Why I want Hugo to win Best Picture

Let's be real: The Artist is probably going to go all in on Sunday.  Which I'm not pleased about.  I haven't seen all of the Best Picture noms (I'm short War Horse, Midnight in Paris, The Descendants, and Extremely Inconvenient & Incredibly Annoying), but I did see The Artist and I did see Hugo and there's no question to me that Hugo is a superior film and a superior experience.

For one thing, Hugo IS an experience.  Watching The Artist, it felt like a lot of work on my part for not a lot of payoff; I didn't feel like the filmmakers had made the same kind of effort that they were requiring me to make.  Let me try to explain that better: Hugo is a film that I felt asked for effort on my part (mostly it demands an emotional investment) but was also clearly a labor of love and craft.  The Artist demands intellectual effort by virtue of its form, but seems lazy in how it was put together.  Down to the performances (I thought Asa Butterfield and Ben Kingsley both turned out more convincing jobs than Jean Dujardin, no matter how charming he might be) I was more involved, more enraptured, more rewarded by Hugo.

Other wins I want to see tomorrow: Viola Davis for Best Actress, Octavia Spencer for Best Supporting Actress, Jonah Hill for Best Supporting Actor, Margin Call for Best Original Screenplay.  I want to see some slammin' dresses on the red carpet, and I want Billy Crystal to pull it out and be awesome as host.  We'll see how it goes!

Oscar Roundup: The Artist

The Artist.  So...that happened.  I'm going to say flat out that I don't understand why so many people are so excited about this movie.  I thought it was kind of interesting, and sort of a fun experiment, but overall?  I was honestly pretty bored.  It was saved a bit for me by the absolutely charming acting jobs by Berenice Bejo and Jean Dujardin, but when I left the theater I wasn't impressed.

This is short because I don't have a lot to say (SEE WHAT I DID THERE), but I'm pretty mystified by everyone going nuts over this movie.  (To say nothing of how baffled I am that this experiment in silent film earned a Best Original Screenplay nomination.)  I guess my big issue is that yes, it was kind of interesting to watch a silent film in this day and age, but I didn't get why it was done this way?  I don't feel that having The Artist be silent and in black and white added anything to my experience watching it.  Hugo, the other love letter to film that's collecting accolades this year, is also about the history of film - but it's dynamic, exciting, and beautiful.  Which are not adjectives I would have used to describe The Artist.