“Sounds Familiar”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

The Artist is one of those films that Hollywood loves to make, because it has a simple story that has been retold many times before, it wins many awards both at home and abroad, and it is about Hollywood itself.

So, what is it that makes this version different, you ask?

Well, it is a silent movie with only music on the soundtrack except for one scene that is designed to trick the audience, and it takes place in the 1920s in Hollywood when movies were just beginning to be made with sound and the famous sign still said “Hollywoodland” as it originally did.

And even that isn’t original, because Mel Brooks did the same thing with his 1976 Silent Movie, and the one word of dialogue that we hear in that movie was more original, clever, and funny.

This film is a comedy, as well, and the story begins in 1927 when we see a movie within the movie within this movie, which is called A Russian Affair.

Of course, that film is silent, and we see a scene in which the hero is being tortured, and he says what we see in the subtitles, “I won’t say a word. I won’t speak.”

Then the hero is rescued by a dog, they escape, and the movie is over.

The hero is played by George Valentin, a silent-movie star at the top of his success, and he has been backstage while his movie has been showing, and after the movie is over and the audience is applauding, he comes out from behind the screen and takes a bow, calls the dog out, too, and they ham it up for the audience.

Meanwhile, a young woman named Peppy Miller arrives in town, and naturally she wants to be a movie star.

She accidentally bumps into George on the street while he is playing to the crowd, she hams it up, a photographer takes her picture, and the story makes the front page of a newspaper with the headline of “Who’s That Girl?”

So, Peppy does get into the movies just as “talkies” start to be made, George refuses to do sound movies, and his career fades as Peppy’s starts to rise.

Sound familiar? See any version of A Star Is Born.

The Artist sounds familiar, even though it’s silent.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”