HUGO 3D Post-Release Discussion

I'm particularly curious to hear what those Chewers with children have to say. Not about their own opinions, but what the kiddies thought. As I note in my review, I am skeptical about how well the cinema love-letter element will play to youngsters for whom cinema is just TV on a big screen.

It's the best film of the year, IMO.

I loved every frame of it.  Pure cinema magic and the best film of the year next to Drive.  Easily the best use of 3-D I've seen since the beginning of this latest resurgence and I've pretty much seen em' all.  I took my nearly 11 year old son and am saddened to say he was bored stiff.  I know Melies and care deeply about the lineage of the cinematic art form and fear kids will generally be listless and slack jawed toward this prominent aspect of the film.  Hopefully it will spark a fire in some of the youth who attend it to research the origins of film. 

 

Everybody is great in this, especially Kingsley, but special mention should be made for how truly marvelous Cohen is.  I was most worried by him in the previews, but he gives this stock comic relief character great depth, pathos and emotion, all the while being hysterical and fitfully entertaining.  A deeply beautiful, masterfully crafted film. 

Scorcese made this movie for kids but I don't think it will appeal to kids.   Perhaps burgeoning film geeks but that's about it.   Anyway, me and the wife enjoyed the movie alot even with the projectionist cropping the movie at 2.35:1 chopping off heads and giving everyone headaches.   It ruined the 3D for us since anything that gets cut off or half shown messes with your brain in 3D.   Despite that, it was a truly magical movie and makes me want to delve into the silent era of movies more.

Scorsese can get in with the times and make a 3D movie, but I can't help but feel he would rather have been making a documentary on Meiles. This was very slow to start with, and only picked up steam when the early movies element was introduced. That part was fantastic, a brilliant, beautiful love letter to early (and indeed) all cinema, with Ben Kingsley summing it better than any person else: "This is where dreams happen." (paraphrase) The rest didn't click for me. I liked the kid, liked Cohen and the small cast of characters, but nothing about their actual story and interactions gripped me in any real way, save for the fact that I loved how the automaton was never meant for Hugo except in a spiritually thematic way. It's good, not great. Do love me some Ben Kingsley, always and forever.

I'm with you on this one, Doc Happenin. I really, really wish I loved it, since I totally appreciate that Scorsese was crafting a personal film about his own love of cinema, but I found the story to be largely cheap and plodding, and the writing very sappy and at times outright terrible. The movie really comes alive, though, when it's dealing with Melies and his history. I loved those sequences.

 

I don't dislike it by any means -- I think it's a solid little film. But really, aside from some incredible flourishes here and there (the dream sequences come to mind), it feels fairly anonymous. Ultimately, I just don't think it plays to Scorsese's strengths. He just doesn't feel suited for this Spielberg-meets-Jeunet type of material, although it's nice to see him engaging with the cinematic history aspects of the plot (and I don't want it to sound like I'm suggesting filmmakers should never branch out beyond their comfort zone). There's no doubt that Scorsese has engaged with this material, so that's not really the problem, but it doesn't feel like he engaged it effectively or naturally as he has with his more relentlessly entertaining, energetic, obviously stylized stuff like The Departed or Goodfellas.

 

I also think my expectations might have been too high, considering the amazing reviews.

Impossibly gorgeous, utterly charming... but a little too far on the wrong side of compelling.

 

As Joshua mentions in his review, the shift in scale from the orphaned and endangered Hugo to the well-off but unhappy Méliès does feel disproportionate.

 

I'd part company with him on the question of 3-D, though; up to this point I've been no great fan of the format, and this is probably the first time since Avatar that I felt that 3-D really enhanced a movie (and at least I didn't fall asleep during Hugo).

I actively disliked 3D and disliked it in this movie no less than usual. It is the total opposite of immersive for me -- it consistently takes me out of the film and I'm often confused about how I'm even supposed to watch it. Everything looks disjointed and unusual, like cardboard cutouts stacked in front of each other. To me, it is an extremely uncomfortable viewing experience. Maybe I'm just too acclimated to 2D, though -- this is entirely possible. 

