I walked out of the theater

Rating: 3/10 (28 January 2012)

After watching "The Artist" for 1 hour I walked out of the theater. I was so bored and irritated that I preferred to stretch my legs in fresh air. Here are the reasons I have given this movie a rating of 3 out of 10:
(1) Visually, the movie is grainy and blurry. There was no need to subject the audience to such awful cinematography. The fact that the movie is in black & white is not an excuse to avoid employing modern techniques. Since the movie is without color, I had expected the director to compensate by making the movie visually striking. After all, black & white can be used to tremendous effect. Unfortunately, this is not the case here. Scenes, lighting, props, etc. are visually uninteresting.
(2) The movie insults the intelligence of a modern audience. It's insulting because it beats us over the head with one single message -- that the silent film actor is on his way out. We are presented with scene after scene that re-reminds us of this fact. I left the theater after the scene in which people are walking on top of photos of the main actor's face (on a flyer for his failed movie). OK, we got that message 30 minutes earlier. Isn't there anything else?
(3) The movie has minimal plot. Yes, the silent film actor is on his way out. We get that, but that is all that this movie presents to us in the first hour.
(4) When compared to the good silent films of the 1920s, this film comes up sorely lacking. It has none of the thrilling scenes, dramatic acting, comedy, etc. of those films (at least for the first hour)
(5) It is ironic that the movie is (in a very shallow way) about how talkies replaced silent films and here we are, stuck watching a boring silent film! It is also ironic that the only interesting scene is the one in which some sound is introduced.
(6) The music sound track is also very boring and unimaginative.
(7) I think it is fine to have grainy, blurry visuals, and bad acting when the movie is depicting scenes that are being filmed by the film company of that era. But when a scene shifts to something happening to the main character off-stage, then we should not be treated to the same blurry cinematography and bad acting.
Once I realized that I was horribly bored and that my intelligence was being insulted, and that I didn't care what happened to any of the characters (and, except for the main character, the others are all one-dimensional) then I knew I had to leave the theater.
What amazes me is that this movie is getting such high ratings.