THE ARTIST: Cast, score shine in new silent movie

It may be hard to imagine a full length, black and white silent movie as being an amazing and refreshing breath of fresh air in the current climate of Holiday popcorn fare.

But this awesome new silent "classic" film is not only a visual homage to the silent screen era, but a creative recognition of the artistic process and it's perilous pitfalls.

The story takes place in Hollywood, 1927.

Red-hot silent movie star George Valentin

(Jean Dujardin) enjoys his success until the arrival of talking pictures threaten to end his career.

George has an accidental photo op with a cute young flapper named Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo).

After he helps her get work on the set as an extra, she gets a big break in the "talkies", captures the nation's heart and catapults to stardom.

The story's villain is George's pride (yes, it has it's own music) that rears it's ugly head, causing George to downward spiral into a dark world of self doubt and bottles of booze.

But he is fortunate to have at his side his trusty limo driver (James Cromwell) and faithful co-star/pet dog (2011 Palm Dog award winner UGGIE) to help him regain his muse and return to the silver screen.

An amazing original score by Ludovic Bource weaves a sonic tapestry of Ragtime, Classical and Jazz into an audible narrative that advances the story at a comfortable pace. This serves as an impressive canvass by which to paint the extraordinary black and white cinematography.

Harnessing inspiration for performance and maintaining a "real world" sense of identity are two of the seldom seen burdens of the artist and, as the film warns, may be rough terrain to navigate for artists unprepared for drastic life changes.

TICKET WORTH: Full price. $12.50
RENT THIS MOVIE?: Yes without a doubt.
BUY THE DVD?: Yes. A soon as it's released.

J/A

Zack Snyder's 'Superman': Matthew Goode is Rumored Frontrunner

By Fandango's: Erik Davis on November 22, 2010 at 2:03 PM

The other day we told you how Warner Bros. and Zack Snyder were gearing up to look at hundreds of potential actors for the role of Clark Kent/Superman in the next Man of Steel movie, which is set to begin production this June. There's somewhat of an accelerated pace on this project because they have to be in production on a new Superman movie by a certain date or else Warner Bros. may have to forfeit the rights, which means we're probably going to have a steady dose of Superman stories over the next few weeks.

Could the studio be looking to lock in their man before the holidays? A new report suggests just that, as the rumored frontrunner is now Matthew Goode, who starred in Zack Snyder's Watchmen adaptation as Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias. So, yeah, the guy does bring a little superhero clout to the table, and he certainly looks the part of a clean-cut, well-built wholesome Man of Steel, despite the fact that the majority of you would rather see Smallville's Tom Welling in the role (according to the 100-plus comments we received from our Superman post the other day).

Chances are Goode is just one of the many people they're looking at for the part, so I wouldn't jump to conclusions and immediately freak out, even though, on paper, he does seem like a suitable-enough match, especially considering his experience on Watchmen with Snyder.

What do you think? Is Matthew Goode a…good choice for Superman?