Michel Hazanavicius

The Oscar nominees for 2011 have recently been revealed, and the director list is full of Hollywood's brightest. Woody! Marty! Malick! Spiel... Wait, what, no Spielberg?

Haza... what-icius?

That's Hazanavicius, Michel Hazanavicius, the French director whose almost-silent, black-and-white movie "The Artist" is sweeping awards on both sides of the Atlantic. The film has perched many critics' top ten lists and is purported to be a revered take on Hollywood's silent era. And it has an adorable dog.

And what do you know, the director a Jew, his grandparents immigrating to France from Lithuania and Poland.

So are we rooting for Haza... for Michel?

Well, no. We're rooting for Woody. We've actually seen his film. Duh.