(Movies discussed in this post: War Horse, Attack The Block, X-Men: First Class, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Paul, Super 8, The Adventures Of Tintin.)

From The Artist to Midnight In Paris to Hugo and a number of others, 2011 is a big year for nostalgia for all sorts of mainly things — but mainly, for old movies. Hugo and The Artist display it most blatantly, but it’s everywhere — take the romanticized look at growing up in the 50′s (not to mention nostalgia for the creation of Earth) in The Tree Of Life, or the paranoid Towering-Inferno-meets-21st-century-paranoia star-killer Contagion, or the retro heroics of Captain America: The First Avenger, or the 80′s kitschiness evoked by Drive, or the surprising success of a prequel to a campy 60′s movie, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. Even the latest Mission: Impossible embraced a silliness that felt borrowed from old spy TV series rather than John Woo-style theatrics.

And because of it, you can hear audiences breathing a collective sigh of relief: “Oh, thank God. We’re allowed to have fun at the movies again.”

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