Hugo
In resourceful orphan Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield, an Oliver Twist-like charmer), Martin Scorsese finds the perfect vessel for his silver-screen passion: this is a movie about movies (fittingly, the 3-D effects are spectacular). After his clockmaker father (Jude Law) perishes in a museum fire, Hugo goes to live with his Uncle Claude (Ray Winstone), a drunkard who maintains the clocks at a Paris train station. When Claude disappears, Hugo carries on his work and fends for himself by stealing food from area merchants. In his free time, he attempts to repair an automaton his father rescued from the museum, while trying to evade the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), a World War I veteran with no sympathy for lawbreakers. When Georges (Ben Kingsley), a toymaker, catches Hugo stealing parts for his mechanical man, he recruits him as an assistant to repay his debt. If Georges is guarded, his open-hearted ward, Isabelle (Chloë Moretz), introduces Hugo to a kindly bookseller (Christopher Lee), who directs them to a motion-picture museum, where they meet film scholar René (Boardwalk Empire‘s Michael Stuhlbarg). In helping unlock the secret of the automaton, they learn about the roots of cinema, starting with the Lumière brothers, and give a forgotten movie pioneer his due, thus illustrating the importance of film preservation, a cause to which the director has dedicated his life. If Scorsese’s adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret isn’t his most autobiographical work, it just may be his most personal. –Kathleen C. FennessyMartin Scorsese directed this whimsical adaptation of Brian Selznick’s novel “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.” In 1931, Parisian orphan Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) attempts to complete the repairs on a clockwork automaton his late father (Jude Law) had begun. With help from a young girl (Chloe Grace Moretz), Hugo finds his quest leading to an unexpected encounter with legendary filmmaker Georges Melies (Ben Kingsley), who has lost his passion for the cinema. With Sacha Baron Cohen, Christopher Lee. Not in 3D. 126 min. Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1, DVS, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1; Subtitles: English, French, Spanish; featurette; bonus UltraViolet digital copy.
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Tinker, Tailor Soldier, Spy (2-Disc Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is all sleek, stealthy elegance. High-ranking intelligence officer George Smiley (Gary Oldman) was forced out of service when a mission in Hungary went very wrong, but rumors of a Soviet mole hidden within the agency bring him back into play. If the theory of the former head, Control (John Hurt), is to be believed, the mole is at the very top, one of four senior officers, played by Toby Jones, Ciarán Hinds, Colin Firth, and David Dencik (of the Swedish Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). With the help of a lower-ranking agent with a few secrets of his own (Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock) and a field agent who may be a source of disinformation (Tom Hardy, Inception), Smiley slowly draws out the clues he needs to lay a trap for the mole. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy moves gracefully, with brief but unhurried scenes that give a hint of information here, a dollop of implication there, until the larger picture (painted in a cinematic chiaroscuro of grays, blues, and browns) comes tantalizingly into focus. Don’t expect Hitchcock-like suspense, though there are a few anxious sequences; this movie captures the blend of dread and bureaucracy that marks real-life intelligence work. Oldman plays Smiley as uncannily opaque and, on the surface, harmless–but his eyes hold a deep bitterness that can turn sorrowful or cruel. The masterful cast glides through the film, their subterfuges and machinations orchestrated like a dance by director Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In). –Bret FetzerGary Oldman stars as former British secret agent George Smiley in this stylish adaptation of the novel by John Le Carre. In the early ’70s, Smiley is called out of retirement and tasked with flushing out a Soviet mole believed to be serving in a high-ranking office of British Intelligence. Smiley’s search is narrowed to four senior men, but which one is the double agent? Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, Benedict Cumberbatch also star. 128 min. Widescreen; Soundtracks: English DTS HD 5.1 Master Audio, French DTS 5.1, Spanish DTS 5.1; Subtitles: English (SDH), French, Spanish. Also includes a DVD version of the film. Two-disc set.
