By now you’ve no doubt heard, The Artist, a black-and-white throwback to silent-era movies, has an increasing number of tongues wagging in Hollywood where it is tipped as a leading Oscars hopeful. The movie by French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius won best film and best director at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, propping it up for a major slam dunk at the Academy Awards, scheduled to take place on January 24th. Let’s see if that recently-cinched Independent Spirit Award nomination will lead to a win there as well.

And even though it’s apparently eligible for the Best Picture category, I still wonder whether The Artist can be legitimately considered for it. According to the rules and eligibility guidelines posted on the Academy Awards site, “A foreign language film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States of America with a predominantly non-English dialogue track.” Although it’s mostly a silent film, there is dialogue at the end and it is in English. But the production company is French. Che sara, sara.

One thing for sure, at least according to Bret Easton Ellis, is that Jean Dujardin, the genial lead actor in The Artist, will win the Best Actor award. Ellis recently twitted about his prediction of the possible win.

See our REVIEW of The Artist.