In the end, A Separation is actually about a man taking care of his father with Alzheimer's. And that's so incredibly sad, no one would pay to see it.
The solution is to cast Tom Hanks instead of Bardem. And let him find the Correct Answer. And the correct answer is partly what Simin tried to do, to escape. But the Correct Answer also means you accept that the irrational rules need to be left behind and forgotten, not carried with you like some precious treasure.
The picture that should have won... wasn't made. It would have been too risky to stand up and say "This is how you solve the problem." Easier to escape to Paris or the past and pretend the problem doesn't exist.

Maybe they did not choose the best one among the nominees often in many cases, but they have certainly made nice choices during last 20-30 years(and I was more generous to “Gladiator” than you). Many of them are not great but they still remains as good films we can watch again. Sure, “Raging Bull” is certainly far better than “Ordinary People”, but the latter is too good to be underrated as “the movie that unjustly robbed Oscars”, and so is “Terms of Endearment”, or “Crash”. And thanks to their good taste, as I said before, we always have a very good time whenever the Oscar season begins. I know some movies are made for getting Oscars, but they are usually good or partially good in most cases.

By the way, I think they really should change the rule again. No matter how many nominees are in Best Picture category, they will never choose the blockbusters unless it is critically acclaimed like “Inception”. As one South Korean critic pointed out, Best Director category is more looking like actual Best Picture nowadays.

"(Most people making complaints like this in internet comments, I notice, have no idea what "biased" means and think it is spelled "bias," as in: You're bias agains ... Well, it's true"

I'm biased against people who don't close their parentheses. Stop doing that, I never know when you're done with your aside! :)

How does one become an Academy voter? What are the requirements and qualifications?

I suspect that the GOP primaries would be going better if the song and dance was more along the lines of "The Artist" than what we're getting.

"The problem is that the taste of the Academy voters is too good."

That is, hands-down, the funniest thing you've ever written.

Do you remember when Citizen Kane was booed by the audience every time it was mentioned? Or how "Do The Right Thing" and "Hoop Dreams" weren't even nominated? Or how "Pulp Fiction" and "The Shawshank Redemption" lost to "Forrest Gump"?

How about "The Dark Knight" and "Wall*E" being denied nominations for Best Picture, to make way for "Forrest Gump 2: The Revenge"? How about the fact that the winners are determined by how much money the Weinsteins throw at the Academy? Are these the actions of a collective that puts any consideration into quality entertainment?

We're talking about the folks who let Hugh Jackman murder the concept of music in front of a live audience. Let's not give them credit where it ain't due.

This is an INDUSTRY award, remember. It is given by the industry to honor the best example of what they do.

In my mind, the most appropriate recent best picture nominees have been The King's Speech, No Country for Old Men, & The Hurt Locker.

I've long thought the Best Picture award should go, ideally, to a film that most skillfully operates in the style of filmmaking that Hollywood develped and brought to the whole world in the first half of the 20th Century. It seems appropriate to honor the film that (while it may not set the box office on fire), can hold a disparate audience spellbound with it's precision & humanity.

For instance, The Tree of Life is perhaps the greatest film nominated this year, but not appropraite for the Oscar because it does not opperate in or honor the classic filmmaking style of the industry.

I have to say it every time the subject comes up: I love black and white films. Just watched a stunning one - THE LONG VOYAGE HOME - yesterday. I love silent movies. Roger talks about reverie. When I see THE GENERAL, SUNRISE, MODERN TIMES, THE GOLD RUSH, NOSFERATU, METROPOLIS, CITY LIGHTS, yes, I'm also in a state of reverie.

And, I hate THE ARTIST.

I didn't reject this Oscar Best Picture because I'm biased for color, or sound, or special effectery. I rejected it because it's frothy, unoriginal and cheaply manipulative. It's, also, gimmicky. Most importantly, it didn't engage me except in a single scene.

You can tell me I'm wrong, and I can ignore you.

That's how it works.

Roger,

This piece is going to push a lot of buttons among the "average movie goer".

I would agree that if the general public could vote, most likely, but I can't prove it, you would be right about what films could possibly win an Oscar.

1967 was the only year that I ever watched all the nominees for Best Picture of the Year, I became part of the mob rushing to the box offices.

Wait, I never could figure out how Richard Burton did not receive an Oscar for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf" along with Elizabeth Taylor. Did the "white guys" screw up?

Mike
Amaliada Greece

I'm fond of recalling--and mentioning to anyone who will listen--my experience teaching a two-week course, "How to Watch a Movie," down here at Knox's "College for Kids" program. We meet for an hour a day for ten days, and watch two films in their entirety. One of them is always "Citizen Kane" (We do "Touch of Evil" in my "Heroes and Villains" course). At the end of the hour I have to turn off the movie, and inevitably at least one child (they are 3rd-to-7th graders) will hopefully ask, "Are we going to finish it tomorrow?" Everyone can watch B&W, everyone wants to know what Charlie Kane wants to do next. A movie's a movie, if you know how to watch one. (By the way, the other movie we watch all the way through is usually "Babe: Pig in the City." A marvel of pacing and editing and color and set decoration and on and on. "Mad Max" with kitties.)

--And of course, children still laugh at Chaplin. They love "The Kid," because there they are, making pancakes and getting in and out of scrapes with the original Pee Wee Herman. So get over it, multiplex punks.

It fills me with constant annoyance the complaint that the Oscars don't like popular movies. "The Artist" and "The Hurt Locker" are the exceptions and not the rule. People forget that even unconventional blockbusters like "The King's Speech," "Slumdog Millionaire," and "The Departed" made a mint at the box office, or maybe in this day and age some people only consider a movie to be a hit if it cost $100 million to make, made a billion dollars worldwide, and had fast-food tie-ins and action figures. Even the films you mentioned, Roger ("American Beauty," "A Beautiful Mind") are popular hits by any definition, both grossing more than $100 million dollars in the US.

What people seem to be saying when they complain about the Oscars not honoring popular films is that they don't honor the movies THEY go to see. Funny thing, you'll never see those people remedying the problem by actually seeing a film nominated for Oscars. It's one thing not to like the movies that are nominated -- my personal favorites didn't line up with Oscar's this time around, though most of the Oscar nominees were at least good, a few of them great -- but to refuse to see them at all because they arrogantly assume they won't like that kind of movie ...

Well, there's a saying, Roger, and I think you've used it before: "Some poeple, if they don't know, you can't tell 'em."

Just so people can see that I've done it . . . this is a good and thoughtful post. Yes, I've just praised Rogert Ebert!

Over the years, I've given the issue more thought than it probably deserves and have only come to the obvious conclusion that people are not satisfied with just loving the movies they love, they also have to convince everybody else that those movies are the best movies. As if there's a perfect answer to the question of "which movie was the best movie of the year?"

Now, with regard to a lot of movies nominated, it may be very easy to sort out the lesser lights but with regard to the really good movies made each year, it is -- as Roger so aptly points out -- really a matter of opinion and personal taste.

I used to spend a lot of time trying to convince people that they should read the books I like to read or watch the movies I like to watch. I used to sneer at friends' movie choices. I mellowed a bit and realized that different people like different movies for all kinds of reasons. Some people like to be really challenged by a movie, some people like an uplifting story, and so on and so forth. I don't claim to know why people would enjoy the Transformers movies but you know what? I'm not personally hurt that they do so why should I get all worked up about it?

Nowadays, I just smile and say "well, I really enjoy David Lynch movies a lot and could watch them over and over again but I realize that not everybody feels that way. If you like weird, dream-like movies open to different interpretations, you might want to try one and see what you think but if that's not your thing, that's fine."

I guess what I'm really getting at is that it is amazing how many people are so very interested in what people think about them. (Don't get me started on the issue of raising that in a blog comment where I'm presumably putting this out there because I care what anybody thinks!) I'm reminded of a passage from Ayn Rand's book, The Fountainhead. (I know, not everybody's favorite book, ha ha.) Toohey, the bad guy, is quite taken aback by Roarke's dismissive attitude toward him and wants to know what Roarke thinks of him. Roarke responds with what I think might be the single most effect insult of all time: "But I don't think of you at all." Ouch.

In other words, the Academy should stop thinking about everybody else. Each member should simply vote for what he or she thinks is the best movie. There is no way to please everybody and it's a fool's errand to even try with an audience as diverse as the one that watches the Academy Awards show.

We have Nobel Prizes for literature and criticism. As an alternative to the Oscars' subjective, self-congratulatory, lucre-driven antics, why not establish a Nobel Prize for Films and Documentaries?

My mistake: there is no Nobel Prize for film criticism. I confused that with the Pulitzer. However, why not that as well?

The thing that I found disturbing about The Hurt Locker even being nominated, was that it wasn't even original. I'm sitting here staring at the DVD box-set I bought a few years ago....of an HBO mini-series called Generation Kill. 7 parts.....and I had to fight to stay awake thru every one of them. Same war, same look......same dialog & interactions that alledgedly made The Hurt Locker some sort of "great" motion picture. My nephew ( Not sure what rank he is now....Sergeant Major or something....has been in charge of one of those bomb squads in the Air Force....since the 1st Gulf war. He's done all that stuff & has been in and out of those countries MANY times. The dude should be retired by now, but he still goes over there and does that stuff. His Wife ( She's WAS a weapons instructor when they first met.......) finally left the service once they began raising a Family. I think Avatar was snubbed simply because.......for some nonsensical reason, folks got pissed that Cameron dared to get a little excited and hollar out "I'm King of the world!" .......during his acceptance speech following Titanic's win.

THANK you for pointing out the bias/biased thing! I see it everywhere and it makes my skin crawl.

"Hollywood has the same problem with the Oscars that the Republicans are having with their primaries. They can't seem to agree on a candidate with a broad appeal to the base."

Perhaps Hollywood does not seek to placate the base with Oscar because it is unnecessary. In their collective, ambivalent mind, I believe, they have already placated the "vapid, boorish hoi polloi" with their turgid extravaganzas. Schizophrenically, Hollywood employs Oscar to seek a candidate with a narrow appeal to the elite.

I rarely read comments because they usually are from the masses who have an opinion that is based more on personal tastes but doesnt appear to be well-informed. I doubt those comments deserve the attention of the your time, Roger. You have always been a proponent on a perspective that itself informs and allows readers to expand their own ideas and biases in regards to film. The opinions are rarely worth reading with the democratization that the internet provides. Roger, you're insightful, and richly so. Don't be distracted by the noise.
I just saw Midnight in Paris last night and I realized immediately how envious I become watching the characters in most of his films lately. They are free to indulge in the luxury of discovering themselves and the world around them. It's seems richly pedestrian. I was completely charmed.

SPOILERS FOR THE ARTIST IN THIS POST

roger, to your knowledge. did any 1920s silent movie show a man putting a gun in his mouth? or would that have violated 'the code'

The days may be gone when Mike Todd can steamroll the Academy into honoring "Around the World in 80 Days," or Cecil B. DeMille could crown his career with "The Greatest Show on Earth", but the days are certainly not gone when Harvey Weinstein can lead a pretty good movie like "The King's Speech" into victory over a more deserving movie like "The Social Network" because of his clout and brilliant marketing tactics. He achieved the same coup when his snooze-fest "Shakespeare in Love" became the victor over "Saving Private Ryan". I've grown tired of Harvey claiming the "Best Picture" award at the Oscars simply because he can campaign the best.

To view movies today solely in terms of box office is self-defeating, because the film audience of 2012 has far different demographics than those who went to the movies in 1937, 1962 or even 1987. Films today, with everything riding on the opening weekend -- as opposed to 75 or 50 years ago, when movies premiered at the big downtown houses, then went to the "nabes" and finally the second-run houses -- are thus tailored to young audiences who want CGI or families seeking a cinematic babysitter. That's not the clientele for a film such as "The Artist," which I loved for its heart and charm -- and you don't have to be a film student to enjoy or appreciate it.

As Roger said, people who inveigh against silent or black and white movies have generally never seen them. I'm hoping Jean Dujardin's affectionate tribute to Douglas Fairbanks prompts some people to check out his swashbucklers (which also inspired the likes of Jackie Chan). And anyone who follows the Occupy Wall Street movement would probably love something like "My Man Godfrey," a good-hearted attack on the 1 percent.

I've yet to see The Artist, though I will and will likely quite enoy it.

A observation on the GOP base. Mitt not appealing to the base is only a factor in the primary, where we have other choices and appeal is relative. The base will show up to vote for Mitt when defeating Obama is the task in November. Oh yes.

In my opinion, The Artist was not a great movie. Certainly it was not worthy of the best picture honor. Very much like The Pianist, The Artist was an exercise in technical filmmaking, while disguising its thin storyline by pandering to a sense of nostalgia for a bygone era. The Artist IS the Republican party - empty suits desperately clinging to a false idea of a past ideal, trying to sell the public a bill of goods.

I love silent film. Lois Weber. Charlie Chaplin. Lillian Gish. And I loved The Artist the first time it was made, they called it 'Singin' In The Rain'. Or was it 'Sunset Boulevard'? In fact, I gave The Artist too much credit thinking that it was re-envisioning the transition from silent to talkie from a new perspective - a male version of Lina Lamont, the star whose career is cut short by technology and the endless new faces eager to take the place at the top.

