The Artist

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In honor of the Academy Awards or the Oscars or the National Book Award or whatever show is on tonight, Dan and I went to see The Artist last night, a big deal for us because we don't often go to the cinema, as it were. Even though we arrived before the movie started, all of the seats in the normal part of the theatre were taken, leaving us only the nosebleed, head-cricking row right up against the front. We weren't alone, and bonded with the strangers around us in that way you do when you're all in a slightly irritating but unfixable position. We tilted our heads back and dealt with it.

For those of you who don't know anything about the movie, it's an old style black and white silent film with subtitles. Very purposefully melodramatic and it had pretty much every silent movie cliche embedded in the body of the film, including the part where the little dog saves his owner's life by running out and barking at a policeman who then pulls the guy out of the fire. Lots of imagery was really beautiful. Pace was somewhat slow and it ended in a tap dance duo between the two main characters, but it was overall, a satisfying movie.

Here's the movie poster for your viewing  pleasure.


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