Artists satisfies but it's still overrated

Rating: 8/10 (25 February 2012)

I read an interesting take on The Artist here: http://4thdimensionfilms.wordpress.com/
When I first saw "The Artist," I couldn't quite make out whether this film was a gimmicky effort made to appeal to a niche segment of cinephiles or a finely crafted homage to the silent era.
Directed by the relatively unknown Michel Hazanavicius, "Artist" (2011) has garnered glowing critical review including three Oscar nominations for Hazanavicius: best director, best original screenplay and best editing.
Despite that, "Artist" is still not in the same league as its cinematic ancestors: "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928), "The Battleship Potemkin" (Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925), "Greed" (Erich Von Stroheim, 1924), "The General" (Buster Keaton, 1926) and "Metropolis" (Fritz Lang, 1927) are just a handful of films from that era that should, at the very least, receive a special screening by the academy prior to handing out any statuette for "Artist."