Finally, “The Artist” has arrived in Utah. Let out a shout – because the movie won't.

Writer-director Michel Hazanavicius' delightful valentine to Hollywood' distant past – filmed in black-and-white, and silent, too – is funny, sweet and utterly charming. Jean Dujardin is brilliant as a silent-movie star whose career is fading with the advent of talkies, while Berenice Bejo shines as an ingenue whose star is rising. Hazanavicius rediscovers the classic techniques of the silent era, reintroducing them to a world that has forgotten about them. “The Artist” is a sure Oscar contender, and deservedly so.

More Oscar bait comes in the form of “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” an artfully made but exploitatively shallow tale of grief in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Nine-year-old Oskar (Thomas Horn) is trying to solve what he thinks is the last mystery left by his father (Tom Hanks), who died in the World Trade Center. The quest leads him to find others suffering losses in their own way, including a mysterious mute old man (Max von Sydow). Director Stephen Daldry (“The Hours,” “The Reader”) applies his usual care to the story, which makes the fatal mistake of equating the immensity of 9/11 to other, more pedestrian, tragedies.

The other big studio movie this weekend is “Red Tails,” a rousing World War II drama about the Tuskegee Airmen, African-American fighter pilots having to prove themselves against the bigotry of Pentagon brass and other servicemen. The script – by John Ridley (“Undercover Brother”) and “Boondocks” creator Aaron McGruder – is riddled with war-movie cliches. But the ensemble cast and the aerial dogfights (overseen by the movie's executive producer, George Lucas) are entertaining.

Two more movies are opening this weekend, without benefit of being screened for Utah critics: “Haywire,” director Steven Soderbergh's revenge thriller starring MMA fighter Gina Carano; and “Underworld: Awakening,” the fourth installment of the vampire-vs.-werewolf franchise starring Kate Beckinsale.