Instead, ver much like The Pianist, The Artist ran headlong from pathos into bathos. Penelope Ann Miller looked like Jean Dujardin's forboding mother rather than his wife. Valentin came off a pathetic narcissist with no explanation other than it was his colossal ego that kept him from doing talking pictures. He wasn't even willing to try and the studio execs didn't seem concerned one way or the other. Peppy Miller seemed far more 'in love' with his on-screen image than any real person. For that matter, why was James Cromwell's character so loyal to him? Dujardin pulled faces, but Valentin never seemed sincere.

The most enjoyment I got from the film was the auction, fire, and single moment when it seemed like the story might include some real emotion - Valentin's discovery of Peppy's deception. Fortunately, the director quickly retreated back to the shallow end of the emotional spectrum.

Apparently, disliking The Artist makes me some kind of troglodyte unable to enjoy the finer points of cinema? Uneducated and simpleminded, I must love blockbuster sequels and the bizarrely oversimplified storytelling of movies like Avatar with the subtle story of 'Pandora' [hint, hint] and 'unobtanium' [wink, wink] - all the while, crunching popcorn with my mouth open, talking loudly, texting, and slurping a gigantic soda.

I was entertained by the Artist but I don't think it was deserving of any major recognition, or the extremely glowing praise it has received from many critics. I agree with those above who said it was ultimately simplistic, and didn't move me in any significant way.

Its failure to use its "silence" in a way which was essential to the story - beyond one clever sequence early on with the sound intruding on his life - and its very predictable story left it far behind other superior takes on the fading star story. It being a silent movie basically impacts nothing. When it became apparent that it was only a silent movie because the director wanted to make a silent movie because, well, people don't make silent movies anymore.

It isn't any more challenging because of it, it was openly pandering to the old timey aesthetic. And that's *fine* because I like that period in history, especially in LA. But let's not make it more than it is. It's not a dividing line between those who can appreciate Real Art and populist scum. It's a movie that operates on a gimmick, and works its gimmick fairly well. It isn't innovative, or inspiring, or even I would say filled with great performances. The extreme overacting is perhaps a tip that being silent doesn't automatically mean you are being more subtle, or insisting on the audience using their imagination.

Not wanting to be too unfair, I won't compare it unfavourably to films like Sunset Boulevard or Singing In the Rain, but in comparison to a relatively recent movie like Ed Wood it doesn't have anywhere near the depth or artistry. Midnight In Paris had a lot more to say, in my estimation, of the artistic process, the appeal of nostalgia, and the magic of movies.

Despite the continuing cries each year of the Oscars' growing irrelevance, I think it's a measure of their continuing stature that people still endlessly discuss their choices. Rarely does my top movie of the year match theirs, but I could say the same for any awards group or any individual critic. Most of the time they pick a film that, like you say, is at least pretty good.
In recent years, there seems to be a tendency to attack their choices almost automatically - films that get a lot of critical praise before they win get disparaged afterward. In the case of The Artist this seemed to happen even before Sunday night: a lot of critics slammed it in anticipation of its victory.
I don't remember where I came across it it, but the best description I ever heard of this phenomenon read something like "Mom and Dad like it, so it's not cool anymore." Since, as you say, winning Best Picture doesn't really provide much of a rise in box-office takings anymore, it's probably in a film's best interests nowadays for it NOT to win.

Listing the mistakes in this article one by one:

1. "All nine Oscar finalists were, like Mitt Romney, good enough to be nominated."

Incredibly Loud and Extremely close was not remotely good enough to be nominated.

2. "In their dreams, the Oscar goes to "Titanic," "Forrest Gump," "Silence of the Lambs," or "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King." In reality, the Oscar just as often goes to "The Artist," "The English Patient," "American Beauty" or "A Beautiful Mind." "

A Beautiful Mind grossed $170M domestic. The English Patient grossed $78M domestic. American Beauty grossed $130M domestic. The Artist is the only "small" movie in that bunch.

3. "The problem is that the taste of the Academy voters is too good."

You're . . . you're kidding, right?

4. "An argument can be made that the Best Picture, year after year, is at the very least a good picture."

Shakespeare in Love, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, and Crash are not "good" pictures.

5. "This can partly be explained by the audacity of Michel Hazanavicius in daring to make a silent film in black and white."

Making "Oscar-bair" isn't audacious. It's smart. I loved The Artist, but it isn't particularly daring.

6. "In overlooking such titles, they were essentially dissing their enormous audiences, and it's likely that many younger moviegoers didn't even watch the Oscars because they didn't have a horse in the race."

What about, I dunno, Take Shelter? Martha Marcy May Marlene? Young Adult? The Guard? Another Earth? Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives? Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy? You know, movies that are actually great and built for people other than Oscar voters?

7. "That would have been Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris," as magical a whimsy as I can imagine."

You realize, right, that "Midnight in Paris is Allen's highest grossing movie in decades ($56M domestic)?

8. "There was also the complaint that we movie critics liked "The Artist" because we're "biased" in favor of silent black and white films."

Who is complaining about this? No one is even complaining that The Artist won. Because it's a deserving winner. People are complaining because the dreck like The Iron Lady, The Help, Extremely Loud, Moneyball, The Descendants, and a host of other mediocrity was overpraised by people who are supposed to be actually discerning.

I'm sorry, did you just mention "The Hangover II" in a sentence relating it to an Oscar nomination? Never thought I'd see that, even in hyperbole. Incredible.

I think the Academy is possibly swayed by your opinion. Look at "Million Dollar Baby" and "Crash", both winners of best picture one after the other, and both you picked as the best movie of the year. Hard for me to imagine that you're reviews had nothing to do with that...I guess what I'm saying is that without you, we might possibly be seeing big box-office winners being nominated for an Academy award...and then we have good ol' fashioned Weinstein bribes.

Hi Roger,

Re: "In overlooking such titles, [average Academy voters] were essentially dissing their enormous audiences, and it's likely that many younger moviegoers didn't even watch the Oscars because they didn't have a horse in the race."

I believe many young female moviegoers and, more generally, women of any age in regular correspondence with their gal pals had a prized horse in "Bridesmaids" this year with two nominations. Talk about an audience no less enormous than your average white male teenager! Though I agree with your observation of the unbalanced demographic among Academy voters, I gotta admit, the Academy got it right by including Bridesmaids in this year's telecast.

Looking forward to reading you another year,
Josh

Roger,

It is my belief that the Oscars are becoming obsolete. The Artist won? who really cares...? it's more of an insider-club awards show, in my opinion. the fact that The Artist won is far more of a marketing triumph than an artistic one, a-la Shakespeare in Love vs Saving Private Ryan. You are correct by saying that they were "dissing an audience" by not nominating blockbuster titles. However, just because a movie was a blockbuster - does it justify not to nominate it? (The Dark Knight, HP 8 pt2, for example).

Let's face it - an Academy award for Best Picture has much less value than it had, say, 7-8 years ago. Once it used to be, "it won 3-4 oscars! let's go see it." Today it's - so what?

But, I also believe many viewers tune out of the show because they simply don't care - so what if movie X or Y wins an Oscar? it won't mean anything as far as the movie quality is to them.

Last year, I didn't see The King's Speech because it was nominated for best picture. I saw it because the subject interested me, and I went in with some trepidation (I did enjoy the film).

As far as the Hurt Locker - Avatar duel, I think it was much less surprising that HL won. However, insert The Artist instead, and I don't think it would stand a chance against the big blue.

PS

You wanted to know how The Artist relates to the Republicans primaries? maybe they should talk much less and do more...

What is the American moviegoing "base", exactly?

I wonder if there ever was one, really.

Semi-Irrelevant Anecdote Time!:
For quite a while now, I've been collecting obscure B-movies on video (cassettes first, then on to DVD). There are so many more of them surviving today then you might realize.

Showing these to people younger than I am (which these days is almost everybody) can be a revealing experience.
The point I'm always making to them is that these Bs, from companies like Monogram, Republic, PRC, Lippert, et al.,
were meant to be seen in theaters, just as the big CGIfests are today.
The standard question: "You mean people actually paid to see this?"
My standard answer: "I mean, people actually paid to make this!"
Anyone born after circa 1980 simply doesn't believe this; that was when TV stations started phasing out their daily early/late movies. By the time these kids were old enough to pay attention, old B/W movies just weren't being shown after school or late at night. Thus, they lost a major learning experience that those of us who grew up with old movies on TV took for granted.
I know that I learned a lot.
In the '50s and '60s, many actors, writers, and directors were working in TV who'd gotten their starts in the 30s and 40s movies that I was watching in the afternoons and evenings. That's when I learned to read credit crawls, with a major assist from TV Guide (back in the days when it was truly informative).
It made me a little Mr. Know-It-All at home, but it also gave me what I consider a sense of history - a sense of the continuity of things from one era to another.
The people you're writing about here - the ones who "won't watch a black-and-white movie" or whatever - don't have this sense of history. For whatever reasons, they never learned it. Now, they think they don't need it.
They're wrong, of course, but try telling them that.

Who's to blame?
May I trouble you all again with another diatribe about the modern-day voodoo known as demographics?
But that's just one small part of an overall reliance on junk science that all entertainment media are entrapped by.
The idea that you can construct a hit from Parts A, B, and C, because they worked for somebody else, is the major source of bad movies today - and bad TV, bad music, bad books, and so forth.
I'm not saying that it didn't happen back in the days of the old studio system; everybody copied everybody else back then too.
But the old studio bosses, so disrespected today, at least were willing (sometimes) to take a chance on something unusual.
And as we have seen on TCM and (too few) other places, sometimes it paid off.

Back to the question of "the Base":
In a country as large as the USA, I don't really think there is any such thing any more.
So many of us are comfy in our respective niches. As long as we can get our regular "more of the same", is there any point in trying something different?
That works both ways, incidentally. Many of those who regularly dismiss "popcorn pictures" on this blog and elsewhere are simply doing their own variant of "niche dwelling."

You do this sometimes yourself, Roger.
I'm referring to your practice of never reviewing a movie when you don't get an advance screening.
The last couple of movies I've seen in a theater were ones that you boycotted in this way.
One of them was (in my view) pretty good, the other not so much.
I wonder if my feelings might have been affected if you had seen and reviewed either of these.
But of course I won't ever know, will I?

Something else I was wondering:
When you returned from your medical leave, you made a point of doing catch-up reviews on movies that had opened in your absence.
There was one movie that you didn't get around to for some reason:
Adrienne Shelly's Waitress.
I always wondered why not.
Was it perhaps because Ms. Shelly's murder might have affected your review in some way?
Also, I was wondering if you ever did catch up with Waitress, and if so, what you thought of it.
That's kind of morbid of me, isn't it?
I mention it here because of what happened a couple of weeks ago to Zina Bethune. You'd recall her as the leading lady in Who's That Knocking At My Door?, Martin Scorsese's first picture. I'm wondering if her fate might affect any future viewings of that film for you.
Stupid question. Forget I mentioned it.

Lastly, how about a pitch:
Jean Dujardin in a musical version of Inspector Clouseau!
Of course, with the following caveat:
Dujardin must not, at any time, try to imitate Peter Sellers.
He should be allowed to create his own Clouseau - and based on the OSS 117 movies, he could do a bang-up job of this.

Your thoughts?

Loved the Artist
Perhaps if GOP went silent
And had a dog ( not on top of a car)
They would do better

I can't say I was overwhelmed by "The Artist". The movie was entertaining enough and I agree it really took-off in the last scene which was indeed, sensational.
That said, I’m also baffled by the reaction of those I have discussed it with. The great majority enjoyed it but I’ve had people tell me they left the theater the very moment they learned it was a silent film. You would think they would learn a little about the movie they’ve chosen, before heading to the multiplex.

Roger, thank you so much for including the dancing clip. It just produces sheer joy every time I see it and proves once again why some of us LOVE the movies!

Again, the problem this year was that we had a tight race between The Artist, which "celebrated the magic of silent films", and Hugo which.....Martin Scorsese directed, and wasn't it that CGI thing?? (No, we're not kidding you, everybody thought that.)
It's good that the technical awards were judged by their category, so that Hugo could win VFX, Sound, etc., but as far as the Picture open-voting, there was a big dumb void where "competition" should have been--People really thought there was only ONE movie that "celebrated silent films", and acted accordingly.
Even the ceremony didn't know what jokes to make about Hugo except for "Where're the gangsters, Marty?" (Ie., the one joke made by people who had never seen the movie in their lives.)

The Artist's Oscar will certainly get us searching out our local arthouse to see it, like it got us out of our chair to find The Hurt Locker or The King's Speech.
But once again, we're trying to find out "Why didn't any 'real' films win this year?" and this year I've heard twelve OTHER postgame articles all blame "They're probably justa buncha old fogies!...If younger people gave the awards, Transformers 3 would win, that'd be neater!" As if that were the new Miracle Cure-All. Every year a new excuse (especially this year, with no Pixar), but the real reason is the same: If the awards haven't been "interesting" since Return of the King, that's probably because the rules were changed the year after--We had the shortened voting period to hush up the Weinsteins, and as a result, we have voters who don't have time to think up serious nominees, and now just do what us dopey regular folk do every November...Round up the Critics'-awards favorites, the Golden Globes guesses, and a lot of rumor buzz, and throw them together at the last minute half-blindly.
C'mon, Academy, YOU work in Hollywood, you should know this stuff! The purpose of the Oscars is to show US what the best movies were, not to just mirror our own dumb, desperate cheap-seats November guesses!

