Tag Archives: Paris

Hugo – Movie Review

Based on the book “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” by Brian Selznick, Hugo is Martin Scorsese’s new feature film.

Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is a young boy whose father (Jude Law) died in a fire at a museum, leaving him to the care of his uncle Claude. The only possession left with Hugo is a machine called an automaton which he intends to fix. And so, Hugo is taken to work at tending to the clocks at a train station in 1930’s Paris. It is there that he has to rely on theft to survive and work on fixing the automaton, hoping it would give him some closure or information as to the death of his father. At that train station, he stumbles on a man named George (Ben Kingsley) who owns a toy shop. Hugo soon becomes friends with George’s niece, Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz), who strangely holds a key to fixing the automaton and open an adventure for the two of them – all as the station’s Inspector Gustav (Sacha Baron Cohen) goes after Hugo, in attempts to take him to the orphanage.

Hugo is a stunning movie. It is beautiful, gorgeous, mesmerizing. The cinematography, the visual effects, the direction, the music – all of these combine together to give you a very pretty movie to watch. It takes you in. It fascinates you at many points. It captivates you. It transcends out of the movie theatre, taking you to Paris, the city in which it was supposedly set.

But all of the above combined also need a good plot or story to help the fabric be tightly knit together into delivering a full-package movie. So the central question regarding Hugo arises: is the plot engaging enough?

The answer is a succinct miserable no.

Not only is the story so bland that it makes the movie altogether boring, it really puts a damper into all that the movie had going for it. The cinematography, though as I said is beautiful, becomes emotionally ineffective. The movie starts to go all over the place, not knowing really the point behind making it – is it a tribute to old cinema or is it an entertaining children’s movie? Is it a fantasy or it is pseudo-reality?

Hugo, being a movie revolved around machinery and clocks, has very machine-like acting as well. The actors – all of them – deliver strained performances that never really hit home, even when there’s enough emotional material for them to deliver. The comic timing in the movie is off that you find yourself rarely laughing even at its heartfelt moments. The action buildup is theoretically there but in reality never happens. You can tell what’s going to happen from a mile away and eventually, it happens. There are no surprises, no twists, nothing to mentally captivate you.

Hugo is more a vehicle for its director, Martin Scorsese, to share his passion for movies – especially historic movies – than to actually deliver a movie that is truly great in its own merits. If you compare Hugo with Scorsese’s previous works, Shutter Island for instance as to not stray far, you’d find the latter way out of Hugo‘s league in terms of overall effect on the viewer even though there’s obviously more work done in Hugo than Shutter Island.

The main difference between the two, apart from the fact that Hugo is mostly a Christmasy children’s movie and Shutter Island a dark adult thriller, is that the former has a very weak story while the latter has a stunningly intelligent plot – although it’s not as captivating visually. For a viewer with a taste like mine, Hugo feels very empty overall but a movie like Shutter Island would be very satisfying.

Being voted movie of the year by the National Board of Review and being nominated for almost every award imaginable, my expectations for Hugo were rather high. And frankly, it has all the ingredients to truly take your breath away: good actors, Paris, breathtaking visuals, a great director…. Sadly though, despite all of its potential, Hugo fails miserably. It remains flat, convoluted, very useless and emotionally flat. It may be breathtaking visually but on the overall, it’s a clockwork lemon.

Perhaps instead of having “one of the most legendary directors of our time takes you on an extraordinary adventure” on Hugo‘s poster, the sentence should have really said: “One of the most legendary directors of our time takes you on a uselessly stupid adventure” – for a movie concerned with storytelling, Hugo sure fails at telling a very simple story.

Don’t waste your money on this if you want a decent movie for your children this Christmas. Just buy the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 DVD. At least you’d want to watch that movie again. And at least that movie is truly stunningly, gorgeously, marvelously epic all around.

5/10

Midnight in Paris – Movie Review

Presenting Woody Allen’s latest cinematic offering, Midnight in Paris is magical – be it in its plot or its effect on you as a viewer.

The moment the movie starts, you know you’re in for a ride. Flashing scenes from the breathtaking French capital, from Versailles to its rooftops. From the Louvres to les Champs-Élysées… it’s all there, to a backdrop of true Parisian music. That opening scene sets the tone of the movie: this is a feature from Paris, to Paris, about Paris. And it doesn’t disappoint.

Gil (Owen Wilson) is a highly successful Hollywood screenwriter on a vacation with his fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams) in Paris. Despite his job being very lucrative, Gil doesn’t feel satisfied. He is trying to write a novel about a man who works at a nostalgia shop and has no idea why he can’t truly connect with what he’s writing. He feels out of place in the the world of 2010. His dream world is a rainy 1920’s Paris. Inez disagrees.

