2009 - OSS 117: LOST IN RIO, further adventures of secret agent OSS 117

Goofball secret agent OSS 117 is back in another spy spoof and fortunately Jean Dujardin is once again playing him.  This time OSS 117 is in Rioon the trail of a bunch of Nazi's hiding out in South America.

With The Artist, Michel Hazanavicius cements his reputation as a rehasher of old genre films.  OSS 117:  Lost in Rio has a lot in common with The Artist mimicking the style of old films like The Artist did.  This film is loaded with 1960's split screen effects, Dean Martin music, women in mini skirts, lots of rear screen projection and guys in wrestling masks ( a nod to "El Santo" the cheesy Mexican wrestler series).  It all gets pretty silly towards the end of the film, Hazanavicius clearly was running out of ideas in this film and tries lots of visual dazzle that can't cover up was is essentially an empty film.

However what the film does have going for it is the return of Jean Dujardin as the handsome out of it goofball spy.  With his annoying laugh and clueless attitude about just about everything, Dujardin pretty much pulls this film across the finish line.  

101 minutes,  written by Jean-François Halin and Michel Hazanavicius.

2011 - THE ARTIST, the overrated

Only the charm of the actors Jean Dujardin, the star of those silly "OSS 117" films and Berenice Bujo, keep this thing from sinking like a rock. 

The Artist is a comedic take on the romance between Greta Garbo and silent screen star John Gilbert.  Gilbert's career was destroyed by the coming of sound and his alcoholism so naturally that would make a funny movie.  This isn't really a silent comedy, it's just someone's idea of what a silent comedy was like back in the good old days.  It takes more than just  shooting the film in the old film ratio with black and white to make this a silent film.  The Artist lacks the special technique that a Chaplin, Keaton or Lloyd could bring to a pantomime performance.

For a French film, the supporting cast is weirdly loaded with American supporting characters like John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller and character actor Ed Lauter, none of them really make much of an impression, and I'm not even sure exactly why they are in this film other than to evoke some kind of memory of old Hollywood.

This film is just incredibly slight, yet it's getting good reviews by many critics and winning many awards.  Apparently none of them have seen any Ernest Lubitsch or King Vidor silent films

100 minutes,  written by Michel Hazanavicius.