(Speaking of which, I hardly remember any "wailing or gnashing of teeth" after Avatar lost--I do remember a bit of sniggering and drink-spraying on the East coast before the awards, listening to gullible money-awed West coast voters and Golden Globes kissups try to defend "James Cameron's bold technical vision", or maybe the giggling I'm thinking of was back when Inception was up for Best Picture. Either way, it was pretty much the same.
If anything, I was hoping Hugo would get a boost from chagrined Avatar supporters saying "Okay, we were kidding last time, but Scorsese's bold technical vision will bring 3D to a new century!"...The same way Chicago was boosted by a lot of embarrassed Moulini Rouge voters the year before.)

I wish I could be in the room the next time a bigshot Hollywood executive laments that blockbusters don't get Best Picture nominations. "Make better movies" I'd say.
There is still plenty of imagination in Hollywood, just not at the top. The sad truth is if you want to see another big budget as imaginative as Inception, you have to wait for another SEQUEL to a SUPER HERO MOVIE that's as huge as The Dark Knight.
Studio heads today know more about stock reports than making movies, unlike Zanuck, Mayer, or Selznick, who was the kind of guy who said "I'm going to make one of the greatest movies of all time," and delivered Gone with the Wind.

In regards to the complaints of 'bias':

While I'm sure there are those who would make the argument in such a way, I wouldn't approach it in those terms.

The argument which should be made is this: would The Artist(which i did enjoy) have been considered as great a film if it was released in the era when silent film was the norm? likewise, would certain foreign films be so highly praised if they lacked that particular novelty? I would put it to you that the answer to both of these questions is no.

Novelty is not in and of itself a bad thing, but i often get the feeling that professional critics, having to sit through much generic modern fair, are overly kind to films which break the monotony.

Not sure I like your analogy of the Republican base and the moviegoing base. Seems to me that one encompasses vast numbers of people, while the other is comprised of a narrow band of the public. Anyway ...

You are a white male over 50, so I don't suppose you share this "bias," but I wonder why it seems to be acceptable to diss this particular group. If I was 22, female, and Asian, would that somehow make my views more valid? Just wondering ...

I actually saw 6 of the nominated movies this year, which is a pretty good percentage for me. I get to movies sporadically and sometimes it is more about seeing something that will be fun than will be relevatory.

That said, I made a point of getting to The Artist this past weekend since it seemed to have already been crowned as the winner. I enjoyed it but it wasn't my favorite or my choice as the best, not always the same thing. Through Netflix, I've recently watched a couple of other 1920s silent movies and I seem to have what is to me a surprising reaction to them, including The Artist: I have dozed off at least momentarily. I was surprised at that in both The Artist and Metropolis because I was interested in the stories, but ... Maybe being a "verbal" type, the lack of talking prompted the reaction.

I'd say my favorite movie of those nominated was Midnight in Paris. I'm glad that I so have the requisite knowledge of 20th century culture to have understood the references and charaters. The growing lack of that knowledge in increasing numbers of people is one of my horrors and is, to me, a potent sign of the decline of American culture. If it's not on TV, YouTube or Twitter, it doesn't exist. And since it was an Allen movie, I knew it had no chancve to win the Oscar.

I thought The Descendants was the best of the nominated movies, followed closely by Hugo. The Descendants was original, intelligent, real AND entertaining. And George Clooney was robbed. Like Heath Leger in Brokeback Mountain, Clooney's generally subdued and subtle performance was passed over for something more "showy."

And I hesitate to mention it, because all the "really cool cinema/film" people loved it, but I found Tree of Life pretentious and needlessly obscure. It didn't transport me into a revery or deep thoughts of the mysteries of life, just boredom and thoughts of "what the hell is the point?" Maybe I'm too literal, but I was raised Catholic so I'm no stranger to mystery, and I don't think obscurity is mandatory for exploring the profound.

Roger,

I enjoyed "The Artist" to a degree, but I couldn't get over one major flaw. Why use Bernard Herrmann's score from "Vertigo" during its pivotal final sequence?

Hazanavicius is fluent enough in film to know the difference, if not the consequence. "The Artist" is too similar to "Sunset Boulevard" and "Singin' in the Rain" not to know what it's doing. Yet because it lacked the introspection and sardonic self-awareness of "Sunset Boulevard," I suppose I watched the movie simply expecting a delightful homage to the silent era that, perhaps, would provoke and indict viewers of trashy, overblown and revenue-driven modern cinema, viewers who don't watch silent films or B&W films (even those as great as "Sunset Boulevard.")

When Herrmann's music came on (as Dujardin glances into a window), it took me out of the picture. And for the remainder of the movie, I was terribly distracted.

Who is this movie for? People who appreciate film history? Or people who should, but do not, and instead watch "Hangover 2?"

Hazanavicius had to be aware that people who appreciate film history might recognize the music from "Vertigo" It was used recently in "American Horror Story" on network television for God's sake. And in AHS, it works, because it was an homage to classic suspense themes. The technique also worked in "The Truman Show" with Phillip Glass's score from "Powaqqatsi," for many of the same reasons the inclusion of Strauss worked in "2001: A Space Odyssey." But Hazanavicius's film takes place in the 20's-30's. "Vertigo" was released in 1958. Consequently, it felt seemed cheap, lazy and inconsistent.

Who else would recognize Herrmann's score but a film aficionado? Others wouldn't notice. Well, then, if "The Artist" isn't for other people, and instead is for film aficionados, isn't this an obvious distraction? And it's not Ludovic Bource's fault, but does it deserve an Oscar for Best Original Score?

I agree "The Artist" was a novel film for 2011. But I have trouble explaining to my non-film-buff friends why it will ever be of any significance. "Sunset Boulevard and "Singin' in the Rain" were better movie on the same subject, and the movie fails to be an homage to silent film and to film history because of this one choice.

The Separation should have won the Best Picture Oscar rather than Best Foreign Language film. Asghar Farhadi's speech was one of the highlights of the night. Unfortunately, an Academy that would honour such an exquisite film for Best Pic is only a fantasy. How many of us complete two ballots... will win & should win? Re complainers spelling bias/biased.... I'm sure some of those commenters were misspelling your/you're.... ie your bias against vs you're biased against. Arrrrgh.

I am guy in my 20s. I think The Artist may be the best Best Picture winner in over a decade.

It's not baiting anything. It's not derivative of silent era films. It is a primary, exqusitively choreographer film.

Best bester bested...Its wearisome and takes away somehow from the real weight of the thing..HOWEVER...best black and white films, for me, would have to include "The Innocents" " the Heiress",Peter Brooks "King Lear","the Elephant Man" "Good Night and Good Luck"," Paper Moon"," To Kill a Mockingbird" ALL the early Bergmann( "Seventh Seal", etc)and David Lean: "Great Expectations/ Hobson's Choice/Oliver Twist " and HITCHCOCK, jeeze, think of all the dazzling b&w: "Rebecca" "Suspicion" Notorious", "Strangers on a Train" and of course "PSYCHO", and a personal primal favorite, "Lifeboat"... now my head is wheeling a bit, "My Man Godfrey" "Hud".. Zorba the Greek..Electra..Antigone......

Color is often a shiny distraction, pretty,but not..TRUE.B&W allows for the viewer to supply something of his subconcious imagination...which makes it imprint in the mind, subtly, perhaps, but a perfect glove-fit for the senses.

Roger,

The trouble is in the criteria for that pesky adjective "Best," which demands prior criteria at least for "good." A straightforward definition would center on entertainment value to the audience. Particularly in the Best Picture category and maybe "Best" Director" ("Best Storyteller in Film," that is) too. Entertainment, after all, is what the public is paying for and might justifiably think the Academy should be emphasizing. Even the technical arts should have that as their ultimate goal, no? And yet to put any emphasis at all on the entertaining or crowd-pleasing aspects of good film is to open the door to the blockbuster or "commercial" films you refer to, which must emphasize precisely the matter of pleasing and entertaining audiences just to survive. Even if you factor out of popular appeal the fanbase effect on the success of sequels and adaptations of safely popular sources like the Harry Potter series, to get at each film's newly-contributed entertainment value, you would still have a potentially embarrassing number of good or even "best" films from original (albeit "commercial") material or from adaptations that entertained crowds immensely, achieving a popular or box office success disproportionate to the initial fanbase of the source. How else to explain such successes if not as audience-pleasing entertainment value bestowed on those grateful audiences? Wasn't one of your, and no doubt the Academy's even more so, least favorite films of 2011 the top box office or popular success other than that year's episodes of sequels good or bad (Potter and Transformers, to cite one of each). Even I would not have the Academy emphasize the entertainment or popular, democratic values and objectives of film to that degree, putting such entertaining films on top, Still, a recognition of what some such films do through legitimate film technique to achieve their popular effect, even in the face of obvious artistic challenges -- constraints on scripting, character development, and basic storytelling for example --seems reasonable to ask of an all-industry institution like the Academy.

The designation "best" when applied by the Academy on behalf of the industry to particular arts like cinematography, rather than a film taken as a whole, tells the public that the Oscar is awarded for a demonstration of skill in such art(s). But then how to explain away the tendency for the Oscar process to result in sweeps or large hauls by single films, or the occasional split like this year's division between "Hugo" and "The Artist" (both of which I loved by the way), to follow trends, or to be subject to lobbying like the legendary Weinstein machine referenced by a commenter above (and many, many others in the press). The boost a good film gives all its artists in the Oscar sweepstakes is inevitable to some degree but in excess, or hijacked by lobbying, will give results that lessen the credibility of the process. I can suggest two issues and possible solutions.

1. The credibility and appeal of the Oscars, particularly to younger audiences as you allude above, is lessened by devaluing the entertainment value of films relative to other or art-for-art's-sake criteria. Particularly in years like this one when there is a large haul, sweep or split sweep by films made about film-making. A bit of this can be justified by the concept of the Oscars as awards by the industry to the industry, or by the industry's justifiable pride in its traditions, just as you say. but others see it as self-absorption. The general public has too much experience of organizations and industries conducting self-congratulatory annual awards ceremonies for the Oscars not to take a hit to their credibility if the results stray too far from audience perceptions of quality and entertainment value.

Possible solution: enlarge and balance the number of judges, for Best Picture at least, by age range and sex, and perhaps other less obvious audience characteristics, with less emphasis on a prospective judge's commercial success, longevity, or subjective prestige within the industry. An explicit instruction for judges to consider the impact of films on their audiences as entertainment, alongside "artistic merits" more abstractly and subjectively viewed, might also help. The appearance of an extreme, almost Manichaean dualism opposing "art" and "commerce," and public profession of the purer of the two faiths in Oscar season, can only come across to the public as hypocrisy if for the rest of the year the reported behavior of industry participants emphasizes the latter instead.

2. The Oscar decisions can appear unduly influenced by the prestige value of the award and, less usefully, of the judge's own status as judge or representative of the industry. This leads to under-recognition of fine work (or "good" or "best" if you prefer) that has the misfortune to have been contributed in films far from the "Best Picture" sort, including the "commercial products" you have discussed elsewhere but also many others with no great pretensions to commercial or popular success either. It is as if the judges, or some significant segment, cannot bring themselves to award the "Oscar winner" accolade, even in purely technical categories, to films that are obviously not anything like "Best" when considered as a whole and perhaps never meant to be. The easiest way to see this phenomenon is by comparing a year's Oscar nominees and winners in a given art to that art's own guild nominations and awards for the same year.

My own pet Oscar peeve this year was the costume category, so I will use that example. The Costume Designers Guild divides its awards into categories, for period films, sci-fi/fantasy, etc, which helps tease out the skill of the artist from the opportunities or demands of particular film contexts. Period designs, for example, have constraints of materials and creativity that are obviously very different from those of other films. Designers can find themselves working, and nominated if their work is outstanding, in any type of film from year to year depending on where they get their next job. The Academy, however, this year as in many others, seems to heavily prefer the "Period" type, though I admit there w exceptions like LOTR and "Avatar" (both of which also benefitted from the "sweep" or "boost" effect above). So even a a talented previous Oscar winner like Alexandra Byrne must know,even as she is doing outstanding work recognized by her own guild in a given year, that an Oscar is hopeless or a very long shot if that work, however good, is contributed to a fantasy work rather than, say, a Georgian drama, or to a film the Academy or critics will consider to be "commercial" or of lesser artistic merit overall (as if artistic technique and popular appeal or entertainment value were somehow inconsistent rather than the former serving as a means to the latter).

Possible solution: use the larger guild selections in their entirety as the starting point for a down-select by a smaller and, okay, perhaps more prestigious in some sense, group of Oscar judges but with only judges from the relevant field -- whether it be costume, makeup, score, acting or directing -- voting in that category. Not a complete solution perhaps, but I would expect it to result in fewer "they wuz robbed" incidents or perceptions. You once rhetorically asked us, your readership, whether a fine actor like Fassbender "must" do a commercial movie like "X-Men." (Let me see: good agent, home with good location in the Hollywood Hills, "all the right parties," vehicles, wardrobe, safety net to survive career dry spells ... I think the answer is pretty obvious). The more interesting question your current essay impliedly raises is the flipside of the issue, namely whether fine actors like Fassbender, Theron, Hiddleston, etc.etc. or other great artists, such as costume designers, "must' lodge their best work in indie or Academy-favored "Best Picture" films (also kown as the "artsy-fartsy" type of film in my neck of the woods) in order to have their achievements recognized by their professions' highest accolades. To rig or at least structure the game in this way not only produces the "dissing" of the general audience/public you refer to above, but also for the artists themselves an unhealthy distancing of artistic values from the, here and now at least, necessarily commercial means of achieving even the purest of artistic objectives. Conflicts of motives, of means and ends, cannot be good for the industry or its art..

