If You Only See One Silent Movie This Year, See it With a Bunch of Olds Who Don't Give a Crap About What Anyone Thinks

We all know about The Artist by now, yeah? The one that keeps winning awards everywhere? The one everyone keeps assuming you've seen but you actually haven't because you're embarrassed to admit (even to yourself) that you're one of those Philistines who's still going "gah, a silent film?" That one. Go see it. It's fantastic! It's great and funny and clever and awesome. It's even more awesome surounded by the elderly in the middle of the afternoon.

I have this weird affection for going to movies in the middle of the day, at an independent theater that's largely membership-based and has cheap popcorn, so I usually find myself the youngest person in the semi-crowded theater by about 40 years. It's the Pre-Early-Bird Special Sweet Spot. This came in very handy when I saw Midnight in Paris and everyone was "quietly whispering to each other (ahem)" the names of all the historical figures that kept popping up. People chatter during movies anyway, loudly or not; sometimes it's quirky and interesting to have a side commentary rolling, and when it's not the loudness of the movie will usually drown it out.

There is no such luck with the soundtrack of The Artist.
It's silent in that there's no dialog, and what music there is isn't ramped up to the Michael Bay Setting, so you can hear whatever's going on around you. I was worried I was eating my popcorn too loud, but I needn't have been! I doubt from the volume of the "whispers" they would have head me anyway. And the old ladies were indeed whispering to each other, beacuse they all had crushes on the male lead.

For 1 hour and 40 minutes, I got a running list of all the sexual acts these women wanted to perform on Jean Dujardin. Ahem.

NOW: I'm not going to pretend that I wasn't thinking up things I could do with each of his eyebrows separately (and I was not the only one because I heard that seconded and third-ed), but first of all I kept it to myself and second it is nowhere near, "If I ever met him it would be hard not to pull down his pants and [...and here I am undone by my Catholic shame. Sorry!]." WHAT! I guess the cane wouldn't really get in your way since you're only like 4 feet tall, but girl, I hope you do not think that conversation was just between you and your friend. They were three rows away. And also, I should point out that that's a little rapey.

One woman a little closer was reminded of Douglas Fairbanks. Do you know all the things she fantasized about doing with Douglas Fairbanks when she was a teenager? No? Because I do!

Also, some euphemisms have changed over the past 50 or so years. I had to look some stuff up later. Still not sure one of them wasn't talking about the dog...

I don't know whether it was nostalgia for the silents, or Douglas Fairbanks, or the particular je ne sais quoi of a Frenchman (it was probably the eyebrows, the more I think about it), but I have never heard an audience like this before. And I've seen Shame. It was a little uncomfortable at first, but once they really got rolling it was cukoo-bananas-awesome. It kind of puts the furor over the posters for Dujardin's upcoming film in a bit of an ironic context, doesn't it?

If you're going to see The Artist, I highly recommend driving out to an older neighborhood and catching a matinee. It won't be a silent film.