Then there’s the film’s premise, which is so unabashed in its everyday darkness that at first it seems a bit…challenging. Before the credits, we see a woman standing, smiling in the sun, on a motorboat. It’s Matt’s wife, who, as we soon learn, was thrown from that boat and now lies in a hospital bed seriously injured. As the film begins, she’s in a coma, and the news may be even worse than that. The Descendants isn’t a when is she going to wake up? movie. It’s something with a much more dire tug: An oh my God she may die and if she does what are we gonna do? movie.

The “we,” in this case, is Matt and his two daughters. Ten-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller) is a happy-go-lucky brat, and 17-year-old Alexandra (Shailene Woodley, about whom you’re going to be hearing a lot) is such an unhappy brat that she’s been sent off to boarding school, where she favors drunken nights on the beach. The more we learn about this family, the more impossibly messed-up we can see they are. Yet Matt, who’s sitting on a trust that he’s too conservative, and maybe too stingy, to use (the family owns the last spectacular virgin beach land in Hawaii), isn’t just thrown into the abyss by his wife’s coma. He’s slapped in the face and woken up.

The Descendants has been made with the deceptively simple flow of an improvised adventure. And though some of what happens sounds conventional, and is, the situations keep twisting, whether it’s the comical hunting down of an adulterous lover or Matt’s attempt to sell off that trust and make a killing for both himself and a clan of breezy, greedy cousins. All the acting is freshly minted. Robert Forster plays Matt’s father-in-law, who’s so cantankerous that it takes you a few minutes to realize that everything he says is true. Matthew Lillard, goofy and beaming yet with a gentle desperation of his own, is the man who becomes Matt’s slightly absurd romantic rival, and Beau Bridges is the mellow-on-the-outside hard-ass cousin. As for Woodley, she makes the teenage Alexandra such a sharp, beguiling presence that she seems to wash away the residue of a thousand bogus movie adolescents.

It’s George Clooney, though, who carries The Descendants on his noble and weary shoulders. He’s still a rascal, but with the gleam in his eye now heightened (shockingly) by traces of fear. I wouldn’t say that he’s better here than he was in Up in the Air, but that was the movie that taught us that we weren’t being suckered if we felt George Clooney’s pain. In The Descendants, he draws upon that trust. He gives a pitch-perfect performance as a man awakened, for the first time in years, by the immensity of his loss. His big hospital scene near the end will be hailed as a classic Oscar-bait moment, and it surely is — but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a great moment, too. It turns sentimentality into something like grace.” (Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly)

Access more reviews at metacritic.com.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDwUH02DDWU

• Fri 2/10 – Animated 7:30
• Sat 2/11  – Documentary 2:00, Live Action 4:30, Animated 7:00, and Live Action 9:00
• Sun 2/12 – Live Action 7:00
• Mon 2/13 – Live Action 6:30
• Tue 2/14 – Animated 7:30
• Wed 2/15 – Animated 2:00, Live Action 7:30
• Thu 2/16 – Animated 7:30

ANIMATED (79 min.)

Sunday/Dimanche
10 min – English – Patrick Doyon
Every Sunday, it’s the same old routine! The train clatters through the village and almost shakes the pictures off the wall. In the church, Dad dreams about his toolbox. And of course later Grandma will get a visit and the animals will meet their fate.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
15 min – No Dialogue – William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg
Inspired, in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story. Using a variety of techniques (miniatures, computer animation, 2D animation) award winning author/illustrator William Joyce and co-director Brandon Oldenburg present a hybrid style of animation that harkens back to silent films and MGM Technicolor musicals. Morris Lessmore is old fashioned and cutting edge at the same time.

La Luna
7 min – English – Enrico Casaroasa
A fable of a young boy who is coming of age in the most peculiar of circumstances. Tonight is the very first time his Papa and Grandpa are taking him to work. In an old wooden boat they row far out to sea, and with no land in sight, they stop and wait. A big surprise awaits the little boy as he discovers his family’s most unusual line of work.

A Morning Stroll
7 min – No Dialogue – Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe
When a New Yorker walks past a chicken on his morning stroll, we’re left to wonder which one is the real city slicker.

Wild Life
13 min – English – Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby
Calgary, 1909: an Englishman moves to the Canadian frontier, but is singularly unsuited to it. His letters home are much sunnier than the reality. Intertitles compare his fate to that of a comet.

Bonus animated films (not nominated):

Nullarbor
10 minutes – English – Alister Lockhart
An animated road movie set across the vast and barren landscape of Australia’s Nullarbor Plain.

Amazonia
5 minutes – English – Sam Chen
In the dangerous world of the Amazon Rainforest, finding a meal proves to be an impossible task for a little tree-frog named Bounce. His luck changes when he meets Biggy, a blue-bellied treefrog who takes him under his guidance and shows him the ways of the jungle in this animated journey set to Beethoven’s Symphony No.8.