Still, even if these issues continue to erode the credibility and relevance of the Oscar process, particularly for audiences under 40, there is always the red carpet glamour of the ceremony to rely on. That at least seems to be enduring and beyond reproach.

Regards,

David

I wonder how many of those folks who vow they will never see a silent film laugh at the antics of the Looney Tunes where they channel Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton all the time?

How does it apply to the Republican primaries? In the same way that it applies to everything else. Of course you already know that, but I am for some reason compelled to add that what the "base" lacks is not an ability to recognize when something is good (not to mention great, which is, I think, more difficult to recognize, because it never appears right away and certainly not to those who lose interest in moments as they pass), but the will to, well, will anything at all. Many people seem to harbor a deep-seated grudge against what a small minority of refined sensibilities calls good, not because they don't understand but because it offends their own sensibilities, sensibilities that strive for that very (non-geographically) American form of mediocrity that disguises itself as comfort and contentment (wretched contentment); that seductively lazy complacency that pretends to like a movie such as The Hangover II seemingly for no other reason than to ensure that no real thoughts must ever enter its head.
Now for the Republican primaries...

Your mention of ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ winning for best picture allows me to revisit my scorn for the Academy’s lapse in judgment for the films of 1952. I wasn’t even born yet, but I’m fairly certain that when I came out of my mother’s womb 12 years later the first thing I did was scream something about the injustice of it all. (She’d have to confirm.)

It was one of those befuddling decisions that leaves me stymied 60 years on. How could an over-produced, over-acted (Betty Hutton had one setting – full throttle!) C.B. De Mille indulgence win the Oscar instead of the more nuanced ‘The Quiet Man’ and ‘High Noon’, not to mention the omitted ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ and ‘The Bad and The Beautiful’?

Boggles the mind and makes that vein on my forehead stand out.

There were only 2 moments in the entire 2 ½ hours that made the movie watchable– 1) seeing the great Emmett Kelly, if only briefly, and 2) that one shot where the camera pans across the big-top audience in the bleachers and Bing Crosby and Bob Hope are sitting there eating popcorn.

So, how does this relate to the GOP primaries? Apparently, many folks still prefer spectacle over substance.

p.s. I do love that fact that the 1953 Academy Awards still had separate categories in Cinematography, Art Direction and Costume for color and black and white films.

This year was an excellent one for movies. I'm surprised when I hear people term it mediocre. Here are some of the best movies I saw this year:

A DANGEROUS METHOD - DRIVE - THE SKIN I LIVE IN - TAKE SHELTER - THE FLOWERS OF WAR - TREE OF LIFE - MELANCHOLIA - MIDNIGHT IN PARIS - SUPER - POETRY - SHAME - BELLFLOWER - I MELT WITH YOU - THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER - 13 ASSASSINS - A SEPARATION - YOUNG ADULT - WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN - DECLARATION OF WAR - TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY - RAMPART

and I still have yet to see HUGO and quite a few others...

I remember when Me and Spider Maloney and a few fellas from the old neighborhood used to hop on our skateboards, ride past Hickory fields, then tap on an old, abandoned barn we used to call The Purple (because it was). A man named Fred Fisher, who used to sit and play the banjo all day long before three pm (so we think), would suddenly appear, ask if the crane was yella, and if you said "Hot damn as the rosemary baby," you got to enter. Inside were a few rows of white chairs and a projector on the loft that played "The Lion in Winter" from three in the afternoon to ten at night, every day of the week.

Watching that film was the man's hobby, and me and the fellas' only way of seeing a film since the old neighborhood had no movie theatre. I must have seen that film a thousand times,and as I recall several of the scenes, I wonder why they don't make movies that are witty and smart anymore; why audience's are so stupid; why nobody is curious. That movie made me want to learn. I say that everyone should be forced to watch The Lion in Winter.

The Golden Globes makes everyone happy by awarding a Best Picture for comedy and one for drama. I think most people assume that the dramatic winner is the "real" winner. Case in point? 1999's winners were Toy Story 2 (comedy) and American Beauty (drama). Which one was really better?

The bottom line is it all comes down to criteria. What defines a great film really comes down to what one wants from it. Most people simply want to have a good time. The Academy does too, but they've seen it all. What they really want more than anything is to simply feel something.

Reverend Ebert,

Aren't you preaching to the choir? I mean, really, anyone who reads the blog isn't going to be an "average audience," are they?
I'll bet there wasn't a person who read this who didn't know all the folks you mentioned in Mr Allen's movie.

I also refer you to this excellent reminder of the virtues of the Oxford comma at:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/ on the right, under Literature "Let's hear it for the Oxford Comma!"

Can I hear an Amen

Do they complain about those stretches of "sound" films with no dialogue, only music?

So true. One of my favorite movies, and one that I also think is a great one is "The Black Stallion." Magnificent. And it has very long stretches without any dialogue. It probably didn't win any awards--at least I'm hoping it didn't. What a rare, wonderful, and pure film experience.

If you want to blame anyone for The Artist Best Picture win, blame Uggie. Academy voters were clearly swayed by Uggie's pedestrian turn in a typical be-cute-and-do-tricks-on-cue part, neglecting Blackie's more subtle and nuanced performance in the villain role in Hugo.

The Academy is frequently pegged for perferring "mainstream" films, and to an extent they tend to overlook films like "Take Shelter", "Drive" and "Meek's Cutoff" but you're correct in observing that it's not really about mass appeal in terms of box office pull. It is, indeed, about palatability. "The Artist" doesn't recreate the sensation of watching a silent film as accurately or evoctively as one of Guy Maddin's films but it does recreate those early films in a way that strikes a balance between popular palatability and faithful reconstruction. It appeals to what people think silent films are like, rather than, like Maddin does, creating what silent films really are.

“"The Artist" was a wonderful film, and it's possible that it provided the most pure entertainment for a general audience.”

Why do I go see a film?
Sometimes to be removed and taken to a different place. It doesn't have to be a different planet, the story about the guy next door can take me a zillion miles out, sometime terrifyingly, sometime joyfully so.
Sometimes I see a film to learn something.
Sometimes just to be entertained.

I've criticized “The Artist” because of the contest. It's the Best Film of the Year? Really? Is this right?

I fully understand and enjoy many black and white films. But little or no dialogue? So the other movies in the contest kept in this element of the art and the risks inherent when anyone opens their mouth. And “The Artist” reverted to exaggerated movement and expression. That's childrens' theater.

But when I'm told that “pure entertainment” is offered, I must forget the contest.

It's the classic "Snobs vs. Slobs" scenario. The Academy Awards should be about the industry rewarding artistry and celebrating films that showcase the heights of the craft. Period. When the "Slobs" win, nobody wins because the "Slobs" don't watch the awards show and the "Snobs" suspect foul play. Sandra Bullock's win years back made nobody happy.

The box office hits have already won the battle of the bucks, which, often, has nothing to do with artistry. It only seems fair to honor those films that are great despite having little or no chance of a big payday.

Doesn't it bother you when people say that they hate a movie that they have never seen and have no interest in seeing, especially if it's the one you liked?

The funny thing is I'm 28 and I watch black and white and silent films pretty much more than anything else. I have since I was very young. I know numerous other people around my age who do so as well (maybe not as avidly as myself, but they still do).

I believe there should be a separation in the awards show based on merit and what is popular. If one fills the nominations with money-makers just to appease the general public, one might as well fill the art museums with manga and Thomas Kincaid. People today are gorged on processed, generic everything -- processed food, processed music, processed movies. Big Macs, auto-tuning, and reality television. It's just what they're used to. However, it's like in all things -- what is popular is not necessarily good, and what is good is not necessarily popular. This has been proved time and time again in history, therefore the popularity of a film should probably be left out when considering the merit of said film. As for the audience, getting them to watch these movies is like getting children to eat their broccoli.

For those who have seen Hugo and are against seeing silent films they are really missing out, because Georges Melies (played by Ben Kingsley) was a real person, who made really wonderful little movies (he's also one of my personal heroes). However, I was slightly disappointed when he was not mentioned when Hugo won for best special effects, as Georges Melies pretty much invented special effects.

Ebert: Black and white movies seem to me like the best neighborhood in Movie City.

Whoever said that "once the casting is done the movie is in the can" sure got it right with The Artist. Big heads, huge eyes, faces like tightly stretched canvases for emotions to be broadcast on--who could ask for more from a silent?

A couple of things--

The Artist was hurt by the word "silent." I think the "bias gentst" crowd believed that meant you sat in a silent theater. And why shouldn't they think that, really? After years of TV showing silents with needle drop underscores of honky-tonk Chopin (talk about wanting to put a gun in your mouth), there's no reason for that crowd to suppose The Artist would have such a great score. Maybe they should have marketed it as Mute, or Dialog-free. I don't know. But the soundtrack made the picture and I don't think the masses grasped that.

I wish the first 10 minutes of The Artist lasted 90 minutes more. All those gags in the premiere sequence were really, truly charming. The best time I've had in the pictures in many years. I don't know when I last felt delight watching a movie. After that...it was fine. But certainly a notch or two down from where it started.

John Goodman is a treasure, although he looked a lot like William Demarest in this in a very jarring way. Still, there's nothing Goodman can't do.

Finally, I've not seen anyone mention the Bernard Hermann sequence near the end of the picture. As soon as that music started, I jolted up and was caught up in the picture again. It goes to show that a picture is only as good as its composer, and no one is as good as Hermann. What lovely complicated music. It gave me a touch of....vertigo.....

It's good to know that there are people out there who disagree with the idea that the Oscars need to sell out to the "average moviegoer".

I just finished reading one in my University's student paper, http://www.westerngazette.ca/2012/02/29/oscar-column/.

Thanks to you both, some faith in cinema has been restored.

Forgot to bring my point back to your essential topic, the parallel between the Oscar version and the political version of appealing to a base.

The point was that dualisms, seen in the Oscar process as "commerce" v. "art," and as "old" or traditional (Silents, B&Ws, and "the Artist" at least on its surface) v. "new" appeal not just to extremists but to the latent extremist in all of us. Great for generating controversy or buzz; also for driving people into one political mob or another. But destructive in the long run for an industry, an art, or a polity.

Good day, Mr. Ebert!

Reading this reminded me of another interesting thought of yours (http://bit.ly/yqkd6o) regarding the Oscars on its members tend to vote for the Best Headline. Do you think your theory was put into practice this year? "Silent Black & White Film Wins Best Picture!"

Anyway, I live in a country (Philippines) that doesn't at all acknowledge Great Movies. For example, films that has anything to do with the Coens, P.T. Anderson, Herzog, Kaufman, etc are never released in our local theaters. So relating this frustrating situation of mine to the Oscars, I personally root for the nominee that doesn't have a scheduled release date here. That's because Slumdog Millionaire and The Hurt Locker were only given their deserved screenings after they won Best Picture. Sad, but that's just the way things are here.

I though Hugo was the best picture of all the nominees, but since The Artist won, I just might get the chance to finally see a silent b&w film on the Big Screen!

Wow.
Your arrogance and condescension towards middle America is asounding.

A few years ago I had the privilege of watching The Battleship Potemkin while the Dallas Symphony Orchestra played the soundtrack. It was one of the greatest movie-going experiences I've ever had; I can still remember literally sitting on the edge of my seat during the Odessa steps scene. It never occurred to me that this was a silent film produced before my grandparents were born. It was just a great movie.
There's very little that angers me more than to tell someone about a great movie only to have it dismissed because it's subtitled or in black and white or animated. Don't they realize they're cheating themselves out of joy?

In the silent and short and black and white film "The Idle Class" I was delighted by the scene where the wife gives her alcoholic husband (played by Charlie Chaplin) her ultimatuum: "No drinking or you're sleeping alone!" Something like that. The title card informs us of her dialogue. The wife walks off. Chaplin turns from the camera and his shoulders and back heave, once. Then twice, then again, and then more and more and more, an apoplexy of sobbing, remorse and regret!

Except then he turns around, stone-faced and the whole time he's just been shaking the cocktail mixer.

I burst out laughing. What a wonderful scene! Completely impossible to pull off except in a silent movie.

Roger, just from my own curiosity about the disconnect between popular movies and Oscar contenders I compiled a little chart with a snapshot of the top 20 movies of 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005 and 2010. Specifically I counted the number of top 20 movies that were Fantasy/Sci Fi/Comic Book/Animated and Kids movies. In 1980 there were two. 1985 three. 1990 three if you count Home Alone. 1995 six. 2000 six. 2005 eleven. 2010 fourteen, not counting The Karate Kid. If you also throw in raunch comedies there remain only four adult dramas in the top 20 and one of those, The Kings Speech, was ONLY in the top 20 due to it's Oscar buzz. I went to a number of these superhero/fantasy franchise movies myself and indeed some are good, but I could not picture intelligent adults circa 1980 making a weekly diet of such films and now the stats show they did not. As I tell my wife, apparently we are all children now. At least Hollywood thinks so and they must be right. Todd C

I don't know where to asking you that question, but have you seen the movie ''Goon''? There is publicity all over the place about this movie here in Montreal, Canada. I haven't seen any review of this movie by you.

