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The 2011 Oscar nominations are out and the consensus is starting to build that The Artist will win best picture. In case you are unfamiliar, The Artist is a black and white silent film. Yes, 82 years after the invention of the talkies, a silent movie that almost nobody has seen is considered a favourite for the best movie Oscar.

Here’s a quiz for your dinner party guests this weekend: has anybody seen The Artist? Bet the answer is unanimously no. So, seen any movies recently? Well yes, Sherlock Holmes says someone, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo says another. If you invite me, someone at the table will have seen both. But The Artist? It hasn’t even played is town near me, never mind me managing to talk the wife into going to see a black and white silent movie. But that’s the way it’ll be with a lot of couples: one partner wants to go, the other says no thanks, but there is that movie with Tom Hanks and the child. It may not be reviewing well, and it may not be nominated for any Oscars, but by God, there’s speaking, and the producers splurged on color film.

It’s a fair enough point really, and one that illustrates what’s either, depending on your point of view, right or wrong with the Oscar

At $12-million in box office, The Artist took in about 20% of the that Blockbuster hit, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. Yet The Artist took in the second most Oscar nominations behind Hugo, the Martin Scorsese movie with a $56-million box-office.

Which leads to the question: if nobody sees a movie, can it be considered great? It’s an age old question and every music critic ever to write about music has their own great, relatively unknown band that proves, at least to them, that commercial success does not mean quality art. Movie critics are the same, and The Artist is the new cinéma-art de jour. By nominating The Artist for 10 awards, the members of the academy have announced where they come down on the commercial success vs. art argument: their opinion, not yours, counts.

Brian Gardiner Fluffernutter Academy Awards, Hugo, Martin Scorsese, Midnight in Paris, Sherlock Holmes, The Artist, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Woody Allen