 

For some reason I really dug the 3D in Avatar, though. It's literally the only time I haven't been massively irritated by the entire 3D experience, which tells me it can be done right, somehow. Couldn't even begin to say what was actually different about it execution-wise though.

I found it a well-made snooze.  I had to keep nudging my daughter awake through most of it.  The biggest issue with Hugo is the lack of magic.  Where was it?  For the most part it came from the clips of older films.  The one exception was the trampling scene at the station.  Another major problem was I was interested in anything thaw was going on.  I don't know if this was the 3D or just the storytelling.  I think it was a bit of both.  The only time that Martin did get me invested was the very short scene of a young Tabard visiting Georges studio.  

I'm almost worried at how cold this left me. I know from this that Martin Scorsese loves movies very much, but I don't feel that love nearly often enough. Frankly, I couldn't help feeling that all the stuff with the kids and the train station could have been left behind, and that I'd much rather see some kind of 3D, oneiric George Melies biopic. Although around the twelfth time someone said "movies are like dreeeeeams" I wanted to smash something.

 

The story is utterly fucked (although that's a carry-over from the book). Seriously, Hugo is motivated to spend time with the old man so he can get his notebook back, only for him to easily finish the automaton anyway without it? Not to mention how out-of-nowhere his love for movies comes from, even though it could have easily been established earlier? Or how the flashback to the father could basically have been completely taken out, since everything that happens there is addressed in dialogue (or even better, leave the flashback but take out all of that extra dialogue)? Sloppy sloppy. And the towering, incredible, ridiculous coincidence that Melies and the kid with his robot end up at the same train station still sort of leaves me aghast, although that's a problem I had ever since I read the book (it's interesting and prettily-illustrated but monstrously overrated). Yeah, I know all of this makes me that guy yelling out the secrets at the magic act, and I truly, truly hate to be that guy, but I just can't give in to the magic. Especially when that goddamn fairy-dust sprinkling sound (I have no idea of its name) emerges every other second.

 

Just to be clear, I did like the movie. Like Joshua says in his review, lesser Scorsese is still miles ahead of most other directors. It looks spectacular, and I agree with everyone saying that it's the best use of 3D that's come along yet, and most everything directly dealing with Melies is terrific, and I liked the little subplots that the other denizens of the train station had, but that's sandwiched with the kids, and they just don't do anything for me. Butterfield is kind of out of his league, and even Moretz is weaker than normal (although I loved her repeated attempts at working "big words" into conversation).

 

Sidenote: It was driving me insane trying to figure out who the film historian was. Didn't recognize Stuhlbarg behind the beard.

Edited by Whiteboy Jones - 11/27/11 at 9:39pm

You guys are insane.  It's my favorite film of the year.

Dude, I had to look him up bc I couldn't figure out who it was.  Apparently he lost weight and is looking all GQ now.  He reminded me of Fassbender in this film for some reason.  

I'm even more ashamed because I couldn't figure it out even though I immediately pegged him as Jewy-as-all-get-out, and I normally associate Stuhlbarg with Jewy-as-all-get-out.

I really liked it, but didn't quite fall in love, for many of the reasons already pointed out. It's a bit of a narrative shambles. But the craftsmanship and passion is kind of intoxicating. It's all so deeply felt that I couldn't help but respect the effort, and got carried along with it most of the way through. It's totally worth checking out if you're a Scorsese fan.

I don't see it being a "narrative shambles" at all.  It's a story about people who are broken and keeping their pain to themselves opening up to other people and making connections that result in them being fixed by finding or rediscovering their purpose.  Sacha Cohen was broken from the war and learned how to reach out to someone and be a protector again as opposed to causing the same pain that happened to him as a child.  Hugo lost his father and learned through interacting with Moretz that he still had more to give and share with others, Melies and his wife learned by opening up to Hugo and Stuhlbarg that their creativity was still cherished and they should work together to salvage it instead of bitterly, silently, sullenly mourning its premature demise.  Even the cute old couple with the dogs had a nice, quiet arc that resolved itself sweetly.  Every character, save for Stuhlbarg had a narrative arc and a correctly proportionate amount of time was spent on each.  

