Comments on: First Links – 12.05.11

By: sallyr

sallyr — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:14:38 +0000

I wished I had liked it. My mom LOVED it, crying at the end. Me, my sister and brother-in-law didn’t say anything to detract from my mother’s enjoyment, since she really loved it. But – whew, when she was out of the room, not so much love of Hugo. Somehow, it was all lost on me. Maybe if we’d seen it in 3-D it would have been better.

The images were striking, I agree, but weren’t enough to sustain the movie for me. But I do hate being a killjoy – so I’m glad others did find something to appreciate.

By: Mike Melendez

Mike Melendez — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:56:55 +0000

Unlike, sallyr, I tilt in the other direction. The short pseudo-documentary on George Melies alone was worth the price of admission. Then there was the recreation in Hugo’s dream of a train wreck that happened in reality in that station. Melies saw the movies as a form of magic and directed accordingly. That is what I think Scorcese is reaching for. I think he succeeds.

A scene where Tabard, a movie historian, first meets Melies’ wife effuses a rich sense of modesty and manners that almost made me cry for it’s loss.

The growing romance of a bespectacled and somewhat rotund old gentleman and a stately aged lady comes to fulfillment with the introduction of a dog.

Even Sasha Baron Cohen, whom I normally cannot stand, becomes poignant as a man who lived and carries the ravages of the trenches and has to relearn how to smile.

Over it all, the imperious rigidity of Ben Kingsley’s Melies who still believes in magic but finds it impossible to trust anymore.

A kid can enjoy the eye candy but it takes an adult with the depth of experience of Christopher Lee’s bookseller for the myriad meanings to surface.

By: sallyr

sallyr — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:32:08 +0000

where’s the link to the Hugo review? I saw that movie and hated it. The dialogue and plot were painful to sit through, although there were some very pretty things to look at during it.

It is a monument to “slow-talking” as a substitute for real emotional engagement. Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal is spot on, and in my opinion is one of very few reviewers who has the courage to say that the Emperor (Martin Scorsese) has no clothes.