List Price: $ 34.98
Price: $ 18.88
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_This_ is why we go to the movies,
Different people go to the movies for different reasons. Some of us want to be entertained. Some of us want to be dazzled. Some of us want to be engaged by a story, or by characters that stick in the mind after the film is done. Some of us want to be transported to a different time or place. And some of us want to see talented actors create a bit of magic in the hands of a masterful director. Martin Scorsese’s Hugo does all of these things. It is, more than any other film I’ve seen this year, _why_ we go to the movies.
The film is based on the novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. If you’ve read the book, then you know the story already, but for everyone else I am going to be careful here and not reveal anything that might spoil the film. I will say that Hugo is about many things, but at its heart, it is about obsession, discovery and how one person’s story can lead to – and become entwined with – another’s.
The film is set in Paris in the 1930′s, in a railway station where an orphan boy named Hugo (engagingly played by Asa Butterfield) lives in the workspaces in the station walls and in the station’s central clocktower. He spends most of his time keeping the station’s clocks running (so that no one will come into the walls or the tower and discover his hiding places) and pursuing his obsession – fixing a man-shaped automaton designed to write with a pen which his father (Jude Law) had found in a museum and was trying to repair when he was killed in a fire. To feed himself, Hugo scrounges and pilfers food from the various food shops in the station, which draws the attention of the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen). To feed his efforts to repair the automaton, Hugo steals parts from a toy shop in the station, run by the elderly Papa Georges (Ben Kingsley), who finally catches him in the act. He is befriended though by Papa Georges’ god-daughter, a girl his age named Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz), who ends up helping Hugo pursue his obsession of fixing the automaton. Which, Hugo is convinced, has some secret message for him left by his late father. Where this ultimately leads… you’ll have to see the film. Telling you here would only ruin the film’s joy of discovery.
There are so many good things about Hugo as a film that it’s hard to know where to begin. I can at least start by saying that the look of the film itself is dazzling. Scorsese creates worlds within worlds, taking you first back to Paris in the 1930′s and from there into Hugo’s hidden world within the walls and clock tower of the train station. And from there, other places that are equally wondrous. The 3D is not wasted here and truly adds to the feel of Hugo’s world of narrow passages and massive time-keeping mechanisms with their enormous but intricate gears, springs and pendulums all in motion. And Howard Shore’s beautifully crafted musical score evokes the period throughout the film, adding to the feeling of being transported to a different time and place.
Another thing that makes Hugo so worth seeing is that Scorsese is one of those directors who can bring out the best performance an actor has in them, which he does a magnificent job of here, from veteran actors like Ben Kingsley and Christopher Lee to comparative newcomers like Asa Butterfield and Chloë Grace Moretz.
And just as the look of the sets shows his attention to detail, the populating of the world with characters shows it as well as he makes the train station come alive with its regular denizens, from Sacha Boren Cohen’s officious station inspector with his leg brace and the pretty young flower seller Lisette (Emily Mortimer) he secretly yearns for, to the comic attempts at romance between Monsieur Frick (Richard Griffiths), an elderly newspaper seller who keeps attempting to woo Madame Emile (Frances de la Tour), a cafe owner who dotes on her dog who unfortunately attacks Monsieur Frick every time he comes near. Scorsese also works in some famous historical Parisian residents of the period into the background, like jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt (Emil Lager), artist Salvador Dali (Ben Addis) and writer James Joyce (Robert Gill).
Highly, highly recommended for anyone who enjoys movies, and an absolute must-see for anyone who loves movies and what they mean to us.
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|No-Spoilers review of the 3D movie and the coming 2D DVD,
Few read reviews to find out whether the reviewer liked the film. They want to know whether THEY will like the film–to decide whether to see the movie or not, and whether to see it in the theater or wait and see the DVD (or the download). That’s the task I’ll take on here.
As the Rottentomato website has already shown (it assembles and correlates scads of reviews from the press and the web, along with reader responses), the critics adore this film, the audience somewhat less so.
Part of this has to do with managing expectations. The marketing presents Hugo as an Avatar-ish 3D fantasy with a C3P0 (StarWars)-type flying robot. this is actively misleading, though that’s not the director’s fault.
