Just in case you were wondering...

The Artist is still out now, and still wonderful.

Fully confident it had rolled out to cinemas on the outer-edge of London after all that 'West End only' crap, I happily plodded along to the sublime Stratford Picturehouse to re-see The Artist with the wife. Unsurprisingly, it's still absolutement brillo-pads.

I honestly can't remember a film in which I've been so invested in the performances of both leads; maybe it's the fact you're forced to concentrate on Jean Dujardin (English translation: John of the Garden) and Berenice Bejo due to the blissful lack of distractions, like special effects, colour and sound. Anyhoo, it's utterly spellbinding, perhaps moreso second time around, and with the benefit of having Ludovic Bourne's toe-tapping soundtrack still bouncing around my brain hole, the music comes alive.

I'm not saying it's trumped Tyrannosaur as my favourite film of last year, but I am saying a film in which a cute dog plays dead has a much better chance of being rewatched than a film in which a dog gets kicked to death in the first minute.