Hugo

In the first ten minutes of Hugo, Martin Scorsese delivers a breathtaking flight above the wintry streets of beautiful Paris, through the crowds at a downtown railway station, and into the very workings of the beautiful clocks that keep the people in the station on time.  Further, he introduces the ragamuffin boy Hugo, our hero, wins our sympathy for him, and dazzles us with the beauty of his photography and vision.

And then he gives us the opening credits.  Basically, the first ten minutes of Hugo is Martin Scorsese saying, “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m the best there is.”

He’s right, of course.  He is the best there is, and he uses his mastery of his craft to tell us a story (of the plucky young Hugo and his adventures in the railway station), experiment with and expand 3D technology, and proclaim his love for film, both aesthetically and technically.

He’s aided by the kind of cast a Scorsese can command: Christopher Lee as a bookshop owner who reveals hidden depths, Sacha Baron Cohen as the Station Inspector, Emily Mortimer as the flower vendor who’s the glint in his eye, and Jude Law as, in a sense, the soul of the picture.  And that’s just the supporting cast!  In the lead, we find the remarkable young Asa Butterfield as the titular Hugo, Chloë Grace Moretz (whom I’m beginning to see as the next Jodie Foster) as an educated young girl who yearns for adventure, and Sir Ben Kingsley in one of his most evocative roles since Death and the Maiden.

Right around here, I usually summarize the plot to help you decided whether the story’s for you.  Not this time.  The story’s good, and it’ll capture your imagination, but Hugo is for you simply because it’s beautiful.  It provokes a feeling of aesthetic wonder, a joy that mankind is capable of creating such visions and experiences, a shared delight in the possibilities of film as a medium.  I loved Hugo and consider it among the best films of the year.  I think you’ll love it, too.

Transsiberian

You know what makes TRANSSIBERIAN such a good thriller? It's a thriller about decisions.

Emily Mortimer and Woody Harrelson decide to take the Transsiberian rail line across Northern Asia rather than just fly. Kata Mara and Eduardo Noriega decide to take the train for reasons of their own, as does Ben Kingsley. And then paths start crossing and recrossing and people make decisions that seem right at the time and before you know it there's blood and hash and suspicion and paranoia everywhere you look. It's a train wreck.

And it's a train wreck that keeps surprising us, that keeps us guessing, that delights in winding us up as much as we delight in the winding.

This is excellent stuff, and Emily Mortimer deserves much of the credit for its success. Cowriter and director Brad Anderson had intended to cast Samantha Morton in the lead role, but that (fine) actress suffered an accident and had to bug out at the last minute. What luck that Mortimer was available and willing to step in, because
she displays a range so complete that she takes us on a psychology journey that's dazzling in its scope without once letting us see the craft behind the artistry.

Buying this film's protagonist makes the thriller possible, because we root for her every step of the way. When the movie turns up the heat on her, it turns it up on us. And when it finally backs off, well then, whammo. The best is yet to come.

Lars and the Real Girl

I recently spent several paragraphs elaborating on the word "charming" as it related to ONCE. While there's nothing effortless about filmmaking, ONCE feels effortlessly charming, like it just happened. LARS AND THE REAL GIRL, however, works so hard at being charming that we can practically hear the servos hiss, gears turn, and ropes creak in the background.

Lars (Ryan Gosling) is socially handicapped. He is so painfully shy that human touches feel like burns, and he can barely speak even with his own brother. Margo works with Lars, and something about him seems to capture her imagination. But Lars can't see it, can't see anything, for he's too busy hiding behind his walls. Lars is drowning; he needs something to latch on to. He latches on to a doll. Not an action figure or a teddy bear, like his marginally better adjusted officemates, but a life sized Real Doll, a sex toy he names Bianca and invests with a past, a personality, even an attitude.

The charming part comes in when we see how his family, his friends, his town respond to Bianca. For Lars, you see, lives in the kindest, most forgiving, most loving town in the world. In fact, I'd say it's downright charming. In Lars's town, the citizens see Bianca for what she is: training wheels for Lars as he relearns socialization. In Lars's town, an ambulance will respond to a 911 call for a doll, and doctors and nurses are happy to get involved (Lars also benefits from a charming insurance company, I presume.). In Lars's town, the guys from the hardware store even bowl with Lars, Bianca, and (you saw it coming) Margo. Charming.

But there can be a fine line between charming and precious, and LARS AND THE REAL GIRL crosses right over it. The music is too precious. Lars himself is somewhat precious. And the conceit that an entire town, and not just a few core supporters, would be willing to play along with Lars is just too precious.

And yet, I'm a sucker for charming. So I liked this movie, even if I can't wholeheartedly recommend it. See it with something inanimate.

Redbelt

David Mamet´s REDBELT does all the things it sets out to do. Thanks, in part, to outstanding performances from Chiwetel Ejiofor and Emily Mortimer, it also manages to be one fine, entertaining film.

REDBELT is about the owner of a struggling judo studio (Ejiofor), long on honor and short on cash. Mortimer´s a profoundly wounded attorney who enters the studio by happenstance, but who sets in motion a potentially disastrous chain of events. Further on, when Ejiofor rescues a movie star (Tim Allen) from a bar fight, another chain of events, potentially wonderful, starts to roll.

We´ll see what happens.

What´s really interesting here is Ejiofor´s character, a guy whose profound commitment to doing the right thing makes for an unexpected (potentially) tragic flaw. Here´s a guy who plays by the rules when nobody else does, and we expect things to work out for him. But when they don´t, how much will he bend, how much of his honor is he willing to expend, to try and set things right?

Add Mortimer, whose supporting character desperately needs Ejiofor to do the right things, and we´re in for a character study of a good man whose circumstances both require him to be impossibly good and make that goodness impossible.

Combine this interesting story with Mamet´s dialogue (for which I´m a sucker), and you have an interesting, engaging, satisfying film. REDBELT crashed at the box office, but here´s hoping that it finds new life on DVD.

(Fun fact: I´m writing this in Sao Paolo, the hometown of Alice Braga, who plays Ejiofor´s wife in the film. Don´t ask me why I know these things.)

Paris, je t'aime

PARIS, JE T'AIME isn't a film so much as it is a mini film festival. Imagine, if you will, two hours worth of five-minute short films set in Paris, directed by a veritable Who's Who of directors and performed by a veritable Who's Who of French, English, and American actors. These films share a love of Paris, a love so thorough that it may freeze out those who have never been to nor dreamt of the city.

Fortunately for me, my wife and I took a marvelous vacation to Paris some years back and, yes, we fell in love with it. So I was in. But how was the festival? Well, like all festivals, this one offered some memorable and some forgettable films, and it's a good idea to take breaks between blocks of viewing. That said, there's one short with Elijah Wood and Olga Kurylenko that's hypnotic, audacious and absolutely memorable. In fact, it's so good that it makes the disc worth renting on its strength alone.

So, there it is. If you're a francophile, I think you'll surely enjoy this movie. If not, your mileage may vary.

But I liked it.