Ebert: It hasn't opened yet.

The Oscars: who cares?

I think Andrei Rublev was the best film I've ever seen. I know a serious, smart guy who thinks Love, Actually is the best film he's ever seen. We think the other person's taste is... I would say ridiculous, but that's not it. It is simply the other person's taste. He really did love Love, Actually. I really did watch Andrei Rublev twice in two days and brood on it's themes for weeks. We're our own Academies. We all give our own Oscars. Then groups amalgamate and give their own Oscars, too. Teenagers pick Transformers. Intellectuals pick Mulholland Drive. Then the two groups pick on each other, while the Academy is a group too and goes out and picks something nice, like The King's Speech, that won't offend anybody. They get to go on television, so the public chooses to believe their pick is supposed to have more validity than anyone else's. Then people go see more nice films--fine. While the pickers pick at them--it's a free country. I spend a lot of time with films--its a big part of my life. But I didn't know which film won the Oscar this year until I read this blog just now because at a certain point, the Oscars are just someone else's taste. All in its place. But as I said, the bottom line for people who have the confidence of their own tastes might should be:

The Oscars: who cares?

Roger I have to say I'm a little disappointed that you chose to direct this article towards defending the Artist instead of being about the real story you set yourself up for.

You say, "The problem is that the taste of the Academy voters is too good." Maybe so, but isn't that also a statement about current cultural taste? The real problem is, movies aren't made for mature, thoughtful adults anymore, which most of the Academy voters are. The R-Rating, which used to state that a movie was meant for adults, now just means it will be either gross, stupid, vulgar, graphically violent or all of the above, which, ironically, doesn't appeal to most people over the age of 18 anyway.

The reality is that when a truly adult movie comes out: Shame, Tree of Life, The King's Speech, The American, Blue Valentine, The Social Network, just to name a few recent ones, it needs to fight for space at the multiplexes against the Transformers or the vampires or the grown man-children who did so much drinking and drugging that they can't remember what happened the night before. In the 80s and 90s movies like The Bodyguard, Dances With Wolves, Titanic, Silence of the Lambs, were playing in just about every local theatre. People could easily see them and they wanted to because they felt as though those films talked to them, not above or below them. And then, they went and saw them again.

Now, these movies, unless they have the name Speilberg, Scorsese, Cameron, Tarantino or so forth on them, we as consumers need to search for them. I had to see Sidney Lumet's final masterpiece Before the Devil Knows Your Dead in a run down art house theatre. I'm glad I saw it; I'm depressed that it wasn't at a place as easily accessible as the mall where a lot of people may walk by the poster, take an interest and take a chance on seeing it. That's why the academy can't nominate big money movies anymore, because, outside of Avatar, how many big movies have there been that haven't been aimed at kids with a video game addiction over the past several years?

Then you go on to The Artist, which I thought was the least compelling of the nominees for the same reasons that I felt next to nothing for Drive: it is simply empty homage. Both films are made well but think of if they had come out in the time they pay homage to. I don't think they would have connected because both are thin and neither have that inner spark that made the original movies they pay homage to so special in the first place. They are simply a collection of reused parts paying homage to a time when movies didn't suck so badly on such a frequent basis. Admire them for that? Sure, but give me Singing in the Rain or Thief any day of the week. At least when Tarantino pays homage he uses that as a starting point to creating something fresh and new. Drive or the Artist are well made, but have none of that and that's why I think neither found a crossover audience.

I remember you mentioned that "The Sound of Music" was one of those overrated pictures to win Best Picture awards. I don't understand what it is you have against "The Sound of Music". It's one of those Best Pictures that is more valuable than the Best Picture award itself. I guess people can go on and on about how overrated it is. There's a reason why a movie like that is still hugely popular all over the world since God knows when! Time for a re-evaluation?

I think in large measure the absence of talking on film has rarely if ever before been an artistic choice, except maybe in a scene here or there. (Although perhaps there are some older examples I'm not familiar with.) By and large, my sense is films were not silent because silent is good, but because verbal sound was not technologically possible or feasible, right?

To be sure, the limitations caused innovations, particularly with acting. But, by and large, it's hard for me to fathom the argument that the Artist is enhanced by its lack of talking. One might forcefully argue it is a great film despite its lack of talking, but that's a different thing.

I think in some senses the Artist is art about art, and that's often irresistible to voters and critics. That it's about movies too, and thus has an added meta element I think adds to the effect. There are surely times for nostalgia for its own sake, but the gimmick of the Artist seems at times like preferring to fly in a bi-plane just because that used to be all there was.

I try to come up with an analogue in another artistic medium, and I have trouble. For most of the arts, the technology has been there all along. But I imagine that until 50 years ago, there was no blue paint. If an artist today were to decide never to use blue paint to paint more like artists 50 years ago, I would think that silly. Now, perhaps he could create a masterpiece without blue. But it seems it would be not because he deprived himself of blue but in spite of having done so.

To be sure, I think there are some kinds of films for which black and white film is simply a better medium for the film's subject and cinematography. I would love to see more black and white films. But I'm not sure the Artist fits in that category, except in the nostalgic sense.

I like B&W movies. Loved Young Frankenstein, for example.

I learned photography in a university level course back in the early 80's - exclusively in black and white film, developing our own shots in a darkroom. Shooting in B&W gives you a better sense of light. Of contrast, especially. Photography is about light and composition primarily. I learned to go for the shot when the light is right, and to walk away when it is not.

I feel for kids shooting pictures only on digital cameras only in color and editing only in photoshop. Do they appreciate light and composition the way I learned it?

I'm sure I'll see the Artist, and very likely enjoy it.

Hi Roger,

I've been following your reviews, when I can, since the "Sneak Previews" days on PBS. You're one of my favorite film critics because you tend not to automatically dismiss a film simply because it is popular (or the reverse - automatically like a film because it's a "critics darling" or what I like to call "Oscar-bait").
*The Artist* is a film that's on my "go see" list, even though I know next to nothing about the plot, mostly because many of my friends on Facebook have highly recommended it. I haven't seen it yet, however, so my comments are not directly specifically towards your review/commentary on the film itself.

I am a person who LIKES black-and-white films. Probably half of my DVD film collection is in black and white, and I have some b/w TV shows too. I'm not going to dismiss a film simply because it's in black and white, after all I've seen "Young Frankenstein" and "Schindler's List" - both modern films in black and white.

But I'd like you to consider the following scenario. One wants to go out to see a movie on the weekend -- there are, say, 20, films playing at your local multi-plexs, and another 6 at the bargain theater. How does a person narrow that down to 1 film? Well, for me, picking the films I want to see involves: (A) Is it a genre of film I like (action, adventure, fantasy, mystery, drama, musical, some comedy) or one I don't (Westerns, Gangster films, horror). (B) Does the film star an actor/actress I like? (too numerous to mention) (C) Was the film directed by a favorite director of mine? (OK, this tends to help more when renting/buying DVDs, but it can still be a factor. I saw "War Horse" because Spielburg directed it.) Or, and most importantly (D) Did a friend, work colleague, family member, etc (Including reviews) recommend the film?

I do sometimes see films I might not otherwise because of reason D. I also sometimes see films by virtual mistake and actually like them, or find them thought-provoking (the ONLY reason I saw "Summer of Sam" was a fluke -- the air-conditioning wasn't working in the theater of the film I'd planned to go see with friends.)

So, I'm babbling a bit -- but "The Artist" is something I very well may see, that I'd like to see - simply because several of my friends, whose judgement I trust, highly recommend it. Not to mention critics like yourself. Make sense?

Sincerely,
--Jackie

I am 68 and have often, throughout all these years, watched the Oscars, sometimes in spite of myself. I never remember them being better than they were this year (never very good). I remember that in the fifties if I'm not mistaken it was pure Hollywood that dominated the vote. The shows were never the height of art or anything close. Billy Crystal has always been an improvement. This year's best picture, The Artist, is definitely among the better winners. Thank you for your Oscar blog post. The Oscars have rarely represented the best in movies or the best in TV shows.

Roger:

For quite some time now I've been wondering if film appreciation should be taught in schools, just as literature, art and music appreciation is (or at least SHOULD be) taught in schools. If "Citizen Kane" and "The Bicycle Thief" were required viewing the way that, say, "The Great Gatsby" is required reading, I think we'd have a somewhat more well educated film going populace. I'm not saying that teenagers wouldn't stop going to see "Bridesmaids", but that they wouldn't be so repelled by black & white cinematography and/or subtitles.

-Nathan

I very much sort of see what is going on here and agree with it on some level. I think though that Hollywood wants to spend the money to get a return and in many cases the big blockbusters have generally appeared to be less extravagant films like 'The Artist'.

I think a scenario where the Academy could have done some good was nominating The Dark Knight for Best Picture. Audiences and critics loved it and the only thing preventing it was Academy snobbery towards the super hero nature. The entire 10 nominee thing was a response to this failure on their part.

BTW, thank you for the great article. And I absolutely love the reviews, and have for the past 15 years. It makes every Thursday morning feel like Christmas.

Ebert: How does this apply to the Republican primaries? I have no idea.

How about this, Roger? -- The common thread is, for lack of a better word, shallowness.

Average moviegoers want a quick thrill. Films like "The Artist" (etc.) don't privide that. What they do, however, is make you think and examine life deeply. "The Artist" and "Hugo" are especially appropriate because they call to mind cinematic history, what has passed before, and by looking at them through new eyes, the view of our present day is enriched. As a result you want to look with the same appreciation of the beauty happening now. And if you make films, you want to make something in the same appreciation of richness, depth, and the sheer love of life.

Not everyone wants depth. Of course you and I enjoy the sheer fun of a good thrill. But our drug of choice is depth, maybe because it simply stays with you longer; having had your eyes opened to beauty and depth through a film, you get affected and "see" differently afterwards (or at least for a good while). The thrill ebbs faster, but depth stays with you and you can walk around in it. And dare I say, it can also make you a better person, more appreciative of others and their stories.

But Hollywood financers are looking to make a buck by pleasing the base as cheaply as possible (cheap in terms of depth, giving the quick-fix drug of thrills instead), and many moviegoers are ready and waiting for that quick-fix, for the next hit of the "thrill" drug. I think that if moviegoers demanded more depth, maybe (just maybe) the financers wouldn't try selling them cheap drug "fixes". But that's asking a lot, and well, human nature is against the odds there.

There is a parallel between this and the disarray of the Republican party, searching to please its base. Just as moviegoers are searching for the quick drug-fix, in the same way, Republicans are searching for a quick drug-fix. They want the thrill of the patriotic bliss they remember from the Reagan years. They want the image of the peace and prosperity of the 1950s. They want a return of the acclaim of being the beacon of freedom, honored just as when America received the gift of the Statue of Liberty. They want the rush of fighting for freedom against a host of foes, as it seemed whenever we set out to war in the past. They want the confidence that we are righteous, that we are doing righteousness in the world and standing with what is right, as it felt in the past fighting againt Hitler, etc.

There is a longing in the heart of Republicans for yesterday, because somehow yesterday was better than today. The goal is to get back to when things were better. And all we need is just the right leader and... somehow we'll be there. Or pass this legislation. Or block this other legislation. Or stop the liberals at this or that point, etc. At each point, it seems as if each step is somehow the key to getting 'back' to prosperity, righteousness and well, the utopia of the past.

But of course, even getting one of the steps or goals accomplished, it's a mirage. You can't actually go back (and dare I say that the past was an illusion, but I won't go there now). The goals work like drugs, like a quick-fix. But even if you get that fix, it leaves you only temporarily satisfied, and soon you want more. Soon that 'progress' (moving forward in order to move back) isn't enough, and you need another fix, and another, and another... etc.

The opposite of this is........ depth. Not a quick-fix, not a drug, but really looking deeper. I think a lot of Republicans go from one fix to the next (not that liberals are different, but I'm not talking about them now), not realizing that a dose of depth would do a lot more good, and would last longer as well.

It might be good to mention a distinction between Republican nostalgia and the cinematic nostalgia of "The Artist" and "Hugo". I don't think those films (or the critics who like them) are blind to the fact that not everything was roses in cinema's past. (Witness: "The Greatest Show on Earth", etc.) But Republican nostalgia often is blind to the realities of the past, unfortunately. "Yesterday" wasn't always better.

A good film can help you see life more clearly, bringing out the gems from the past and showing the tragedies as well. History should be seen the same way, realizing the different sides of the story, etc. As you do that more and more, and connect with real peoples' lives & stories, you can really appreciate history, both the good and the bad. In the same way, a good leader/politician can be someone who informs you of things going on and helps you understand them and other people involved. I really appreciated how Obama seemed to be that way during the early days of his campaign. (Where things may be now is a different discussion.)

But the search for the quick-fix dooms both Republicans and Hollywood. The nostalgia of the grass being greener "yesterday" is a drug, a mirage leading into the desert instead of into greener pastures. Pursuing it doesn't help the viewer/voter grow, see history clearer, nor see the present clearer, either. Like a cheap Hollywood thrill, the modern Republican victory is also a quick thrill, a drug-fix that is soon forgotten, leading to an isatiable craving for a newer "high" (all the while trying to reach a stage where the "high" never goes away, where it captures that feeling or memory of that first, great "high").

