The Artist

The Artist, a surprising film from the people who brought us the outstanding comedies OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio, gives us Jean Dujardin in the serious role of George Valentin, a star of the silent era.  Cairo co-star Bérénice Bejo plays the girl he helps, and who winds up helping him when the movies transition to sound.  It won Best Picture last year, and it’s a fine introduction to silent film for those who may feel put off by the medium.

Dujardin, Bejo; and supporting actors John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Anne Miller, and the wonderful Beth Grant; provide a sense of familiarity and the comfort of modern acting technique to this mostly silent, beautifully black-and-white film.  Their casting gives us the “in” to ease our adaptation to the silent mind-set, in which we gather all we really need to know by reading the faces and all we’d like to know by reading the placards.  And the story?  Well, the story’s fine.  We enjoy Dujardin’s early triumph in the Silent Era.  We smile and thrill when Bejo hits the scene and begins her rise.  We feel Dujardin’s despair when he feels that life has passed him by.  And … well, see for yourself.

I loved this film’s celebration of the Silents, films that still have the power to entertain and move us.  I loved this film’s look and feel.  I loved its cast, I loved its story, and I loved its resolution.  I loved The Artist.  Here’s looking to more great work (and more silly comedy) from these people in the future.

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

My 12-yr-old has been badgering me to let him watch some classic slasher movies just so he can see what they’re all about.  I’m thinking of caving, if for no other reason than to prepare him for Tucker & Dale vs. Evil.

Tucker and Dale (Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine) are a couple of well-meaning best friends.  They’re also hillbillies.  They dress like hillbillies, they talk like hillbillies, and they’re thrilled to be spending their vacation at their newly-purchased vacation home, a creepy cabin on a lake in the woods decorated with old news clippings of ancient horrors, wind chimes made of bone, and deadly booby traps.  Something tells me they bought the place sight unseen.

The College Kids are your stock group of College Kids off for a weekend of camping, drinking, dope, and sex.  Had they been Norwegian college kids, they’d have wound up contending with Nazi zombies in the snow.  As it is, all they have are Tucker and Dale.  When they see the two pulling one of their own into their canoe and paddling off, they assume their friend’s been abducted by evil hillbilly psychos and the fight’s on.  Tucker and Dale, of course, had simply been out fishing, saved the girl from drowning, and were taking her back to their new cabin to nurse her back to health.

And so begins a surprisingly funny, surprisingly gory horror-comedy in the vein of Evil Dead 2 and Slither.  The College Kids think they’re fighting for their lives and go about creatively killing themselves through oddball accidents, the hillbillies think they’ve stumbled upon some weird murder-suicide cult, and the recovering girl just wants to help sort things out.  By the time Actual Evil rears its ugly head and literally binds the girl in a sawmill, we’ve laughed and cringed and grooved along so happily that we’re actually sorry the climax is upon us.  The underappreciated Tudyk is just great, Labine hits all the right notes, and damsel in distress Katrina Bowden is lovely as the sweet College Kid with a surprising background.

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil is charming and gory and funny and altogether successful.  My 12-yr-old may not yet be ready for this kind of film; when he is, I look forward to sharing it with him.