Culture Shock 02.23.12: 'Artist' makes Oscar case loud and clear

"The Artist" is nominated for 10 Academy Awards and is favored to win at least a couple of the top prizes, including Best Picture and Best Director for Michel Hazanavicius.

That's good because "The Artist" is easily the best of this year's nine Oscar-nominated films.

Still, it's a shame that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' antiquated, arbitrary and sometimes just plain bizarre rules — the same rules that allow the Academy to continue ignoring Andy Serkis' brilliant motion-capture performances year after year — don't allow Jack Russell terriers to compete for Best Supporting Actor.

Otherwise, Uggie, who steals "The Artist" as easily as he might steal a sausage, would end the streak of supporting actor wins Christopher Plummer has racked up this awards season.

The Oscars always say more about Academy voters than they do about the year's best films, so it's best not to take them too seriously — or seriously at all most years.

(Nine Best Picture nominees, and the Academy still manages to snub 2011's two best films not titled "The Artist" — "Young Adult" and "Drive"? It's insane.)

When the Academy recognizes the year's best film as such, it's usually a happy coincidence. I think the last time that happened was "Silence of the Lambs" in 1991.

We're due for another happy coincidence, and "The Artist" — backed by the Weinstein Company's hype machine — just might provide it. Never mind all that Weinstein hoopla, "The Artist" is a magnificent, magical piece of work.

"The Artist" is set during Hollywood's transition from silent films to talkies, an era Hazanavicius and cinematographer Guillaume Schiffman capture beautifully in sparkling black and white, taking full advantage of the narrow, old-style 1.37:1 aspect ratio to give us gorgeous vertical scenes such as one taking place on a staircase.

George Valentin (Best Actor nominee Jean Dujardin) is one of the silent era's biggest stars, with a trusty canine sidekick (Uggie) and admiring fans such as Peppy Miller (Best Supporting Actress nominee Bérénice Bejo), herself an aspiring actress working her way up from bit parts in chorus lines.

Peppy's timing is perfect. She has a voice for sound, and the studios are looking for new talent to usher in the dawn of talking pictures.

Meanwhile, George's star is fading, and when his studio drops him, he sinks his own money into making a silent movie — just as the Great Depression looms. Not the best of timing for long-shot bets.

"The Artist" features a solid supporting cast, including John Goodman as a cigar-chomping mogul, Penelope Ann Miller as George's disillusioned wife and, especially, James Cromwell as George's faithful chauffeur. But this is Dujardin and Bejo's movie to carry. And because "The Artist," like the movies it honors, is a "silent" film, they do so without saying a word.

Yet the artist isn't really a silent movie. It uses music, sound and silence to create an alternate universe where everyone "speaks" in title cards and spoken conversations are some scary, science-fiction monster from the future, ruthlessly invading the present.

In that silence, too much is left unsaid. George's wife keeps her unhappiness and disappointments mostly to herself. George and Peppy remain quiet about their mutual attraction. And the secrets they keep from each other could lead to disaster for them both.

Hazanavicius may have a nostalgic fondness for the silent era, but in the end he and "The Artist" side with the talkies — and with talking.

If Uggie could talk, he'd say he deserves that supporting actor award.

Oscar winners are only certainty in an uncertain biz

If you’re the sort of person who expects the unexpected, then Sunday’s Oscar telecast was probably almost as disappointing for you as it was for Mickey Rourke.

This year’s Academy Awards ceremony was completely devoid of surprises, unless you count the surprising lack of surprises. No out-of-nowhere winners like Marisa Tomei or Roberto Benigni. No one-armed push-ups. No streaker running past a delightfully unperturbed David Niven.

Usually the Oscars offer up one or two unexpected moments, if only to make you forget how predictable the rest of Hollywood’s annual celebration of itself really is. This year, however, not even that. The 2009 edition was so paint-by-numbers that kindergartners could have written the jokes. As it was, Bruce Vilanch wrote the jokes — as usual. And that’s basically the same thing.

“Slumdog Millionaire” took home the top prizes of Best Picture and Best Director. Sean Penn robbed Rourke just like he robbed Bill Murray in 2004. Kate Winslet finally snagged the Best Actress prize she should have won years ago. Heath Ledger received a posthumous Best Supporting Actor honor.

And so on.

It was all from the standard playbook. Oscar voters love to reward middlebrow, little-seen art films. They love to pat Penn on the back when he’s the least-deserving nominee. They love to make up for past mistakes. And they love to give awards to actors who play psychopaths (for example, Anthony Hopkins). There are exceptions to the first rule, like “Titanic,” a middlebrow film everyone saw, and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.” But even “The Return of the King” falls under the making-up-for-past-mistakes rule. It won after the first two movies in the trilogy lost.

The Academy Awards are so predictable that filmmakers sometimes make movies with Oscar gold in mind, which is often a winning strategy, at least so long as it isn’t too obvious. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Changeling” were two films this year that went too far and came up empty as a result, except for a few technical awards for “Benjamin Button.” Nobody wants to see a movie beg.

Still, I was happy to see Ledger and Winslet win, even if, now that she has her Oscar, Winslet says she isn’t doing any more nude scenes. Gee, thanks, Kate. Leave the nude scenes to actresses so thin that when they turn sideways all you can see are their implants. Meh.

Maybe I’m being too hard on Hollywood. You can’t really blame the Oscars for being predictable. They’re about the only thing in Hollywood that is. Compared to figuring out how to make a profitable movie, figuring out how to make an Oscar-winning one is easy.

Consider the top grossing movie of 2009 so far, “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.” Granted, it’s only February, but who would have predicted that a lowbrow “comedy” about a security guard would top the box office in its opening weekend, let alone be the top grossing movie two months into the year? No one, that’s who.

If you’ve ever wondered why the major studios make the movies they do, it’s because no one in Hollywood actually knows what they are doing. And I don’t mean that as an insult. I mean moviemaking is the riskiest, least predictable business on Earth. Most movies are lucky to make back their production and promotional costs after factoring in overseas grosses and DVD sales. If you’re a studio executive, you just hope that a couple of your movies hit big enough to make up the difference and keep you in your job.

It isn’t that Hollywood isn’t trying to appeal to moviegoers. It’s that moviegoers are the most fickle market there is.

Arthur De Vany, professor emeritus of economics at the University of California, Irvine, and author of “Hollywood Economics: How Extreme Uncertainty Shapes the Film Industry,” went looking for some pattern of success in Hollywood and found none. Nothing can predict whether a movie will be a hit or a flop. Sequels are slightly less risky, which probably explains why Hollywood makes so many of them. But even most sequels are more likely to lose money at the domestic box office than break even.

So, I can’t begrudge Hollywood its one night of predictability. Ironically, it’s the only night when the movies stick to the script.