"The Artist" Wins The 2011 Best Picture Academy Award: Comments by SAG Actor Tex Allen

Rating: 7/10 (29 February 2012)

I'm a SAG Actor and follow the Academy Awards yearly, and comment here about "The Artist" (2011) winning the Best Picture award recently (Feb. 2012).
This is not an American movie, as neither Hamlet (1948) nor SlumDog Millionaire (c. 2008) were, either. That is worthy of comment, and perhaps protest.
I doubt that either of the two main actors, or the director speak fluent English, or English without a thick foreign accent. Yet the main actors portrayed Americans in a movie where their voices are (almost) never heard....it's a "silent movie" with a music and sound effects sound track, but almost no dialog.
Several older USA actors (John Goodman and James Cromwell) are included as supporting actors, neither in major or key parts.
This movie is a clever movie, very well done with set decoration, costuming, and camera work, but not at all ideal regarding it's story and screenplay. It's important to like the main actors (even the villains) from the start of the movie, and, at least for me, this didn't happen. The main male character....he got a Best Actor Award from the Academy....didn't "fetch me," and I always think that is mandatory if one is to rate the movie top drawer.
THE ARTIST (2012) is this year's big deal movie......not my choice, but I don't control things. Based on A STAR IS BORN movies and story, done 3 times....1937 starring Janet Gaynor and Frederick March (I screened it last night......sappy...Fred commits suicide at the end of the movie....Janet carries on bravely by not leaving Hollywood, stays on as a movie star!), 1954 starring Judy Garland and James Mason (Judy got a Best Actress Academy Award for that movie, which I've never seen), and finally Barbra Streisand in the 1970's with Kris Kristofferson, I think. Never saw that, either.
Same story in all three movies.....old time older actor getting dissed and not hired any more marries an unknown young, up and coming girl who becomes a bigger star than he was and isn't any more....she stays loyal to her older husband to the end!
THE ARTIST (2012) has a happy ending, different from at least the 1937 movie....don't know how the other two 1954 and 1970's STAR IS BORN movies ended...maybe happy, too.
Well........
The Academy Awards voters gave us SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE as "Best Picture" recently and it shows how capricious the whole thing is.
I own a great retrospective book analyzing the history of the awards, and the politics part of it all.....book is titled THE REAL Oscar (1981 or so)....which is good to page through....the history of the whole thing up to 1981 (it started in 1929).
It's all about glitz and jazzy outfits and celebrities quipping, etc. etc. Show biz putting on a night of show biz.
I also own a pretty good documentary about it all titled OSCAR'S GREATEST MOMENTS (1991) which shows the history of the show from 1970 through 1990.
It's a big institution over the years.....83 years by now! Liz Taylor, now passed away at age 79, wasn't even born when the first Oscars were awarded.
I find that usually the choices are OK....I haven't paid attention to movies in recent times produced recently, except movies I act in (FYI, I've acted in more than 40 SAG Signatory feature movie and national TV drama projects since 2004.....almost never Oscar contenders except for George Clooney winning an actor award in 2005 for SYRIANA, and the WEDDING CRASHERS which was a big money earner in 2005 and I think won a technical award that year).
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Tex Allen is a SAG actor based in Columbia PA USA. Email him at TexAllen@Yahoo.Com. See Tex Allen's resume and bio at WWW.IMDb.Com by using "Tex Allen" as a search term on the IMDb.Com home page search box. Then choose "Tex Allen resume." Tex Allen movie reviews written for WWW.IMDb.Com (more than 40) can be accessed at the following link:
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Written by Tex Allen, Antioch College graduate (BA in Education), and also SAG-AFTRA movie actor. Visit WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen for more information about Tex Allen.
Tex Allen's email address is TexAllen@Rocketmail.Com.
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