Skylight
5 minutes – English – David Baas
Skylight is a mock animated documentary about the ecological plight of penguins in the Antarctic, possibly foretelling cataclysmic results for the rest of the world.

Hybrid Union
4 minutes – English – Serguei Kouchnerov
In the imaginary land of Cyberdesert, Plus and Minus struggle with a dependency on an outdated source of energy. The mysterious self-sufficient Smart presents a new challenge for Plus and Minus and forces them to form an alliance – The Hybrid Union!

LIVE ACTION (107 min.)

Pentecost
11 min – English – Peter McDonald and Eimear O’Kane
When Damian is forced to serve as an altar boy at an important mass in his local parish, he faces a difficult choice: conform to the status quo, or serve an extended ban from his life’s passion – football.

Raju
24 min – English/German – Max Zähle and Stefan Gieren
Director Max Zaehle, together with his Director of Photography Sin Huh, and wonderful actors Wotan Wilke Möhring and Julia Richter, succeed at making the moral dilemma faced by couples wishing to adopt emotionally palpable.

The Shore
31 min – English/Gaelic – Terry George and Oorlagh George
After 25 years in exile, Jim Mahon (Ciaran Hinds) returns to Ireland to show his American daughter Patty (Kerry Condon) his Belfast roots. But things don’t go as planned when she learns of a secret love triangle and a long lost best friend, Paddy (Conleth Hill). Their reconciliation leads to hilarious confusion. Directed by two time Oscar nominee Terry George, The Shore won Best Director and Best Actor at the Rhode Island Film Festival, and is nominated for an Irish Film and Television Award.

Time Freak
11 min – English – Andrew Bowler and Gigi Causey
A neurotic inventor creates a time machine, only to get caught up travelling around yesterday.

Tuba Atlantic
25 min – Norwegian – Hallvar Witzř
Everybody is going to die one day. Oskar, 70, is going to die in 6 days. He is now ready to forgive his brother for a disagreement years ago. Will he reach his brother, who he believes live on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, before it’s too late?

DOCUMENTARY (130 min.)

The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom
39 minutes – Japan/USA – Lucy Walker
Survivors in the areas hardest hit by Japan’s recent tsunami find the courage to revive and rebuild as cherry blossom season begins.

Incident in New Baghdad
25 minutes – USA –  James Spione
One of the most notorious incidents of the Iraq War – the July 2007 slayings of two Reuters journalists and a number of other unarmed civilians by US attack helicopters – is recounted in the powerful testimony of an American infantryman whose life was profoundly changed by his experiences on the scene. US Army Specialist Ethan McCord bore witness to the devastating carnage, found and rescued two children caught in the crossfire, and soon turned against the war that he had enthusiastically joined only months before. Denied psychological treatment in Iraq for his PTSD, McCord returned home, struggling for years with anger, confusion, and guilt over the war. When WikiLeaks released the stunning cockpit video of the incident, McCord was finally spurred into action, and began traveling the country, speaking out for the rights of PTSD sufferers against the American wars in the Middle East.

Saving Face
40 minutes – Pakistan/USA – Daniel Junge, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy
Every year hundreds of people — mostly women — are attacked with acid in Pakistan. The HBO Documentary SAVING FACE, which premiers March 8 at 8:30 PM PT, follows several of these survivors, their fight for justice, and a Pakistani plastic surgeon who has returned to his homeland to help them restore their faces and their lives.

The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement
25 minutes – USA – Gail Dolgin and Robin Fryday
Mr. James Armstrong is a barber, a “foot soldier” and a dreamer whose barbershop in Birmingham, Alabama has been a hub for haircuts and civil rights since 1955. “The dream” of a promised land, where dignity and the right to vote belongs to everyone is documented in photos, headlines and clippings that cram every inch of wall space (and between the mirrors). 85-years-young, jauntily wearing a bowtie and suspenders, Mr. Armstrong will cut your hair while recounting his experiences as a “foot soldier”, citing the pictures on his wall as he does. In March 1965, civil rights activists began a march from Selma to Montgomery calling for voting rights. Mr. Armstrong, an Army Veteran, was the proud bearer of the American flag in that march, and it’s said that even as state troopers tear-gassed the crowd and beat marchers with billy clubs, he held the flag high. On the annual commemoration of Bloody Sunday he carries that flag. He used his barber chair to educate: “If you want a voice, you have to vote; you can’t complain about nothing if you don’t vote.” Despite threats to his life and home, his two sons were the first to integrate an all white elementary school. “Dying isn’t the worst thing a man can do. The worst thing a man can do is nothing.” No one can accuse Mr. Armstrong of doing nothing; and on the eve of the election of the first African-American president, THE BARBER OF BIRMINGHAM sees his unimaginable dream come true.