What Hugo is, is a fable–not a fantasy–that’s part tween adventure and part infomercial for the preservation and viewing of old silent movies. Most importantly–and this is a point that hasn’t been made by most reviewers here and elsewhere–it’s a film about ex-magician/early filmmaker Georges Meliés that Scorsese made, to a degree, IN THE STYLE of a Georges Meliés movie. That’s part of the homage.
Thus “Hugo” contains a lot of adventurous running-around, a brilliant exploitation of the best 3D filmmaking technology extant, and a leavening of slapstick elements–particularly from the surprisingly restrained Sascha Baron Cohen.
It’s a fable based on real events in the early history of movies. “Sleepless in Seattle” was a fable with no fantasy elements other than its happy-ending-inevitability, which you feel from beginning to end. That’s the essence of a fable, not whether it has fantasy elements or not. A fable is a kind of ritual that reaffirms the tribe’s values and faith in its vision of life.
Hugo reaffirms faith in goodness–that even in many apparently hard-hearted people there’s an ember that can be fanned into life by the right person. The movie’s vibe from its first seconds tells you that you are riding towards a happy ending.
Two Russian intellectuals that I saw the movie with hated that fact. They think a movie is unrealistic unless everyone’s doomed, and if you’d grown up in the Soviet Union that was probably realistic. Especially since Soviet-era fable-movies did guarantee a happy ending–”happy” as defined by Soviet ideology at least. So for my friends. fables aren’t just false, but evil State Propaganda. And a lot of Americans who fancy themselves intellectual have a similarly jaundiced perspective about Hollywood’s addiction to guaranteed by hook or by crook happy endings.
I think this issue stems from not understanding the ritual validity of fable. I love realistic movies without this guarantee of happy outcomes, but I also love a good fable. I’m certain of my spouse’s love for me and of my love for her. I’m certain of our relationship with our closest friends, as they are of us reciprocally. I’m certain of the law-abidingness of my society (especially compared to the third-world countries we’ve traveled in). Predictable good outcomes are, within reasonable constraints, reasonable to believe in, in many ways.
So “Hugo”‘s ultimate predictability is a valid artistic choice. It’s not a spoiler to say this because you know it from the start and you should know so you don’t confuse this with a Sundance-type art film where everyone is confused and faces an uncertain future, usually alone. I apologize for “Hugo” not being a slit-your-wristsathon. I also like such films, and they usually set your expectations from the start as well, for that matter.
So who will enjoy “Hugo” ?
1. Bright tweens. It stars a pair of bright tweens, so this is a natural. Many younger kids will like it as well–it’s visually a treat, and it is based on a kids’ story. But duller/much younger/Disneyfied kids who want nonstop action and/or the relentless cheerful action of a Disney film will probably find their attention wandering in places.
2. Everyone who’s interested in the history of filmmaking–particularly right at the beginning.
3. Everyone who’s interested in modern filmmaking. This does represent the absolute state of the art in 3D cinematography–where its 3Dness is integral and almost taken for granted, not tacked on, not poke-you-in-the-eye, not several layers of 2D images.
4. Everyone who’s interested in good fable direction/screenwriting/acting. This is not to say anyone involved in this project can’t do naturalistic films or fantasy films, or, in the case of Chloe Grace Moretz, naturalistic fantasy films (“Let me in”). So no negatives are proven here. That said, I believe the casting was spot on for the major and minor roles. This is one area where Scorsese didn’t copy the stagy mugging of Meliés’ films (except during re recreations of those films). The large, intent close-ups of the major characters really exposed their acting chops, and all came…
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|Intelligent,
This is a movie that is essentially a time warp. We are warped back into the seventies, when film was more grainy, the camera was actually steady, actors had substance, movies actually had a story to tell, and the audience was patient and intelligent.
