I still haven’t seen 6 of the 9 movies nominated for the Best Picture Oscar this year. That said, I will riot if The Artist does not win.

If you haven’t seen The Artist yet, go do so. And see it while it’s still in the theater. Don’t wait for it to come out on DVD. Parts of the movie are shot from the POV of the theater audience, and it looks much cooler seeing that in a theater than it will on your couch.

When the Oscar nominations were announced, I read more than one cynical movie reporter write that Hollywood loves to look at itself, so surely The Artist will win. No, The Artist will win because it is a screen full of AWESOME. Okay, mostly whimsy, but an awesome amount of awesome whimsy.

Throughout the movie, I kept asking myself, “What does this screenplay look like?” I would love to see it. Was it shorter, but denser than a regular screenplay because it was so action heavy? It will be interesting if The Artist wins Best Original Screenplay at tonight’s Oscars. I hope they read from it when they’re showing the nominees, as they’ve done with Best Screenplay nominees in the past. I want the screenplay to win the Oscar for the same reason that I want Jean Dujardin to win for Best Actor: I don’t think this movie would have worked if either wasn’t so amazing.

Was The Artist a pseudo-telling of Charlie Chaplin’s life? George Valentin is the biggest silent film star. He’s often accompanied by his very cute dog. And his star fell after the advent of talkies. Oh, and they both had signature moustaches…but thankfully, George’s wasn’t shared with the most hated despot of all time.

Minor spoilers follow after this picture of George silently screaming! Read further at your own peril!

During the scene when sound literally enters the film, and George is hearing everything in the world around him, but can’t make a sound himself, I thought, “Wow! What a twist! The movie is like a Twilight Zone episode! It’s so cool that they filmed this in black and white. Not only does it make sense for the era in which the film takes place, but it also makes sense for this Twilight Zone homage!” And then it turned out to be a dream.

Random thought of this review: How awesome was it to see Dauber from Coach make a brief appearance as a policeman?

It’s T-minus 2 1/2 hours to the Oscars as I write this, so unless you have amazing time management skills, or access to a time turner, if you haven’t seen The Artist yet, you probably won’t before The Academy Awards air. Whether The Artist wins or loses Best Picture, you should definitely see it.