And The Artist? Please. Everyone who swooned over it was most likely just nostalgic grandparents who saw a black-and-white/silent movie after God knows when.
Did you see it, by the way? I'm curious if you have. I haven't seen it myself, but I'm thinking about looking it up for a watch since I hear it's a really good movie, and the critics love it. I'm not going to try to change your opinion on what you think of the Academy Awards from last year, but as a film student, I want to say this (while defending the movie all the same):
Black-and-white films had to be precise and creative with their lighting and angles to get the atmosphere and shadows they wanted. Most modern movies do take inspiration from/homage to a lot of these old films because of how inspiring they are, and how they're the closest to perfection we have in film--they're also the films that have given us the techniques we use in film-making to this date. Sure, we made our own techniques, but we continue to use these techniques because they
work. Story-telling in film relies on what the camera sees and how it sees the scenes, usually more than dialogue. I bet you anything that if you were to mute a movie, any movie, and just look at how the scenes were laid out and shot, you will still get the meaning of the story or even understand it better. It's really amazing what a camera can do in the right hands.
So that's why I want to see
The Artist now than I did last year, I want to see what they did with the movie, especially with all I've learned in Cinematography. I hear it deserved to win the Oscars, so until I make my own personal opinion on the movie itself, I have to agree with them. I don't think it'll be the start of the return of black-and-white films (though I'm sure you've noticed
Frankenweenie was all in black-and-white, and a few other movies from a few years ago have been in black-and-white), but hey, it's refreshing to see. And it makes me sad to hear people bash black-and-white films when some of the greatest films ever made were in black-and-white. Also, it helps to understand the history of color, but that's for a different discussion altogether.