HUGO
5 out of 5 stars

“maybe that’s why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn’t able to do what it was meant to do… maybe it’s the same with people. If you lose your purpose…it’s like you’re broken.” – hugo

OMG, EXCELLENT MOVIE!!! such a sweet story about a little boy who lives in the paris train station and his determination to find out the toy shop owner’s past. this one made me laugh, cry, and appreciate the art of (early) cinema even more… BRAVO, MARTIN SCORSESE!!! ;)

asa butterfield AKA bruno in the boy with the striped pajamas stars in this movie as 12 year old hugo, a son of a clockmaker (jude law), who unfortunately dies from a fire at the museum he works at. but before he died, hugo’s father had found an automaton (sort of a wind-up robot) that could write, and he and hugo were working on fixing him up to see what sort of message this thing could write. But hugo’s father dies, and his drunk-ass uncle claude (ray winstone) takes custody of young hugo, making him into his apprentice, so he could sneak off to bars while hugo can cover for him and fix the clocks at the paris train station. so, while hugo is fixing the clocks and stuff, he observes many different characters at the train station i.e. the station inspector (a hilarious sacha baron cohen) and his bum leg and canine companion maximillian, lisette the flower vendor (emily mortimer), and georges the old toy shop owner. (a wonderful ben kingsley) one day, hugo decides to steal a toy mouse from old georges’ shop, but then gets caught! he’s forced to empty his pockets, and old georges takes his beloved notebook, which belonged to his father. it’s the only memory he’s got left of his father, so he’s determined to get it back! he follows george home, where he runs into a young girl named isabelle (a sweet chloe moretz), who decides to help him get his notebook back, so he can finish fixing the automaton. hugo discovers that isabelle has the heart shaped key to turn on the automaton, and the message from the lil’ robot leads to uncovering georges’ film-making past. ;)

this movie should have been best picture of the year (2012), but i believe it went to the artist because that one had an original storyline, wheras this was an adaptation from a children’s story. REGARDLESS…what a sweet story! even the back story of george melies won me over! the script is well written, the beautiful cinematography (scorsese does it again), the narrative, even the acting is just wonderful! this one shows us that good filmmaking is all about good storytelling, and boy… scorsese sure shows us how it’s done. ;)