By STEVE PERSALL, St. Petersburg Times

"The Artist"

1. Michel Hazanavicius' swooning valentine to the silent movie era is the most captivating movie experience of 2011.

Woody Allen's reality seems as absurd as anything he ever wrote for the screen: a white Jewish guy from Brooklyn playing New Orleans jazz steeped in black culture and Christian gospel to audiences who aren't there for his clarinet skills.

Miles Teller wasn't born to play a Southern good ol' boy in a reboot of "Footloose," but he was raised for it, in rural Florida where trucker hats are fashion statements.

Reese Witherspoon hasn't been seen on screen much lately. That's because not many people saw "How Do You Know," and she was only a voice in the animated "Monsters vs. Aliens."

Absence isn't necessary to make our hearts grow fonder of Witherspoon, who appears to be the nicest person in Hollywood this side of Sandra Bullock. America can never have enough sweethearts.

Carrie Fisher's life is an open book. Actually four, plus an autobiographical stage show.

Even when changing names to protect the guilty, Fisher writes and speaks on what she knows, and it isn't always pretty. From growing up Hollywood royalty to nearly burning out with drugs, depression and bipolar disorder, Fisher tells it like it was, as candid as she is funny.

No doubt about it: Jaden Smith is his famous daddy's son.

DNA testing isn't necessary with this Hollywood progeny. The way Jaden Smith cocks his head, peers into the distance and makes wisecracks cooler than they're written in the script is Will Smith all the way.

Before anyone says there's nothing funny about what's happening in the Gulf of Mexico with that massive oil slick, let me say: You're right.

But that doesn't mean we should face environmental and economic destruction without a smile.

Sometimes the only things scarier than a home's devaluation are the next-door neighbors. Especially in movies where good and bad dreams come true.
Take the new film "Revolutionary Road," with stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. Its scathing indictment of picket-fence living is one in a long line of nightmare neighborhoods depicted in movies over the years.

Oliver Stone's just-released "W." is the first-ever movie dramatization of a sitting U.S. president's term of office. Movies about presidents usually come decades or centuries after their terms. Most are documentaries and made-for-television productions.

There's something wrong here, something very, very wrong; human-sacrifice, dogs-and-cats-living-together kind of wrong.Bill Murray isn't funny anymore.