On one fateful night, as a Parisian clock strikes midnight, a slightly drunk Gil hops in an old-fashioned peugeot that takes him to meet people he had never thought he’d meet: Scott F. Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Cole Parker, etc… He sits with these giants of his favorite epoque and discusses with them his life, his hopes, his fears. He also meets Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) who gives him some valuable advice about his novel. And while in her study, he looks at Pablo Picasso painting his mistress Adriana (Marion Cotillard).

A relationship soon develops between Adriana and Gil, as he “time travels” to see all of his idols night after night, all after the clock chiming midnight.

Owen Wilson delivers a credible performance as an aspiring novelist, trying to find who he is in the world. His performance is nuanced, especially when he comes off as goofy as he admires his idols of the past. He embodies the Woody Allen-persona to a great extent, as it is the case with most Woody Allen movies that the protagonist is an extension of himself.

But the person that shines the most in this movie is – naturally – Marion Cotillard. Whenever she’s on screen, she steals the scene. It could be her splendid beauty, but I’m sure it’s more her superb acting that doesn’t come off as acting at all. She’s oozing sultriness while staying grounded. She radiates sexuality but manages to be conserved. Just place Cotillard in her natural French element and she’ll give you a tour-de-force breath-taking performance. In a way, she knows how great she is. But she doesn’t dwell on it. She knows she’s stealing every second she is on screen, but she doesn’t let it get to her head, similarly to the city Woody Allen chose to center his movie around.

Other interesting appearances in the movie are made by Carla Bruni, current French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s wife, as a museum curator whom Gil asks: “Do you think it’s possible to love two women at the same time?,” and while Woody Allen has recurrent elements to his movies about infidelity, gorgeous women, etc… his treatment of those themes in “Midnight in Paris” comes off as fresh and sweet, probably helped by the backdrop he uses.

Gad Elmaleh, infamous Moroccan-French comedian, makes a brief appearance as a private detector hired by Inez’s father to check on Gil and his midnight Parisian wanderings.

And out of all the performances by the first rate actors and actresses, it’s Rachel McAdams that comes out short, simply because she has the most underdeveloped character out of the bunch. McAdams gives her best to bring life to her character but to no avail, as Inez ultimately comes off as materialistic.

At the end of the day, “Midnight in Paris” is Paris. It bewitches you, enthralls you, takes you on a magical journey you will not forget. It’s not set in stone, like most of Woody Allen’s movies. Its ending is not resolved, it’s left to be discovered… the purpose of the movie is not to provide answers, as much as to give a general perspective. The movie does give the viewer one message though: live your life fully in your time – there will always be times you think are better. But your time is now.

Le Fabuleux Destin D’Amelie Poulain – Movie Review

Amelie Poulain has led a very sheltered and overprotected life. Home-educated by over-bearing parents, she makes up her own fantasy world. When she eventually grows up and moves out to work at a Parisian Cafe, Amelie finds an old tin box containing a schoolboy’s forgotten memories.
It is then that Amelie decides to help others find love and happiness, which she does in a magical and splendid manner – not knowing that on her path to bring love and happiness to others , she will end up finding them herself.

The interesting thing about the movie is how all the characters interact with each other and how they bring this plot to be. If you take the plot in absolute value, there’s nothing extraordinary about it. But Amelie is an extraordinary movie because the way it handles this plot is brilliant. The chase between Amelie and her love interest is absolutely stunning, to say the least, let alone extremely intelligent.

The first ten minutes of Amelie are absolutely one of the best moments of film-making I have ever watched. Never have I been more positively surprised by a movie than I was with Amelie. You cannot but be instantly captivated with the exquisite narrative: “Le 3 Septembre, 1973, à 18h 28 min et 32 secondes….” It’s absolutely brilliant.
The movie ends with an almost similar style of narrative, giving the aspect of wrapping up the whole thing like a big box with a tidy ribbon.

Audrey Tautou gives a brilliant performance in her role as Amelie. She showcases the strong, independent girl persona perfectly and doesn’t shy away from showing compassion when other characters need it. She’s witty, fast, captivating…

The score by Yann Tiersen is absolutely stunning as well. If you haven’t listened to Comptine d’Eté, n°2, then you really must do so. To say it is a good musical composition would be an understatement. And it works perfectly well in the movie.

Le Fabuleux Destin D’Amelie Poulain is probably the best French movie I have ever watched. It made me appreciate having been taught French so I wouldn’t have to add up closed captioning to the movie and hide out some parts of the screen. It’s a whimsical, fun, care-free and simply happy. I wouldn’t say it’s a perfect movie but it’s pretty close. Everything just falls together in an excellent way in it: the acting, the cinematography, the music, the plot, Paris…
It is a must see for everyone who appreciates movies. And, again, if you’re not hooked by the first minute or so, I advise re-watching it. Because something would be definitely wrong if the absolute wittiness of the introduction sequence doesn’t grab you.