 

And to be "aghast" that the automaton and Melies end up at the same train station as Whiteboy Jones says he was clearly means this films particular brand of whimsy just wasn't for you.  Everything fit together like clockwork in this extremely mannered, overly styilized and wistfully fantasized version of 1930's Paris that could have never existed.   Every piece of interaction between the characters to me represented the gears of the central conceits metaphorical clock interlocking and propelling the story along, not indivudual plot points that needed to be justified by some textbook definition of narrative convention outlined in writing for the screen 101. 

 

I can be a pedant as much as anybody, but this worked for me on every level.  I can understand nitpicking self important superhero movies or things like the Star Wars prequels that are just begging to be torn to pieces under the weight of their own story bloat and incomprehensible, retcon bullshit, but this was a simple, straightforward story with sweet, archetypal characters nicely shaded by great performances under the guidance of one of the masters of American cinema.  Seeing Goodfellas in the theater 20 whatever years ago was one of my first truly transformative theatergoing experiences.  Watching Hugo and feeling the same exhilliarating transportation 2 decades later is something I'm extremely grateful for.  

 

I really liked this, but it started out way too slow.  It did seem to build steam steadily though, so maybe it was by design.  Honestly though, and I am a big sap, I was a bit bored at the beginning of the film.

 

By the end of it however, I was pretty well invested in the film.

Am I the only one who thought the film historian was meant to evoke a young Scorsese?  Definitely got that vibe.

 

This was a little slow at first -- maybe a director better known for their sense of whimsy than Scorsese could have amped things up a bit -- but it certainly picks up steam and by the end is a total winner.

 

The character of Hugo is a literal wrench in the gears.  He forces things off track, knocks people out of their comfortable trajectories, off their pre-programmed tracks, despite the fact that his "job" is to keep the clocks running..  It's no accident the first thing we see is a collection of gears that transforms into Paris and then eventually the sight of Hugo peering out from within the clock; he's the ghost in the machine.

I just saw The Artist, and I have to say, Hugo was a much better argument for the artistic worth of silent movies, and a more exciting film in its own right. They make for an interesting double feature.

I actually saw Hugo and The Muppets back to back, and it's a more appropriate double feature than you might think.  They're both cases of filmmakers paying homage to something they love.  But whereas The Muppets seems content simply to say, "Here is something I love, don't you love it too?" Hugo says, "Here's something I love, here's why, and here's why you should too."

Well put.  I took my son to both Hugo and The Muppets opening weekend.  He found Hugo incredibly boring and loved the Muppets.  His favorite thing about the Muppets was how "they kept pointing out that it was a movie while you were watching it".   That was exactly why after 30 minutes, the Muppets went from adorable to grating in my opinion.  I'll accept incessant 4th wall breaking from television cartoons, but not feature films.  If the whole thing is one big self aware joke on itself, why are we supposed to care about anything happening to these characters and situations whose artificiality is ceaselessly acknowledged?  

 

 

Now now, let's not stoop to passive-aggressive condescension here. I have to ask: is there any difference between people defending mindless, lazy summer blockbusters with "it's not trying to be high art!" or "why can't you just turn off your brain?" or any of those weak stock phrases, and what you're saying here?

 

Also, let me clarify a bit. First, I really have to stress that I did like the movie, I just didn't fall head over heels for it. Second, I realize I devoted most of my space harping on story problems, but that really isn't my biggest beef with the movie. I would have been able to let it slide somewhat, except Hugo just didn't engage me. I found the kids' acting to be really weak (I don't get any praise Butterfield receives at all, frankly), and while the adults are fine, besides Kingsley and Cohen, most of the movie isn't spent with them. Also, and this might not make any sense at all because it's a more esoteric element that I'm struggling to put into words, the movie is kind of awkward. I understand that it's editing is trying to emulate the rhythm of silent film, but it just didn't click.