By the standards of contemporary movie-making, when the first five minutes is usually an appetizer action sequence with a lot of explosions, this novel takes a really long time to get started, and the conflict slowly unfolds. Gary Oldman does an excellent job of playing the understated George Smiley, who must uncover a Russian mole within the leadership circle of British intelligence while battling old age/insignificance and the loss of the love of his life. George Smiley is the unlikeliest of all action heroes, and this spy thriller the opposite of James Bond. It doesn’t have the epic scale and consequence of “The Good Shepherd,” which was a great spy thriller in its own right. But “Tinker, Tailor” does work, and is a rare breed of film: a movie that stays loyal to the book while transforming onto the big screen.
What ultimately makes it work is the director’s steady hand, his willingness and courage to test the audience’s patience as he slowly builds up the plot, just as George Smiley patiently built his strategy to track down the Russian mole.
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|Fun at the Circus,
Probably like a lot of modern viewers, I had heard of but not read this book, nor seen the BBC TV series – Both were issued in the 1970′s.
I did though read a few summaries, knew that it was loosely based on British turncoat spy Kim Philby, and went into the movie understanding that it requires very careful attention to keep up with the involved plot. Seeing it cold, I still thought it was great, with terific performances by many decorated actors throughout the movie, and of course Gary Oldman is fantastic in the lead. In some ways, if like me you see it without knowing the story first, his character is done in a way that helps take you into the story, as he barely says anything in the first 15 or 20 minutes of the movie and just seems to be watching what all is going on. By the end, he has transformed into a strong character that has figured out the whole scheme.
While I loved the movie, even without having read the book to know the full story, it felt like the plot was overly compressed to fit within 2 hours. I watched it intently, but there were still a couple of developments in the plot, as done in the movie, that seemed like huge leaps, where the book must surely set it out better. So I’m now off to get the book and the BBC series, as it is such a great story, I want to get the full picture.
By the way, a viewing tip, courtesy of the Seattle Times movie reviewer – the many flashbacks can sometimes be confusing, but one way to help keep them straight is the glasses worn by Gary Oldman. He buys a new pair at the start of the movie, so the flashbacks show him with his old glasses – for the current events, he is wearing the new ones….
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|A Brooding Silence…,
“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” is a well-executed adaptation of John Le Carre’s classic espionage novel of the Cold War, with a first-rate cast, a haunting atmosphere, and a compelling narrative.
“Tinker” goes right to work. The opening sequence has field agent Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) on an off-the-books mission to Hungary for the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, known as Control (John Hurt). Control suspects a mole within the upper reaches of the Service, and asks Prideaux to send back a codeword identifying the spy, using the children’s nursery rhyme. The mission is compromised, Priddeaux is shot, and Control and his deputy George Smiley (Gary Oldman) are fired.
A restless Smiley is recalled to duty by a senior civil servant to investigate some unfinished business involving Ricki Tarr (a blonde Tom Hardy), a field agent who claims to know a vital Soviet secret and who has gone off the grid. With the assistance of Tarr’s desk officer, the young Peter Guillam (an astonishingly good Benedict Cumberbatch), Smiley quietly renews the search for the mole. Some old-fashioned detecting leads Smiley and Guillam down a thin trail of clues to four suspects and a fateful confrontation at a house in London.
Although only two hours long, “Tinker” manages to work in the key elements from a long novel, and gets some terrific work from the cast, especially Gary Oldman as Smiley, a weary Cold War veteran whose long brooding silences speak volumes. The 1970′s setting of the novel is evoked in detail with hair and clothing fashions, music, and technical props such as typewriters, old-fashioned teletypes, and reel-to-reel tape recorders. The pacing of the story keeps the suspense alive to the end.
The inevitable comparison is with the superb BBC TV mini-series of the late 1970′s starring Alec Guinness as Smiley. It is a weakness of the movie that at just two hours, it lacks the time to properly introduce the many characters or the period to a modern audience who may not have experienced the Cold War. There isn’t a lot of exposition in the movie, and this reviewer, who was very familiar with the novel and the mini-series, suspects some viewers may have trouble following the story.
“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” is highly recommended as an excellent and atmospheric spy drama.
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