14-01-2011

This year I have seen two excellent films where the stars of the show were upstaged by a small dog.

Today it was The Artist - Director Michel Hazanvicius' homage to the end of the silent movie era. The film is lovingly shot in and around the same landmarks and buildings that were used originally.....Uggie the dog steals the show in all of the scenes in which he appears.

* On a side note last year Laura and myself watched a Josephine Baker silent movie with a live piano accompaniment at the same film theatre, my thought to give Laura the opportunity to see a black and white silent film very much as it would have been performed at the time. I felt it unlikely that black and white silent movies would ever be seen again.... how wrong I was.
The film plays the stereotypes of the age so well, and the very, very occasional use of sound is masterly.Plot Spoiler alert - the most telling being the leading man's heavy accent when he utters his only spoken lines at the very end of the piece, which would possibly have prevented his move to 'the talkies'.

A few weeks ago it was Beginners where Arthur stole the very considerable limelight from his stellar co stars ( Christopher Plummer was quite masterful as the 'out' Dad)

Good to see man's best friend showing that he to can act...... even though the rewards are I believe a little easier to build into a movie budget than are those of the rest of the cast!

Both films make it into my top 10 films that I have seen while here in The Hague, I look forward to seeing how well they do in the upcoming big Hollywood Awards