 

I dunno, it just seems like there's a dog-whistle effect here. So many movie lovers are so stoked that Scorsese made a film "for them," and it's like they've put blinders on as a result.

Did you not see the scene where he begs Sacha Baron Cohen to let him go?  Kid knocked it out of the goddamn park, and he was just as good throughout.

 

You mention the film aping the rhythms of silent films, and I think that's especially true of the opening (up to where we see the title), which could have been done completely silently.  And that leads me to mention Howard Shore's score.  It's pretty damn wonderful.

He has big ol' sad eyes, I'll give him that. He never really moved me, honestly.
 

 

I loved the opening. I thought the silent film emulation was hit and miss (hence my "awkwardness" complaint), and that was a spectacular hit. I thought it missed worst in "slapstick" scenes, like when the station inspector first chases Hugo. The editing there is so stilted and off (and it ends on a groin hit joke, for crying out loud).

 

EDIT: This article asks the same question I did, as to whether this movie (as well as The Artist) is getting so much love because it blowjobs film and film history.

Edited by Whiteboy Jones - 12/4/11 at 6:28pm

I will admit to the passive aggressive condescenion.  It's an unfortunate outgrowth of my "internet persona" when discussing films online.  I generally prefer that approach to simply aggressive.  I endeavor never to write something I wouldn't say to someones face, and I'm certain I at least adhered to that self applied rule.  Surely then, you must admit to some hyperbolic pedantry.  I confess to being hyperbolic in my praise, so perhaps your reaction to the unreserved, barely examined love I and others are giving it is wholly justified. 

 

I will say this: I went and watched it again and after reading the excellent review on this site (wish I could remember the authors name) and putting in some more consideration to its narrative, it does have some shortcomings and flaws.  It definitely is asking us to care more about the predicament of a seemingly well off gentleman who has lived a full life than an endangered, abandoned orphan, which is patently ridiculous and socially irresponsible.  Still, the beauty of it transports me, so there is where we presumably differ.  

 

I also do believe there is a difference between my support of the film and the stock phrases you refer to (which I also abhor) that are apologetic of mindless summer blockbuster drivel. There is a huge difference between some thin characterization and undeveloped sub plots working for me and not you in what is otherwise a top to bottom, brilliantly constructed piece of art and the gaping narrative flaws and detestable, loathsome characters of say, Revenge of the Fallen.  I don't excuse Hugo of anything.  It totally works for me.  I see the points you and others are making from a more critical perpective after watching the film again with those in mind.  I still love the film, but feel I have a more well rounded understanding and appreciation of it, so for that, I thank you and whoever wrote that review for inspiring me to look a bit deeper than my cursory, overwhelmed initial impression.   

 

Hey, no probs. *conciliatory bro hug*

 

 

I really hope you didn't take any offense to that, since I meant none, though in retrospect I realize it looks like I'm putting this film and you in some pretty low company.

I really, really absolutely loved this movie. I'll be banging the Hugo drum for a while now all the way to the Oscars (provided it gets nominated). I look at this movie not so much as a homage to these older movies but as a huge "thank you" from Scorsese to these pioneers for pushing the boundaries then and using their imagination and dreams to alter film making and turn it into something more.

 

It'd be pretty great if this inspired some young kids to get into film making by researching Miles and maybe even Scorsese.

Wow, a lot more negativity in this thread than I was expecting. I thought this was an absolute masterpiece, the sheer craft and magic on display making it impossible to be distanced from it. But then, I love "world-building" movies, and this was absolutely one of those.

 

My advice? Don't have an internet persona. Write honestly, even if it means being "aggressive" rather than "passive aggressive." People respond better to honesty than condescension, especially on the internet. They might disagree with you or call you negative, but they won't be able to call you disingenuous. 

