313: The Artist

[00:00:00] Chapter 24

[00:05:03] The music is excellent in the movie. The final dance sequence, perfect. Like that is the classic sort of Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers dance sequence. I love that. And so clearly he has a true love and knowledge and passion for early film.

[00:05:22] Really one of the only things that bring the movie down for me is George's main characters, his decline where he's trying to get movies made in the sound era, but he wants to do silent films instead.

[00:05:38] Him losing his money because of the stock market and getting rejected and this and that it goes on a little long. And I think it gets a little repetitive in that last 20, 30 minutes where he's saying no, no. And then there's a chance, Oh no,

[00:05:51] I'm not going to do that either. And people trying to reason with him that goes on too long for me, not horrible and it's still entertaining, but there is a point where I'm starting to lose interest a little bit. I'm kind of ready for that final dance sequence.

[00:06:04] And I can't remember if my first viewing of it, I thought of that very much, but definitely on rewatches that pacing, maybe it's a script, I don't know, but that part of the movie does drag a bit for me. But other than that, very good performances,

[00:06:18] love Jean Dujardin. He's done a lot of great American films ever since this. Bernice Bejew, I saw her in A Knight's Tale. I don't think I've seen her in anything else. I think she's mainly done French movies, but she's awesome in this. John Goodman,

[00:06:36] really everybody is excellent and they definitely have a good balance of paying homage, but also maintaining a sort of modern feel and making sure that modern audiences who may never have seen a silent movie before can kind of get into the feel of it without being ostracized.

[00:06:54] So that's another strong point to the writer director, because that's hard to do. You don't want to criticize or pander to lovers of silent early film, but you also don't want to completely talk down to the people who don't. So I do like the movie a lot.

[00:07:14] It is overrated. I don't know if I would say that necessarily, but it is still nevertheless very solid, very entertaining. Oh, quick thing. Big thing. Star of the show of this movie is the dog. The dog is amazing. Love everything about it.

[00:07:33] Like where he saves him from the burning building. Like all that stuff is great. So enjoyable dog is great in this. So that is a heavy four out of five.