It probably goes against everything I stand for (or claim to) that I love “The Artist” as much as I do. I don’t think I’m supposed to like this movie.

“The Artist” is a modern-day black and white silent film. I’m supposed to call this “gimmicky.” “The Artist” relies heavily on an irresistibly cute dog for much of its emotion and charm. I’m supposed to call this “manipulative.” “The Artist” doesn’t cover any new territory, whether psychologically or socially or even romantically, or display very much complexity in theme. I’m supposed to call this “shallow.” “The Artist” seems custom-made, in every detail, for the Academy, who will inevitably toss awards at it like roses at Michelle Kwan come Feb. 28. I’m supposed to dismiss it, then, as artless “Oscar bait.”

But “The Artist” isn’t gimmicky, manipulative, shallow Oscar bait. Or maybe it is, but it somehow makes those qualities work. Or, maybe it is, and I just don’t effing care. Any way you look at it, “The Artist” defiantly breaks almost every single rule I have set up for how I, personally, evaluate movies, rules impounded by years and years of movie watching, dismissing, celebrating and “meh”-ing. But the exception proves the rule, I guess. And, uh, rules are made to be broken? Pick your cliché. They all apply.

In a way, you could say I was duped. This is just a matter of deception. Watching this account of a silent film star trying, and mostly failing, to adjust to the new era of sound in cinema, I was seduced by the playful allusions to “Singin’ in the Rain” (a movie I absolutely adore). I was assaulted by the sweet, hummable, stuck-in-your-head-forever music that played throughout. I was tricked by two or three clever, surprising directorial decisions (which I can’t tell you about in detail, ‘cuz, you know, spoilers) into forgiving all the hundreds of other moments of predictability.

And the dog. That damned dog! He snuck into my house in the middle of the night, drugged my family, whacked me over the head and stole me away to some secret facility where he performed medical experiments on me until the old Dylan, who prefers cats and whose primary emotion re: dogs are mild annoyances, into this new person who grinned and giggled like a school girl on laughing gas at his every canine move. He jumped! He played dead! He rolled over! He was the master, and I, the blind devotee. But if this is a hostage situation, mark me down as having a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome.

I love “The Artist” for many of the same reasons that I loved “Hugo” — a nostalgic hearkening back to the Golden Age of Cinema, a difficult-to-describe but wholly felt sense of magic and whimsy, an innocent purity tinged with just enough edge and grit — so maybe it shouldn’t be such a surprise. But then again, even “Hugo” was antithetical to the cinematic fare I regularly champion. Challenging, dark, and/or cerebral films like 2011’s “Drive,” “Melancholia,” and “Tree of Life” are the type of thing I usually go ape for, but somehow this year they all find themselves second tier to movies which can best be encapsulated by a word I usually use as a pejorative: “joy.”

You heard it here first, guys. I’m going soft.