 

I loved Hugo and I think it's one of Scorsese's most personal films, a valentine to how cinema saved him from a life of sacrifice (which is a recurring theme in many of his movies...temptation and sacrifice). I loved how the inside of the train station, with all the gears and smoke and machinery, reminded me of a giant movie projector (how fitting that Hugo lives inside a giant movie projector)? I love how you can see hints of Scorsese in both Hugo and Melies. I love how this feels like it's directed at his daughter while the Age of Innocence seems directed at his father, and those two films actually are kinds of ying's and yang's --- I just happened to watch them both last weekend and it's surprising how much they have in common. Little touches like the fact that Scorsese has a cameo in both as a photographer, his parents have cameos in a train station in Innocence, they both feature Paris in a strong way, and both are about men who sacrifice their dreams and chance of happiness. The difference, of course, is that Melies gets a second chance thanks to his "kids," which is a terribly sweet message given that Innocence seems about sacrificing FOR your kids. Such a lovely thought.

Anyway, I got totally wrapped up in Hugo, and even though the automaton metaphor is clunky (it's clunky in the kids book too, but it's a kids book), the way Kingsley delivers that line about the machine not being broken at the end totally choked me up. He nailed it and so did the kids. 

 

Film Crit Hulk agrees with me. Now, I'm not saying that automatically makes me right, but I do have a giant green monster on my side now.

I'm fairly certain we all have an "internet persona" now.  The disembodied nature of our discourse on this crazy contraption verily demands it.  I don't use my real name and try not to give out the particulars of my real life, therefore, this isn't really me.  It's that whole Brian O'blivion Videodrome "One day we will all have special names" philosophy.  Apart from not saying things I wouldn't say to a complete stranger, this is me, so perhaps the passive aggression is in my own personality and not my internet persona.  I'll bring this up with my therapist.

 

I really need to see the Age of Innocence now.  I avoided it when I was a younger man because it didn't have gangsters or self loathing antiheroes (as far as I could tell).  In light of how much I loved Hugo and what you have to say about it Parker, sounds like I'm missing out.

Very good read.  I've heard of the Film CritHulk, but never looked into it until given this link, so, much obliged because that was good reading.  Funny and insightful.  I definitely agree with hating the whole refusal to act aspect of a lot of modern narrative as well, but it seemed to be glossed over in Hugo as Papa Georges essentially drops out of the story for 45 minutes until his big reveal (indicative of a larger story problem as well I suppose).  Good points being made all around regarding its narrative and thematic lapses, but oh that delicious craft!

 

I don't need to know who you are, what you look like or what your name is in order to discuss movies (or much of anything else) with you, so I don't really agree. If we were talking "in real life" I'd be using the same points. The internet forces us to communicate differently, but it doesn't force us to use hyperbole or engage in sarcastic comments, that's something we choose to do on our own. The internet might make those options easier because the anonymity that comes with the territory, but there begins the root of the "persona," and that's why I advised against being tempted to go down that road. 

As an aside, a lot of people tell me I come off as a jerk online, so maybe I'm doing it wrong too. 

I think watching the Age of Innocence right before Hugo probably made me appreciate it more because I had a lot of the Scorsese themes in my head going into it. I'm guessing it'd be easy for a lot of people to write it off as a "kids movie/3D experiment," but there's a lot of personal stuff going on in Hugo, even aside from all the obvious silent film making references. 

I think the real trick to Hugo lies in how Scorsese stitches the two halves of his film together, and I think the difference between falling in love with it and liking but not loving it lies in whether he's able to put you under his spell in the first half. You can file me under the former distinction, but that's not to say I don't see issues with the narrative in that first hour or so. In fact I agree with some of what Big Green has to say in terms of, say, the approach being slightly off. But if the script has its issues, then Scorsese certainly makes up for them with his meticulous storytelling sensibilities and his filmmaking prowess, which I think is only appropriate for a movie about why we love the movies in the first place. Where Logan's script is weak, Scorsese's direction is uniformly strong. He knows how to overcome shortcomings in someone else's writing. 