This is a silent movie in black-and-white, and if it were only that, it would be a pleasant novelty. But The Artist isn’t a nostalgia trip, nor is it a scolding admonishment to honor the past. Instead, it’s a picture that romances its audience into watching in a new way — by, paradoxically, asking us to watch in an old way. The Artist is perhaps the most modern movie imaginable right now.

The picture opens in 1927, just as silent-film star George Valentin — played by Jean Dujardin, a genuine movie star in France, though his allure is intercontinental — is riding high. As the movie opens, he’s watching himself in his latest picture from behind the movie screen; his character is a suave masked bandit in an evening suit, accompanied by an efficient Jack Russell who’s also his partner in crime in real life. (He’s played by a fetching actor dog named Uggie.) At home, George’s life is less glamorous and more troubled. His wife, played by a platinum-haired Penelope Ann Miller, is bored and unhappy and lets him know it, particularly when she sees a newspaper photograph in which he’s chastely kissing a comely young woman who wandered into the spotlight at his movie’s premiere. The woman in the newspaper snapshot is an aspiring starlet herself, and she uses her temporary fame — as well as her killer gams — to get a walk-on part in the movie George is filming. This salty-sweet ingenue wants the world to know who she is: “The name’s Peppy — Peppy Miller!” she announces to everyone and no one in particular. (She’s played by Argentina-born French actress Bčrčnice Bejo, an expressive beauty with bobbed hair and incandescent eyes.)

Even before George knows Peppy’s name, sparks fly between them on the set: We see it in a marvelous sequence constructed of numerous discarded takes, each one messed up by George’s flummoxed response to this pretty young extra. But George, a married man, resists. (This is a Hollywood movie we’re talking about, not the actual Hollywood.) And so Peppy reluctantly leaves him behind, but not before he gives her a priceless tip about how to make it in the business. Two years later, with the advent of talkies, George will end up broke and forgotten — though not completely forgotten: Peppy, whose star ascended just as George’s sank, remembers the break he gave her when she was just a pretty face and a great set of stems hoping to break into motion pictures.

The Artist — which Hazanavicius also wrote — harbors shades of Singin’ in the Rain and A Star Is Born, but in the end it’s its own distinctive creature. It’s also an extraordinarily disciplined picture:

Shot by Guillame Schiffman, it throws off a satiny moonlight glow — this is one of the most gorgeous-looking movies I’ve seen all year. Ludovic Bource’s jaunty, champagne-bubble score is period-perfect. And Hazanavicius — best known for the French-made OSS spoof movies — keeps a sure grip on the picture’s tone. The Artist dips into areas of darkness you don’t expect, though Hazanavicius has a light touch as he guides us through the story’s subtle gradations. He also dots the movie with clever touches that are never overworked or arch: George, after hearing that sound pictures are the wave of the future and laughing the news off heartily, lifts a glass from his dressing table and lets it down with a surprise thud — the first, though not the last, sound heard in the picture.

It’s not giving too much away to tell you that The Artist ends with a dance sequence, and at that point I felt as if Hazanavicius had responded to the furtive prayers I’ve been offering to the movie gods for years: He renders that dance in long, glorious takes. No crazy cutting to make the steps look more exciting; no close-ups of the feet to show us how fast they’re moving. I had pretty much given up hope that filmmakers knew how to do that sort of thing anymore.

Hazanavicius and his actors (which also include John Goodman as a growly-bear studio boss and Missi Pyle as a spoiled, brassy megastar) seem to be in tune with a lot of things that other filmmakers and performers have forgotten — or perhaps have been forced to forget, given what sells in Hollywood movies these days. (The Artist, incidentally, was itself shot in Hollywood.) Smart, quiet movies — let alone smart, silent ones — are hardly the order of the day. Many young people I know laugh at silent movies and silent acting, viewing them as something ancient and foreign, written in a code they can’t possibly understand. As the writer Eileen Whitfield observed in her wonderful biography of Mary Pickford, Pickford: The Woman Who Made Hollywood, modern audiences often view silent movies as if they’re trying to be talkies and failing, whereas they’re really much closer to dance, a symbolic re-enactment.

In that sense, silents are stories told in purely visual terms — there are no handy voice-overs to accentuate what we’re seeing on-screen, no hefty chunks of expository dialogue. They may look strange and overdone to audiences who aren’t used to them, but they’re not extreme at all — they’re actually extremely economical. In Bejo and Dujardin, Hazanavicius has found actors who understand that intuitively. Bejo is radiant, but there’s also something solemn and grounded about her. And while Dujardin is almost criminally good-looking, as well as being a superb physical actor — he’s a little Douglas Fairbanks, a little Gene Kelly — he understands that his role demands as much gravity as anti-gravity. The Artist is deeply enjoyable, brioche-light in all the right ways, but it’s also focused and intense — even its joyousness is intense. It begins as a novelty and ends as so much more: In The Artist, the present greets the past like a long-lost friend. This is a movie in which the pleasure of watching is its own glorious sound.” (Stephanie Zacharek, Movieline)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8K9AZcSQJE