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I am very intrigued by "The Artist." It's a silent film after all (which is pretty cool!), but it's generating enough Oscar buzz that I cannot simply ignore it! But the road to the Oscars is still quite long and tumultuous even though the preeminent Academy Awards vote-getter, the Weinstein company, is behind the Michel Hazanavicius movie. Still, it would be awesome for "The Artist" to score a Best Picture Nomination! The last time a silent film scored a victory was in 1929 with "The Patriot."

The French film (or does language even matter since it's silent?) stars Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo and takes place in Hollywood between 1927 and 1931. It has "A Star is Born" story, if you may, that talks about a relationship between a declining male star and a rising actress. It also talks about the end of the silent film era and the beginning of the talkies.

The 11th annual Coney Island Film Festival, which was held last weekend on Sept. 23-25, gave out a total of 10 awards to both feature films and shorts.

Every year, Ciff loves to honor the quirky little seaside resort the fest is held in, showing a selection of films that were screened in the ‘hood. This year, the Best “Made in Coney Island” Award went to Daniel Turkewitz’s A Day in the Life of Coney Island, a lyrical 20-minute documentary that captures life at the beach and on the boardwalk.

The Best Documentary Feature Award was also a Coney Island-themed film, Charles Denson’s The Last Immortal, a profile of reformed gang member Keith Suber, who founded an organization to keep kids out of trouble. Meanwhile, Darin Beckstead’s New York-based comedy Somebody’s Hero took home Best Feature.

On the short film front, Victoria Cook‘s Hell-based Devil Town won Best Animation,...