Movies like "The Artist" and "Hugo" come from people like Scorsese, who simply don't aim for "the base". The filmmakers are in their own pursuit of the depths of life, and as they go, they take us along with them. You could say that the filmmakers are "true to their vision," I suppose, but I don't think saying that would offer a solution to the problem of the Republican disarray. In that field there are just too many people are trying to be "true to their vision" and competing visions, none of them truly catching "the base" and unifying it. The most common thread (even behind the vying visions) is the desire for "yesterday," and that's the foundation of so many of the visions offered. The problem is that it's a shallow vision, built on naivity and wishful thinking. A conservativism that would be "true to vision" would need to redefine itself, looking back at history squarely instead of wistfully, and then discovering what "conservativism" means, values, and hopes for.

But like the Hollywood studios aiming to please the "base" with cheap thrills, Republican politicians generally aim to give cheap thrills, as well, missing depth in order to get as many voters into their "cinema", so to speak. Could it change? Could one visionary come and offer depth, and please both crows just as the Hollywood execs hope for a box office smash to sweep the awards? Maybe. Maybe once in awhile. But I'm about as hopeful of the cry for more depth effecting lasting change in politics as I am of moviegoers effecting lasting change in Hollywood.

I'm spending all of tonight and the rest of the weekend clicking on the Tim and Eric movie to throw off your box-office predictions. Take that!

I agree The Artist wasn't really the best film of the year, though good. Of the nominees, I would probably give it to Hugo. The only thing about Hugo that gives me pause is that there are plot holes regarding the macguffin of the automaton. That bothered me on repeat viewings, but I don't know if those are failures of the book, or just the film adaptation. By the way, did anyone else notice the similarities in plot between Hugo and Extremely Loud? Both have mysterious keys needed to help a child deal in an illogical way with his missing father and the need for something to make sense. Hugo did it better.

Roger, you mention that you hope The Artist will get people looking to black and white or silent film again. I concur (but then, I think Hugo helps this as well). At the library where I work, I used the Artist's win as justification to do a silent movie display in our DVD section.

I also found Midnight in Paris to be a lot of fun, but it really does need a certain esoteric literacy to be fully enjoyed. I loved the scene where Gil was trying to explain to Bunuel the plot of Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie!

As good as the nominees were, the best movie of the year was once again one that was criminally ignored: Take Shelter. Best movie of the year, and Michael Shannon deserved at least a nomination for Best Actor.

People who claim they don't like silent film might be eased into it first with cartoon shorts for the 1930s, even those in color. Many of these were based around music (particularly the Disney Silly Symphonies) and rely on sight gags to tell their story. From here the best step is to silent comedy, and then to the wider range of stuff. I can see why some wouldn't get into a film like The Docks of New York right away, but there are ways to start appreciating these things. Hugo's a great window into Melies' work.

oh, and to Seth the CP guy: "the code" was not in place in the 1920s, so a gun in the mouth would be no violation. However, different states and cities had their own decency boards, and such a scene probably would have caused some controversy in some areas. I know of no movie that features such a thing.

Say what you will, but I get a warm happy feeling when I see The Artist and clips thereof. I am middle to golden-aged. I remember silent films from TV as a kid. I took a friend of mine, 33, to The Artist. He's videogame generation and had never seen a silent film before. What was old hat for me was a joyful revelation for him. And that is why The Artist is a winner. By the way, with all the comparisons of M. Dujardin to Errol Flynn, Gene Kelly, and Douglas Fairbanks, why has no one picked up on his resemblance to William Powell particularly at the breakfast table scene (Nick and Nora Charles and their dog Asta)?

This is not really related, just seems like something that may be of interest to the inner sci-fi lover in you, Roger. (This is not fiction, however, it's really happening.)

Two University students in Japan have invented a device that can stop people from (vocally) talking: http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2012/03/would-you-use-a-speech-jamming-gun.html

70% on this Canadian poll look forward to it, though about 30% of them would use it just in public places, like cinemas.

As far as silent, I have never been able to enjoy a silent film. My mind wanders, I look at other things. i am bored. Even with the comedies but especially the dramas. I have not see the Artist. I may not.

I liked Midnight in Paris well enough which is pretty odd since I never like any Woody Allen movies for the most part. But I would have to say, I am not one of these people whose dream would be to write in a little apartment in Paris or to have spend my time with Hemingway or Fitzgerald. I've read their work but I am not inspired by them. So did I connect with it in that sense? not really

Hugo. I haven't seen it. I wonder if I should. Hollywood may love these movies about the history of movies just like TV seems to love tv shows about TV (like 30 Rock and others less comedic). But you know, us the audience, we're not so interested. It seems very self congratulatory and "inside baseball" that most of us are like, "who cares?" it used to be solid very well made movies americans could actually care about-Jaws, Star Wars-would at least get nominations. Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America was a more of an artistic effort than "and the awar dgoe sto George Clooneys' Smirk while he turns his head and looks upwards" in the Descendants.

I don't know what the academy can do if they care about bumping box office receipts or getting ratings for ABC (especially younger viewers).

Most of us go to the movies to be thrilled, amazed, to take a roller coaster ride, to be diverted from life, to be scared, etc. and those aren't the movies they nominate for the most part.

They generally nominate slow, technical achievements that don't provide that at all. or that provide the typical political pov of the academy members. etc.

it also doesn't help that there are 9,000 award shows. and 9,000 guesses in the newspapers. and that by the time the show comes on, we pretty know whose going to win.

Was it a shock that the silent black and white film about movie history would win? Noooooo

Was it a shock that the ancient admired actor who had shockingly never won before wins for lighter material now as a way to say "our bad. this should have been for X 40 yrs ago?" Well of course not. Not when he's playing an old man who comes out of the closet. Gay is the new Holocaust.

or that the black maide with the attitude who gives it back to her oppressors, and then some, would win supporting actress?

or that Meryl Streep would be nominated/win yet another award for putting on some makeup and exaggerating a real life character? Note to Meryl-it's not half the Country. Try 95%. I guess there were no "distinguished actress plays alcoholic/prostitute" this year.

The Oscars are predictable. The home ballots now come down to who can quite at random guess best short film-animated and best short film-live action, or best foreign language film "well we're sabre rattling with Iran, i bet the Academy in response gives the award to an Iranian film to show their opposition and solidarity with Iran."

The Academy is what it has always been, which is the voice of the Industry's desire for respectability and prestige. Your average 50 something white male Academy voter is probably intellegent, but not intellectual, with a certain level of culture but not in touch with whatever the current avant garde is. He knows how hard it is to do what people in the Industry do, because he does it himself and sees it done every day. He probably despises the adolescent audience that provides the bread and butter box office. What he wants from the Oscars is not just box office but the respect of the adult upper middle class audience. If he can get that with a blockbuster, so much the better. It's all wrapped up by Don Lockwood in Singin' In The Rain: Dignity, always Dignity.

The R-Rating, which used to state that a movie was meant for adults, now just means it will be either gross, stupid, vulgar, graphically violent or all of the above, which, ironically, doesn't appeal to most people over the age of 18 anyway.

***
Mr. Lippert, I think you are out of touch with most people over the age of 18.

I´m one these many younger moviegoers. And well , i think Harry Potter was robbed. No,not by the artist. I was pretty impressed of the movie. I had some doubts, mainly based on the thought " Oh, yeah, the critics like the artist. Probably because its black and white, retro etc" . You know what i mean. But yeah, it was fun. Still thinking contagion is the better one, but nevermind. Lets go back to robbery. The thief was the iron lady. Seriously all what they have done is making a woman look more like another woman. Thats it. And I have to say, Streep still looked completly like Streep to me. Just different hair and skin tone. On Harry Potter, they created whole characters, just with the makeup. So yeah robbery. Last but not least: A seperation deserved it. Great movie. Hope there will be a american remake by Soderbergh. One can dream.

If the Republican candidates were movies:

Mitt Romney: The Truman Show
Rick Santorum: Tucker
Newt Gingrich: Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control, or perhaps Wrath of Aguirre
Ron Paul: No End in Sight
Rick Perry: Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
Michelle Bachmann: The Terminator
Herman Cain: The Informant!
Jon Huntsman: Swimming to Cambodia

two things:
1, 2011 was a terrible year for film.
2, there was room to nominate Harry Potter 8. They had nine best picture noms, instead of the usual ten. Giving potter a best picture nom would have acknowledged that the film was a satisfying conclusion to a unique film franchise achivement. It did not have to win and no one would have been harmed.

Good defense of your own opinion, but I have to say you have a lazy reliance in pieces like this on the straw man argument that the top-grossing movies of any given year are the public's favorites. We don't go to the movies and then get asked to pay on the way out if we liked it, and most of the year's top-grossing movies make 40-60% of their money within 7 days, before word of mouth can spread. And most of them are not movies people loved but SEQUELS to movies people loved. The Hangover, Part 2 is one of 2011's top-grossing movies not because people liked it, but because they liked The Hangover. It's really easy to turn audiences and critics into Reds and Blues, complete wtih the same "I don't know what they're thinking, but they're losers and jerks!" generalizations, and most people do it, but there's a lot more complexity and nuance to people's opinions than either the box office totals OR the Oscars can express.

I don't think you are biased at all toward "art" films, politics yes, but we'll leave that for another day. But if I recall, Minority Report, a Cruise/Spielberg blockbuster, was your #1 film of 2002. And it was a fantastic movie.

Where can we see the results of the Outguess Ebert Oscar Contest?

Ebert: I'm asking them the same question.

One of your paragraphs has absolutely baffled me. I can't make sense of it.

"The Los Angeles Times published a well-researched article last week determining that the average Academy voter is white, male and over 50. We already knew that. What does it mean? That only boring box office blockbusters are nominated? No, because the old white men gave no major nominations for such hits of 2011 as "The Hangover Part II," "Horrible Bosses," "Captain America," "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," and the franchise entries from Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Transformers. In overlooking such titles, they were essentially dissing their enormous audiences, and it's likely that many younger moviegoers didn't even watch the Oscars because they didn't have a horse in the race."

The average voter is American, white, and over 50. Does this mean that only boring blockbusters get nominated? Why would it mean that? Are we likening them to some stereotype of white, male moviegoers over 50? But then you say that it doesn't mean that only boring blockbusters get nominated, and the reason is because several blockbusters got no nominations. I don't get it. Are you saying that ""The Hangover Part II," "Horrible Bosses," "Captain America," "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," and the franchise entries from Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Transformers" are boring blockbusters? I thought we were talking about the attitudes of the stereotypical common moviegoer, to whom at least some of these movies would not be boring. What I'm saying is that I would expect postulate A to be disproven by some evidence B, which would demonstrate that boring blockbusters frequently do not get nominated, or that movies that are not boring blockbusters frequently get nominated. But instead, we have evidence D, which doesn't seem to follow from A, let alone disprove it.

You then finish the paragraph by talking about how people must have felt when their favorite films didn't get any attention from the academy. And I just get the distinct impression that two seperate trains of thought were accidentally smooshed together (the scientific term) in this paragraph. The first defends the prejudice that the advanced-in-years (the old men) in the Academy are choosing only boring movies (blockbuster or not.) The second talks about why many audience members will feel alienated by the Oscars. I'd just like to see how the first idea is supposed to end and the second idea is supposed to begin, or how they were supposed to be tied together, because they feel non sequitur.

Ebert: You lost me. :)

Please, can you clarify what you meant by that paragraph? Because it has me confused. I'll try to be clearer.

You start with Postulate A: Only boring box office blockbusters get Academy Award nominations.

You then try to disprove Postulate A using Evidence D: Several blockbusters that many audience members would consider entertaining do not get nominated.

The problem is that Evidence D does not even relate to Postulate A. To disprove Postulate A, we would need Evidence B, which would demonstrate that the statement "Only boring box office blockbusters get nominated" is false. Evidence B, therefore, would say "Several blockbusters that aren't boring get nominated," or "Several entertaining films that are not blockbusters get nominated," or "Several boring blockbusters do not get nominated."

Evidence D, however, seems to go with an entirely different postulate: some Postulate C. Postulate C might relate to why many moviegoers feel alienated by or prejudiced against the Oscars. Or it could go like this. Postulate C: The general public will watch the Oscars because several good, entertaining movies get nominated. Evidence D: No they won't, because most of the movies they care about don't even get nominated.

Did I clarify what I was trying to say? I feel like your paragraph asks a question and then answers it with the answer to a completely different question. That's what makes it feel non sequitur. It's a bit like saying, "Does this dealership only have red cars?" and then replying, "No, because they don't have several blue cars." The absence of blue cars supports the claim that they only have red cars; it doesn't disprove it. Likewise, the absence of several blockbusters that many would consider entertaining supports the claim that Academy voters only nominate boring blockbusters; it doesn't disprove it.

What I'm saying is, what exactly was your paragraph trying to communicate? Because when I read it, it feels non sequitur.

"The days are gone when Mike Todd could steamroll the Academy into honoring 'Around the World in 80 Days,' or Cecil B. DeMille could crown his career with 'The Greatest Show on Earth.'"

And yet this year we had "Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close."