 

It's an interesting experience, being totally in love with a film during a viewing and recognizing its "flaws" outside of the theater. None of those aforementioned shortcomings really matter because of how effectively it functions as a film despite its script-level warts. For me, this is easy top ten material and one of the best "movies about movies" to come out in the last decade or so, if not the very best; Scorsese is reminding us of the reasons we love watching movies and why they captivate us, move us, delight us, and inspire us. It's not so much about a filmmaker telling people why we should like the same things as he (though there's certainly a touch of that), it's about him making an exultation of cinema for everyone who's ever been awestruck by moving pictures before. Sure, he's also educating us about Méliès specifically, but I think he's speaking about cinema as a whole through his examination of Méliès' life and work and contributions to the medium.

 

Hugo is a transporting film, very much the sort of work capable of taking its audience away to another time and another place in order to elicit an emotional reaction from them. That's why it works so well and I think why it's being so highly praised across critic circles. 

 

Also: the kids are excellent here. They stand out in a cast composed of Kingsleys and Lees and Stuhlbargs and three Potter alums and more, which is no small feat. (Not to say that the rest of the cast isn't wonderful on its own, and Kingsley has my favorite moment in the entire movie to his credit.)

Just saw Hugo and I'm going to say I'm in the 'liked it, but didn't love it' camp. Anyway I don't have much to add to the discussion other than this photo of Scorsese's Steadicam guy (you know Larry McConkey, the guy who pulled off that famous Goodfellas shot) holding the Full 3D steadicam rig.



Just to give you an idea about how impressive this is here a a few facts and guesses.
- Larry McConkey is 61 years old and probably weighs around 140 lbs.
- The Arri Alexa cameras weigh somewhere between 30 to 40lbs each (remember 3d requires two cameras)
- The sled (what the Cameras are mounted to) with batteries weights approx. 20-25 lbs
- The Spring Arm to hold the sled is another 25lbs
- and the vest this all is attached to is another 10lbs

So what we have here is a 60 year old carrying around an equipment package that weighs as much as he does. And not only is he hauling this thing around, he's doing it while walking as smoothly and as quickly as he can. If you want to have some idea about how hard that is, imagine if you had strapped enough lead plates to your chest to double your own bodyweight, then were handed a glass of beer filled to the rim and asked to carry it across the street and up a flight of stairs as fast as possible without spilling a drop.

I am impressed.

Saw this today, and thought it was pretty goddamn good, even great at points. I'm not going to pretend it's one of Scorsese's best, but it's definitely one of his most heartfelt. Laundry list!:

 

-Asa Butterfield and Chloe Moretz (damn, this girl moves fast!) have a terrific dynamic and chemistry together. I like, for instance, that Butterfield plays Hugo as pretty sullen and withdrawn at first; he's not some eager Charlie Bucket-type, but a kid whose experiences have made it difficult for him to trust people. That makes his outbursts of sadness or joy all the more effective, methinks. Moretz, meanwhile, remains one of the most ridiculously versatile young actresses working today, and her British accent is quite nice and adorable too.

 

-Kingsley has a great push-and-pull thing going on with Butterfield as well, and he plays the big emotional moments to perfection.

 

-The supporting cast is just astonishing. Sacha Baron Cohen makes it clear right from the start that the Inspector is not a bad or evil man, just bitter and lonely, and I love how he played the gradual transformation. Of course, having the ridiculously lovable Emily Mortimer as an incentive helps a lot. Helen McCrory does a complete turn-around from Narcissa Malfoy as a woman who cannot help but remember the past with fondness despite the pain, and Michael Stuhlbarg did remind me a little of a young Scorsese with his infectious enthusiasm. Frances de la Tour, Richard Griffiths, and Christopher Lee don't get much to do in the long run, no, but what they have is nice. Jude Law and Ray Winstone have perhaps even less, but Law is exactly right as the loving father (his little pause before correcting  Hugo on where his mother came from broke my heart) and Winstone is reliably Winstone-y.

 

-From the get-go, this is a Scorsese film, with its roving camera, lavish sets and costumes, and a deep, rich love of cinema. I actually thought the mid-stream story shift worked well: they tie in Hugo's love of movies to his father, the mystery is too irresistible for these kids to resist, and there's still the tension of Hugo getting caught by the Inspector.

