Arts: Do Hugo and The Artist have a Movie-About-Movies Advantage?

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Brow Beat Do Hugo and The Artist have a Movie-About-Movies Advantage? By Forrest Wickman Posted Friday, Dec 02, 2011, at 08:59 PM ET The National Board of Review named Hugo the best film of 2011 on Thursday. On Tuesday, the New York Film Critics Circle gave The Artist its Best Picture award. Over at Grantland, Oscarmetrics columnist Mark Harris offered three ways of looking at the National Board of Review's selection. I'd like to offer one more: Do movie critics—along with many diehard movie lovers, not to mention movie makers—have a bias towards movies about movies? I don't mean to suggest that these movies are undeserving of awards recognition. I loved Hugo, not just as a film about the transporting power of the movies, but as a transporting movie in itself. Similarly, I have no reason to believe that The Artist, which has won not just critical raves and Best Actor at Cannes but rapturous word-of-mouth from just about everyone on the Internet, isn't the best movie of the year. Still, it's only natural for all varieties of -philes (from cine- to audio- to biblio-) to express extra interest in work about the things we love most. In the past two weeks Slate has run pieces about The Artist and Hugo in addition to reviews of each film (as the author of the piece on Hugo, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this, of course), and it's not alone. Meanwhile, one of the buzziest topics of the last few weeks has been the suspension of  meta-sitcom Community, a show that pretty clearly ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Why Won't South Hadley Say How Much It Paid Phoebe Prince's Family? Herman Cain Prepares To Blame His Wife for the End of His Campaign Shame: Can Michael Fassbender's Sterling Performance Save This Mediocre Movie?	Advertisement
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