Ebert: You lost me. :)

Okay, let's clear it up, then:
Apart from jumping on Annual Disgruntled-Fan Best Picture Alibi 2012--"They're just a buncha old fogeys!"--after reading it in somebody else's post-ceremony column what exactly WAS the point of the column?
- That the Artist shouldn't have won because nobody saw it?
- That the Artist should have won even though regular folks probably didn't see it?
- That a movie people did see should have won?
- That "Hangover II" should've gotten some kind of nomination for making money?
- That younger voters would've chosen Rise/Apes for Picture?
- That Harry Potter 7.2 should have been nominated for Picture? (Oh, wait, you did say that.) ;)

The essay goes from the first half ("The old Best Pictures were classics!") to a second half, inserting "The Artist" into the old "Regular people didn't go see Hurt Locker" chorus, but neither one seems to be the answer to each other's question, and then tries to connect it with "The Academy likes fancy stuff!"
Nice rumination, but it can be confusing for a reader who's looking for the ONE point. It's as if you wanted to jump on the disgruntled "Never trust any Oscar voter over 30" bandwagon for headline value -and- stick up for The Artist as a good film, but have to pick one, as it's hard to do both.

Me, I know the nuts-and-bolts reasons why Return of the King deserved Best Picture and Crash didn't, and I'll just keep repeating the broken record I've been going with for two years now: Bring back the March awards, and Kill the Globes.

After watching The Artist, I thought of watching some of my favorite movies in silent mode. I think silent movies are more engaging for the viewer. With talkies, I can turn away from the screen for a moment or my mind can wander. But with silent movies, I have to watch closely, all the mimics and gestures. Same goes for color. Color and sound sometimes distract us. Much like the new 3D technology they have to be used with caution.

I've seen "The Artist" and I enjoyed it also. But two things doom it at the American box office.
The title is off-putting and sounds effete to the general audience. To sell it, they should have named it "Silence Crashes Down" or "Don't Shut Up" or another Americanized popcorn seller.
Also, once people hear it is a French production, you might as well bring the curtain down. Even though it was shot in America.
I know. My head hits the wall, too.

Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for The Blind Side. The Blind Side ugh! The Academies standards really aren't has high as Roger is giving them credit for.

Roger, I grew up living across the street from a drive in theater near Seattle. I would see tons of films, since the drive in had 6 screens and did double features on every one of them. During the summer we would sit in our front yard, play, whatever, and watch movies. Star Wars, Jaws, every b-movie it seemed that came out in the 70s.
We'd actually go only about once a month. Many times, as I got a little older, we'd sneak in and sit near the front, there was a playground underneath one of the main screens. We could hear the movies like a kind of warbling, out-of-phase quadrophonic din.

Raymond Ogivie said "Please, can you clarify what you meant by that paragraph? Because it has me confused. I'll try to be clearer.

You start with Postulate A: Only boring box office blockbusters get Academy Award nominations.

You then try to disprove Postulate A using Evidence D: Several blockbusters that many audience members would consider entertaining do not get nominated.

The problem is that blah blah blah blah...blah, blah...."

Raymond, there's an old phrase: "less is more". This also means that more is less. Not to say you don't have a point, but I think you've lost the needle in a haystack.

Carl Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc" is a good place to start for silent newbies. When Gloria Swanson(as Norma Desmond) says, "We had faces then," in "Sunset Boulevard", the first person that comes to mind is Maria Falconetti.

Unappealing movie remakes :

Drama: ‘Guess Who’s NOT Coming back to Dinner?’

‘Lady Sings the FEMA Camp Blues’

Comedy: ‘Jiha d’Mouse that Roared’

Adult: ‘Klute and Newt do Jane’

Documentary: ‘I’m Sterile, Cuckoo’ (–the BPA infertility agenda)

‘Five Weeks in a Balloon’ (-spewing chemicals over land, people and crops)

‘It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad (new)World (order)’

‘Tora!, Tora!, Tora!’ (We the People ATTACK!)

Hugo was my favorite movie of the year, but The Artist may be even more effective in getting people who’ve ignored them to look at silent movies. I think the biggest misconception that people have about silent films is that they are static and stagy. They get this idea from having seen early talkies from the period when they could do synchronized sound, but hadn’t yet reinvented cameras and booms and dolleys to make them quiet enough to do moving shots or multiple camera shoots. When I get somebody to actually watch a classic silent feature they’re always amazed at the sophistication of the editing and camera work.

I have been a huge Woody Allen fan through his stand-up years and all his film career. I have vowed to see and own all the films he will ever make, no matter how awful. I enjoyed "Midnight in Paris" although I was shocked by the public acceptance, box office and nominations. Frankly I didn't think the film was worthy of the accolades. I recognized immediately that Allen had done something like this in a short piece collected in his 1972 "Getting Even" called "A Twenties Memory" in which the writer recalled his experiences with every bright light of that era. It seemed like another example of Allen pulling old material out of his desk drawer to have something to make a movie of, rather like "The Jade Scorpion."

To confess, several times I found myself laughing louder than necessary so the rest of the audience could realize that I was sophisticated enough to get all the references. (Over the years, Woody's cultural references has been a tremendous help in my pursuit of pseudo-intellectualism. For example, I got through four years of college never having heard of Kafka. When the word "Kafkaesque" rang out in "Annie Hall" it opened up vistas of new pretentiousness for me.)

I love Woody's work enough to recognize with sadness and accept his fading powers. Although each new script is filled with situations rich with comic possibilities, over the last several years he has lacked the energy or inspiration to explore them satisfactorily. But the decline has reached the point where it represents the majority of his oeuvre. One is forced to the regrettable conclusion that he still makes movies for the old man's reason that he can't stop himself from doing what he's done all his life, or he can't maintain his lifestyle on Social Security. Are his financiers in fact enablers?

How depressing it is that so many great artists lose the fire of their youth just when they're reaching the age of reflection and alleged wisdom. When was the last time McCartney wrote a great song? How long would Gershwin have lasted artistically had it not been for the brain tumor? Personal tragedies aside, Mark Twain just wasn't that funny during the white suit period Hal Holbrook uses in his one-man show; most of that material came from his productive years. Thurber wasn't funny in his final years. Neil Sedaka once said in an interview on NPR that productivity fades because one's standards rise with age. Hm. Nice try, Neil. Roth is still worthwhile as he nears 80, but that makes him extraordinary. Artists need a blue pill of their own.

I love Woody for what he's done in his life, but he didn't deserve this latest Oscar. They shouldn't give Oscars for nicest try. Lowbrow as it may have been, "Bridesmaids" was genuinely funny from beginning to end. No stunning epiphanies, thank God, but a splendid time guaranteed for all. A genuine comedy qua comedy (ah, the pseudo-intellectualism prevails). I didn't think anyone but Tina Fey could pull that off these days.

Apologies if I screwed up the Captcha and this is a repeat.
My preference in Leone is Once Upon A Time In The West: both traditional and modern, like Kane, Both also great and fun movies.. Lebowski of course. And I overlooked Some Like It Hot.
Error message: the greatest last line of a novel :" Meet Mrs Bundren."

Ebert: Here's what I wrote:

No, I knew you wouldn't have gotten it wrong. I was replying to another reader a little bit further up on this page who said it was Discreet Charm.

"The Artist" was among my favorite films of 2012.

Movies like The Artist are so rare. They inform us of all the things that movies were made for, to transport us to another time and place, and to allow us to enter a dreamy world if only for a couple of hours. The effect of this film on a true movie lover is not explained, it is only experienced. How effective is it? Let me put it this way: There is a moment early in the film, when Peppy enters alone into George’s office. She finds his coat on a hanger. She slips her right arm into the empty left sleeve and wraps the arm around herself. George comes in and catches her. The two share a quiet romantic moment so tender and so touching that, I swear, it reminded of why I go to the movies.

I wonder how many of the "40 Things You Didn't Know About The Godfather" Roger Ebert knew. (time.com today)

I'm e-mailing this to you for the second time just in case you haven't received it,

I don't trust machines; they can further the suspicion between to parties, but if

you did receive it ...you could've gave some feedbacks or twitter it on your page.

I've spend nearly an hour cleaning it making sure it qualifies for an PG-13 rating.

Ebert: Terek, I'll have to be honest with you. The reason I didn't post it the first time was that it was waaaay too long for me to properly vet. I'm posting it now. I hope we get some feedback from readers.

One of us! one of us! Gooble-gobble, gooble-gobble! one...

"Everyone is entitled to their own prerogative or opinion ...and I
respect that, how else should I know who you are; if you have none"

*Note: This blog entry is mainly for the geeks,
if you go to the movies to amuse yourself or to have fun
...then look somewhere else; you might find you're little feelings shredded,
enter at you're own risk; I'm not a fan of snoopers who think they are invited
...when they're not, this is more of an actor's den with some sidelines.

************

"There is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that
one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions"
_______________________________________________Jane Austin

Hey undercover critic ...what's chillin'; the traffic of thoughts out there has
been a bit hectic; here's a big apple. What gives man..............where were you
hiding these movies; that's not fair, if I knew you were going to do this every
year I would've gone into hibernation (I think that's what suits me the most;
the months of October to March; then I will pursue the other months with
stimulating activities ...like a party, watching the Summer Olympics and a
couple of blockbuster; in which one ...a sci-fi by a prolific filmmaker who has
given us some of the best of the genre), literally the season of good movies
(the least to say) started with I believe Melancholia, after that I couldn't keep up;
at least a dozen of respectable movies every week.
The year has just begun and I've already seen some of the best so far;
like ...Rampart, Coriolanus, We Need to Talk About Kevin... seriously,
I don't think I'll forget them come next season.

You see that's why I shop at Ebert, not only for the great deals and bargains;
the man is negotiable and gives out recommendations over others, unlike the
other retailers......buy,buy,buy; greedy little bastards; aren't they ...they want
their cake and they want to eat it; even if it isn't theirs to begin with,
everything must go,........hoarding everything.
What some selfish dimwit's don't know; is that for others to prosper "artistically"
......they have to maintain a certain state.

Stay tuned for special offers.

After a list like yours; I think it suffices the deal, but since we're not living in the
forties, seventies, fifties or the sixties; greatness is scarce these days;
an exception is necessary, this is the best that I could come up with and think
about for those couple of years that started the decade. (fiction before factual art)
I'm not a fan of conventional expression; there's no art in that ...just business.

Films of 2011-------------------------------------------Films of 2010
The Tree of Life----------------------------------------You the living
Shame(*)*-----------------------------------------------a good...Inception...
Applause*(:x Paprika Steen)-----------------------for a new decade
Take Shelter(*)*---------------------------------------A Prophet
A Separation-------------------------------------------I am Love
Melancholia*------------------------------------------The King's Speech
Drive(*)--------------------------------------------------Winter's Bone
Source Code(*)----------------------------------------The American
A Dangerous Method(*)*----------------------------Silent Light
Martha Marcy-----------------------------------------The Black Swan
May Marlene(*)---------------------------------------The Social Network
+Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy*-----------------------+Carlos (a superior "character
("+"a guilty pleasure); I can't resist--------------study; not movie" over Che Guevara)
the meticulous craftsmanship of a Swiss watch; even if it only gives the time,
and the best cast assembly since L.A. Confidential (a tad bitter was I with last years'
Graham Greene's classic Brighton Rock; which I wanted to like equally for it's fine
acting and beautifully photography), look out for that sneaky (yet never miscast)
little known actor Simon McBurney, he should have played Robert Durst;
it would've been sublime (nevertheless its a very great and taut piece of filmmaking;
its as if all sneaky things sprouted from the likes of Hitchcock and Polanski for a
documentarian perspective). It's good to see Gary Oldman back in
a legitimate role; its been a while, whats left now is for Captain Morgan
(y'all know who I'm talking about; there is only one great Morgan) to
mutinies his agent and go after a superior one; probably Ed Harris'.
I absolutely love Roy Andersson, his You the living captures my artistic upbringing
(if Charlie Kaufman haven't done Synecdoche, New York ...this would've been my favorite
movie of the decade) up until high school; by then I was not a film geek, the amazing
catch I had with this; is the influence he had on his work ...isn't art just glories, please
Sir; don't abandon the monochrome; it suits you the most.
It's a bless we have such wonderful filmmakers as Roy Andersson, Spike Jonze,
Charlie Kaufman, Richard Linklater etc. working today; giving some hope to a
somewhat dying medium, in a time when most professional directors have converted to
all out digital (by the way chief ...loved that blog on DigitalvsFilm some months back),
one looks at a shot these days; the composition of elements in a single scene is so staggering
for the trained eye in its entirety; that it overwhelms itself by the multi-layered obscurity
...a breath of fresh air is necessary afterwards.
(*)Breakthrough/rising artist/s of the decade,
a segment Siskel&Ebert use to have on their show.
*Best performance/s of the year.

Pop quiz hot shot; you've got twenty minutes to read though this riddle before the bomb
on the bus explodes; (the irony about that line; is that somewhere on this planet a bomb
will explode on a bus, car, train, subway, airplane etc. and it has nothing to do with me;
I just hope they are not reading ...), what has no weight; sometimes is big and other times
can barely be seen with a naked eye; if placed on something would reduce it's weight; has
no life and is usually black ....give up, stick around to figure out the answer.