 

-I did find it a little amusing that Lee was pretty much the only one even attempting a French accent. Maybe they tried it with everyone else and it sounded silly? I dunno, I didn't mind it much.

 

I think comparing this to The Muppets is a little unfair; they're completely different types of films in tone, style and what they're trying to do. They're both terrific films, and they both deserve being seen.

Kingsley's line about movies being where dreams come from brought me to tears. I wasn't expecting something like this film to hit so close to my heart: I did a paper on George Melies when I was 12, and that was the same period of time that I decided that come hell or high water, film would be my life. His anguish over the past, what he lost, and his subsequent joy at seeing his life's work rediscovered and remembered...I was right there every step of the way. Kingsley's just legendary here. There's just so much joy in this film. I am in big eyed puppy dog love with this film, and most importantly, its message.

Don't quote me (detailed info is hard to come by) but I believe the Pace system is actually a single camera, modified with an alternating-field beam-splitter array, so while it is heavier than a 'flat' camera it's not double the weight either. Doesn't minimize the man's achievement though-- that's a hell of a picture.

It was like I was back in my history of film class.  And I LOVED that class. 

 

Moretz was giving off serious Emma Watson vibes during this.

Jeezy petes, the more people gush about this, the more I feel like I'm an automaton missing a cog for not loving it.

It is a beam-splitter system, but that just means the second camera is mounted perpendicular to the other from the bottom, rather than to the side. If you look in the picture you can see the second camera pointing upwards. System works by having an angled 50/50% piece of glass that allows half the light to go into one camera, and half into the other.

 

And there's a good reason Steadicam ops make BANK. Like, only need to work a few months out of the year bank, if they also own their equipment.

 

Aha, thanks.

Only Scorsese could have made this beautiful movie. I watched Taxi Driver two nights ago and Hugo is the perfect complement, not thematically, obviously, but both bring to life the passion, the complete mastery of the medium, the love for the language of film and the ability to communicate through the visual form. Damn. Incredible.

Saw this Sunday evening and wasn't as enthralled with it as a whole like most.  I found it to be, obviously, visually stunning and 3D exemplified.  I felt, as Joshua did, that the story underlying the beauty of the visuals was clunky and disjointed.  I disliked the switch between the two main stories but the quote below made me sorta understand it:

 

 

The switch between Hugo and Papa Georges stories is clunky and distinct but this could be seen as an intentional thematic part of the film as we later see Miles splicing together the exploding skeletons scene and we see how primitive special effects had to be in that era of film making.  I liken it to inclusion of chess at the beginning of Rise of the Planet of Apes and the "chess game" that takes place on the Golden Gate bridge at the end of the film.  That clunky switch that silent films had like that and the clunky switch from an orphaned boy looking for purpose and a bitter old man could be intentional even as the stories dovetail at the end.

 

Hugo has long stretches of no dialogue as Hugo watches the goings on of the train station and I want to go back and watch the film again to see if those silent stretches are punctuated by dialogue stretches that inform what we just saw much the way dialogue cards would have during silent films.

 

The film is a theatre must see for the 3D but still lacks something to make it connect to the audience a little better.

 

Cohen needs to drop his personal comedy films and expand his repertoire; something I feel he could do much better than Sandler and become a much bigger household name.

 

Asa Butterfield is this years Hailee Steinfeld, thrown into the mix with actors who are phenoms with their craft and expected to hold his own.  I don't think he achieves this as well as she did against Bridges but he does a competent enough job.

 

I think the film might mesh and gel more and more upon repeat viewings which may also be an intentional thematic underpinning as the film about us loving film reminds us how comforting it can be to revisit old favorites.  Not sure I will drop 3D money on it though to test this idea.

Just saw this today. A bit too leisurely paced maybe, and slapstick is perhaps not Scorsese's strong suit. But in general I thought it was heartfelt and lovely, and visually pulled off with almost virtuoso panache. In this movie he shows how 3D can add not just depth but weight to the images - just the shot of a key turning in a lock has a real physicality to it.

