Just when you start believing there’s no hope for anything daring and original coming out of Movieland, something gets released that surprises you. The Artist is one such movie — and what’s new about it is that it’s old. Or rather — it’s a silent film — not just a spoof à la Mel Brooks’s Silent Movie (1976), but a … More Details

Even though mainstream Entertainment Weekly magazine named him the 16th best film director of all time, if I mention the name Ernst Lubitsch to my own middle-aged contemporaries, I usually get a hazy look. “I’ve heard that name, but who was he?” The reason for this may be that Ernst Lubitsch had heart trouble, and died young (in 1948, at … More Details