Wow... Methodist in the twenty first century (a method actor in this industry is nothing
more than a nuisance); whoever knew that Steve McQueen had it in him after nearly a
century from its birth on the silver screen to resurrect it; godspeed.
There's a lot......a lot to be said about Michael Fassbenders astounding depiction of this
character (amazing how the only thing they could remember is his nudity ...like they say;
you are what you eat, but not the beating he took, an indication that most of y'all get a
beating regularly and keep you're cloth's on under the shower ...fearing you're weiner
might get a little smaller under that cold shower) in contrast to the Joe Taylor character
in David Mackenzie very wonderfully made and beautifully shot picture Young Adam,
from how the actors managed to get the part; to how well did they've executed it,
the Ella Gault character holds one of the key.
There is an awful lot of consistency a thespian has to put up with in accomplishing
a powerful performance these days; the least to say (hence the rarity), moreover than
a director has the freedom to indulge oneself into tricking the untrained eye of the
audience with the believe that he or she has accomplished something.
Nothing more do I adore than an artist who picks and choices the projects they like
to be a part of and distinguishes themselves from the rest of the flocks, that's art.
Surely; nothing came out from not being serious about your work.

I just have one wish for those rising artists:
"Don't sell yourself cheap" by placing yourself into one to many mindless
motion pictures; and by that I mean intellectually not financially, money
comes and goes, they will always find another actor to replace you; but they
won't find another one like you, learn from you're predecessors who are of the
same generation as you are; the likes of Macaulay Culkin, Edward Furlong,
Joaquin Phoenix and Haley Joel Osment, who've been used by the industry,
and now left out practically uninfused. In this industry ...if you're not making
the dough...it's called employment; which is a whole nother thing.

One shan't forget Eric Roberts when he tricked us into believing that he was
just portraying another stereotypical character in The Pope of Greenwich Village till
the end; when we realized how enveloped we where in his creation that he simply
pulled the rug from beneath us and stole the whole show, even though he was
surrounded by a wonderful cast. They shouldn't have taken his finger away from
him; how else would he have been able to use it to his advantage for his later projects.

Hey chef Ebert; did you catch Tyrannosaur; I hear it's tasty with some broccoli.......
I believe it is this years Pollack, Dead man Walking, The Fugitive Kind, Who's afraid of
Virginia Wolf, My Left Foot, Reflections in a Golden Eye, Breaking the Waves, Barfly,
Hud, Cat on a hot Tin roof, Oscar and Lucinda, A Streetcar named desire......etc.,
descendants of Tennessee Williams, with a powerhouse performance by its leads including
Peter Mullan; in which he makes a comic book villain seem reasonable and turns
My Name is Joe into his blueprint, remember that scene where he faces another guy and
his dog; ......for the first time in my life I was actually afraid for the other two,
(Washington should be thankful that the likes of him where not amongst those who
occupied wall street (them protesters); it would have turned into Lybia all over again,
or is it Egypt.......probably Syria?! and today with Madrid, Brussels, Prague ...et.,
I can't believe I'm saying this: but I'm starting to enjoy this so called recession; it brought
out the true colour of beings and compliments the artist' soul), take notes kids.....who like
to dress up and act in front of the mirror; it's not the quantity whats on your resume......
but the quality, the likes of Peter Mullan, Jodie Foster, Al Pacino, Daniel Day-Lewis,
Jessica Lange .....to name a few, they don't perceive this medium as means for income, they're
not here to stack up or push numbers, it's not a job for them; but more of a profession.
Oops; I called you chef chief.......you are a chef as well; aren't you.

I would like to thank the Oscar committee for doing their homework and omitting anyone
from the list above, obviously they have learned from the previous decade; that it is not very
wise to give out the award or nominee artists that are still young (unless they're part of the
family); what else would they look up to after that, it's like they are encouraging them to
come back with more great work and wonderful projects (sar.) ...thumbs up.

And now two for two;
For those out there who loved The King's Speech, should check out the version
for the younger audience; called Rocket Science, and for everybody else who liked
American Psycho should check out the female perspective (the closest that you would get)
with Female Perversions, both have perfect casting choice for the leading part.
To seal the deal (third is a charm); I shall include this third one free of charge,
just remember to kickstart a better year for movies......
Ignore ......what was that last one called....oh; The Devil Inside
(the first week of the year and this is how they introduce it to us,
and they say they want hope; maybe if you dig deep in someones hole
...backdoor hole you might find some of that hope you've been looking for)
...they're a dime a dozen, literally a couple of dozen of Exorcist wannabe were
made in the past six or seven years alone, take this for inspiration; save your money
and instead of a dozen of those; why don't you give us a movie dealing with the whereabout
of the younger individuals living in this state of economy; and how they (cope) make ends meet
and why do some of them have to walk around looking like hoodlums; hence the baggy getup.
......Instead take this forgotten treasure; its called Barabbas and it stars two time Oscar
winner Anthony Quinn, (it is one/ten of Hollywood best epic's; thirties-eighties) Richard Fleischer
best work; the man was aiming for a masterpiece and somewhat managed to succeed...............
right after the eighties; when hundreds or thousands of extras was a mouse click away.

Major kodu's to Mr. Cronenberg for a very humble and mature shift to his art; turning
his mantle over to his apprentece Guillermo Del Toro and long time production designer
Carol Spier, actually his last four or five movies are amongst the best of his work;
including eXistenZ which I loved a lot back then, one critic praised it by saying "It makes
The Matrix look like child's play", now whats left for the man to do; is to work with the
father of avant-garde thespians John Malkovich and Alan Rickman, Brad Dourif and
Crispin Glover; since he worked with the most: Jeremy Irons, James Spader, James Woods,
Willeam Dafoe, Christpher Walken, Debra Kara Unger, Michael Ironside and Viggo Moreston.

****************************

Seriously guys; once you put a price on art;
......you're bound to be doomed, .....van Gogh
must be turning in his grave; causing some sort of butterfly effect.
"Are you sure y'all know what you're meddling with"

What's the deal with Chris Cunningham ...he should be dancing by now; all of his colleagues
whom started in this so called business directing music videos; are today well established and
distinguished director's; the likes of Spike Jones, David Fincher, Michel Godfry, Tarsem Singh
........, he is an exception amongst them.

A vital notion Mr. Ebert didn't get into details when reviewing the latest
reincarnation of The Thing, that it is dominated by C.G.I., whereas John
Carpenter's version nearly thirty years before this one; was mainly the
creativity of one very talented makeup-animatronic artist that goes by
the name of Rob Bottin, with some astonishing sequences as the spider
head which was duplicated before in such silly films as The Faculty,
when we see the actors starring at some Thing; we can relate to their
reaction; because it is all real, whereas when the actors are staring at
something in this version (for the lack of something), they are actually
staring at each others crotches for inspiration; hence the cheesy acting.

You know the latest movie by Andrew Niccol; (who gave me the slickest
and most elegant science fiction movie of the nineties; I'm sure the likes of
Brian De Palma or Machael Mann would have been proud of, those five
years from nintyfive-nintynine; in particular for nintynine (a good year to
end the century) are the best years for movies and for any kid (like myself)
whose about to go to college; a good foundation of the least tied with the
rise of future great directors; I've mentioned them once in your blogs).
Somewhat plays a good contrast; parallel to Hollywood's method on
accomplishing a feature film in the necessary time, I wonder if it was his
source of inspiration, the movie is about its characters and their life expectancy,
versus Hollywood's time allotted in establishing its characters, whereas
these days movies are being finished within weeks; time is running out on
establishing them characters..........Something that I liked about Pauline Kael;
she was one of the last to identify with the middle man (between the product
and the finished product there is hardly any walking going on), (chief ...
you are only short on one wonderful blog that I could think of..."friendship!",
in this business it can be bought; whereas in real life it has to be earned),
unlike these days; straight to the blow.

Something that's nowhere to be found in this so called Mission: Impossible
franchise; which has nothing over the Bourne trilogy and this cast with the
exception of a couple of actors is in no comparison to Peter Graves or
Martin Landau aka.Rollin Hand and his crew; even to the original M.I.,
although Mr. Bird has done some enthralling stuff with Ghost Protocol;
including a couple of thrilling staged sequences...................,
but then the same thing could have been said if the likes of Martin Campbell,
Roger Spottiswoode, Lee Tamahori and in particular Renny Harlin where in
his place instead, this isn't what the series should be like; it belongs more
to the likes of John le Carre rather than Ian Fleming, the man who helmed this
series ...Brian De Palma was the appropriate one for this sort of material;
or the likes of Michael Mann, Christopher Nolan, David Fincher
(I remember when Empire magazine announced that he was to direct the
second sequel; imagine the career he would've had; (John Woo is a wonderful
action director but is not cut out for this sort of material even though the man
claims that Le Samourai is one of his favorite pictures, nevertheless
his fans should check out his epic Red Cliff....you will be wooed)
I was the most excited kid in those couple of months or so; until news came
out that he was fired.........not until two thousand eight did I recuperated),
even Alfred Hitchcock would have been wonderful for this sort of material.

______________________

You are right on the money with you're entry of great films, actually
F.W. Murnau Nosferatu, Metropolis, M, La passion de Jeanne d'Arc,
Battleship Potemkin, The General and Un Chien Andalou are what
I consider amongst the templet of films and this version is probably
the best remake ever put on film (actually remake is belittling it a bit;
I prefer revision, not all remakes are the same), for the many reasons;
I shall point out one in particular.
I believe the colour that you where trying to refer in your review was "bone",
you see there are lots of shades of colours between white and beige; bone
is one of them, fortunately... unfortunately I lived in war torn countries and
cities, on our way home to/from school; we would sometimes come across
some scattered materials after a breeze; sometimes a rotten limb, you see
when a limb dries out, first the skin; then the muscle tissue withers away
and the blood already has been drained; whats left is basically bone with
some red and blue "dried out veins", that's the palate Mr. Herzog used for
his film, when I was a pupil learning drawing from my mentors, they would
explain to me ...that to make colours stick out from others; one would have
to eliminate certain colours, there is no "colour" in Mr. Herzog's canvas for
Nosferatu; he and his dp. drained it from such thing, that's why it's creepy.
The first time I saw this film; shivers went down my spine, asking myself if
such a place does exist (it actually does; the location of the first one), with
my earlier experience; I was made.

**************

(Just for the record I'm not a dp. major or a student of that sector
(only took a course to perceive it from a technical aspect; which is obsolete),
my passion and love with Cinematography sprouted from my birth parents;
one is a painter and the other was a photographer and the rest came natural)
A loss end/clarification I didn't bring up in regards of me having Bad Lieutenant:
Port of Call-New Orleans on my list of the greatest motion pictures of the last
decade, Abel Ferrara is the original source and is equally great, his version is
about this raw character whereas Herzog's version is more about the making
of such character (the actor had his work cut out for him); by doing so it becomes
his own and quite original; giving Harvey Keitel one of the greatest performances
of the decade; right up there with Billy Bob Thorton, Emily Watson, Sir Ian McKellan,
Sean Penn, Brenda Blethyn, Hilary Swank, Jessica Lange and Sir Anthony Hopkins etc.

*************

A recommendation for those who dig Herzog, check out Cobra Verde; it is
the last collaboration between Wernor Herzog and one of Europe's great
actors; Klaus Kinski (my answer to America's Wileom Dafoe, plus those deep
haunting eyes he borrowed from Anna Magnani), although it isn't in par
with their earlier works together; it contains some of the most breathtaking
images (scenes & sequences) put on film in the past twenty years or so,
hair on your skin will stand, more today than when it was first released,
especially when ashes of the twentieth century has already simmered down
and settled in certain areas, "they shouldn't have let the kid out of the picture";
it was just a matter of time when Mr. Sejay Aye, came swindling about.
Pauline Kael was such an admirer of Wernor Herzog.

Closing thoughts:
I've been getting various feed backs from admirers, colleagues, fans etc.
questioning sometimes my sentimentality.......
I have only this to say; I don't know anybody from the above, I like to perceive
this medium from a professional standpoint ...and I like to keep it that way;
that's what sets me apart from most of the others.
I wouldn't dream to give rise to a scumbag, loyalty goes a long way and
differs from one hand to another.

...................................................................

I'm almost surprised you like the Oscars so much. It's all just more marketing posing as genuine art appreciation. Film history is replete with snubs. Getting it right should be the rule and not the exception. For more of my opinion, click on my name if you want to.

Aaah ................how sweet; quack quack,
thanks for the tip man; that's mighty thoughtful of you.

I think I've accustomed myself to the old fashion method
of the pen/pencil & paper (in which we are not familiarized
in using them); the spectrum is broader, you've got "the pen
or pencil" and all of its kinds; "ink" and all of its sorts and
"paper" and all of its types introspectively appose the narrow
margin of the machine, even though it's there on the computer,
whether its the brackets, the guillement or even the brace,
I shall try gradually to learn how to integrate them in my writings.
Its always good to know there is something to look forward to.

I like your composition of this paragraph; it sounds ...how should
I put it ...gallant and prune and better than some of my paragraphs.

Looking forward in reading your feedback's to
either one of Roger Ebert's blog entries.


********************

You've got a point ...chief; it is a bit long,
probably if I had nipped a little from the tip;
it would've been more appreciated by certain parties.
Since I haven't written any feedbacks
(missed out on some great blog entries)
to any of your blogs for some time;
that spring break got me carried away.
Looking back at it ...I wish you didn't post
it; for it being ugly in two different ways;
The poor editing of each paragraph; lead
to the hasty editing of the paragraphs.