 

I counted not one but *three* Scorsese-surrogates at various points, not even counting his cameo, and in a lot of ways it does seem to be him laying out his personal cinema manifesto (though you'd never guess how dark his usual 'dreams' are from watching this). It made me want to plough through the earliest days of cinema which I imagine is what he would want.

My 6 year old daughter saw the trailer for this and asked to see it.  Looking at the running time it's 2 hrs 20 minutes.

 

So, is she going to be able to sit through it all?  She's pretty damned fantastic at the movies (has sat through three two hour movies with no issues) but I'm a bit concerned a lot of this may be beyond her.

How much of it is fantastical/magical and how much .. ummm, not?

 

I haven't read any reviews, or even this thread because I wanted to go in cold.

It's not really a 'magical fantasy' movie at all, unless the heightened style counts.

Wow.  Just wow.  I loved this movie, the stylisation, the nods to silent films, all the call backs, the very welcome return of Frances Delatour and Richard Griffiths.

 

More importantly my 6 year old girl loved it.  LOVED it.  She usually gets squirmy and fidgety even during the full on ADD movies that are forced down our kids throats now but she sat, absolutely enraptured and enthralled throughout the whole thing.  She only leaned over and gripped my hand during the second dream sequence (Hugo turning into the automaton).

 

This was a kids movie that didn't dumb down (I loved the language used throughout), or felt the need to throw tones of shit at the screen.  It was magical in the proper way, beautifully shot and presented.  It was like the difference between reading Peter Pan (Barrie's original) vs a Barbie 'novel'.  

 

After it finished she looked up at me and said "Daddy, that was AMAZING".

While she's loved the movies for a long time I think that this movie was the one that made her appreciate the actual art of cinema.  And given the storyline that's pretty much damn near perfect.

 

And holy shit does Scorsese know how to use 3D.  I loved that, much like Ridley Scott, he filled the screen with actual atmosphere (ashes falling in the station, steam, snow, mist).  Almost every shot was stunningly composed.

 

One of the best movies I've seen.

Holy TEAL & ORANGE explosion!!!

 

Hahahaha... I think I sat through almost all of this film on the verge of tears.  Everything about it made me emotional.  The passion that Scorcese has for cinema comes through from the very beginning and the film just FELT perfect.  It absolutely clicked for me to the point that I cannot give a shit about any complaints (valid or not, hahahah) that I or anyone else may have had while watching it (obviously, I will be reading HULK's piece on it and enjoy it).

 

I LOVE that film history itself was essentially used to fuel the mythology of this world.  No actual magic involved at all, except for the fact that the film just EXUDED magic.

 

I hereby proclaim Scorcese to be the KING OF 3D.  It was the perfect balance of 'neither distracting nor negligible' 3D throughout the whole film.  The setting was perfect for the depth and the film always has particles floating in the air.  The film was so beautiful that I almost want to take back every negative thing I've said about TEAL & ORANGE (which is mostly a joke anyway). 

 

Loved the performances of the children.  I thought Asa and Moretz were great.  Kingsley and McCrory were heartbreaking.  Shore's score was ever-present and ever-beautiful.  The FX were perfect (except maybe the Law-killing fireball...).

 

Just LOVE LOVE LOVE.  I can't really be trusted to talk about it right now, hahahaha.  I am kicking myself for seeing it so late.

My daughter took my wife to see this film.  The first time my daughter has seen a movie twice at the movies, and my wife's first 3D experience.

 

The girl loved it again and my missus loved it too.  Le Gare du Nord is one of her fave buildings in Paris anyway so she was completely blown away by the similarity to that.  The opening fly-through Paris made her cry.

 

My girl came back and said that after it had finished her Mum had cried, gotten down on her knees, hugged her and thanked her for taking her to see the film :)

 

She now desperately wants to go back to Paris and has promised my daughter that one day she'll take her to that train station.

 

Apparently it was still selling pretty well as well, which in a town like Palmy is pretty damn impressive.  I imagine the 11 Oscar nods will give it a boost too.