The Cue Card

I admit I rushed out on Thursday evening to see “Hugo” before the Academy Awards on Sunday, just to see if it would change my opinion on anything. It’s a good film and I should have seen it sooner, but I didn’t get to see it in 3D because the theater just showed it in regular dimension. So much for the 3D experience!

My favorite part about “Hugo” is that it’s set in the Paris train station in the 1930s and is about a lonely boy who lives high up in the clock tower working the clocks. Like his deceased father, he’s a fixer of machinery and is desperate to fix an old automaton robot left by his father convinced that it will contain a message from him. But instead it prints a drawing that is linked to the station’s toy store owner (played by Ben Kingsley) who once was a filmmaker before World War I put him out of business. The boy, aided by the toy store owner’s goddaughter, comes up with a plan to get the reticent man to divulge his past and passion for making movies.

The sets and characters of the train station are terrific, with a funny performance by Sasha Baron Cohen as the station inspector. And though it’s been said that “Hugo” is director Martin Scorsese’s “valentine to the birth of cinema,” I found myself a bit more drawn to the trains, inventions, clocks and automaton of the station than the early cinema part of the story. The brass automaton especially captivated me; apparently such remarkable old machines really did exist in history, check out the YouTube videos at: http://www.theinventionofhugocabret.com/about_hugo_auto.htm.

It seems “Hugo” is both a film for kids and adults. Adapted from the 2007 kids’ book “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” by Brian Selznick, it has a crossover appeal that reminded me a bit of “The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe” film and perhaps a few other kinds of kid-adult combos.

Of course, Martin Scorsese deserves a lot of credit for this. I give him and “Hugo” a few awards in my Oscar pick list , which is likely to be heavily trumped by the film “The Artist,” which I have Not seen yet and therefore did not pick much. Of the films I saw and have reviewed, below is a list of favorites from 2011. Enjoy the Oscars!

Granted, many critics took the much-anticipated “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” to the woodshed and beat it to a pulp. The local paper’s review called it “extremely disappointing”; the New York Times’ review called it “kitsch”; The Washington Post labeled it “cloying sentimentalization” and “insufferable”; and The New Yorker review longed for the main character to shut up. And yet the film has nabbed a few Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture. It’s almost reminiscent of director Stephen Daldry’s last film “The Reader,” which drew Oscar nominations and a win for Best Actress despite criticism of its humanizing depiction of a Nazi guard.

Similarly “Extremely Loud” takes on an emotional, weighty subject matter, this time the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Adapted from the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, the film unfolds through the mind of an 11-year-old boy who has Asperger-like symptoms and is dealing with the death of his father in the World Trade Center. The boy, Oskar, finds a key in his deceased father’s belongings and goes on a city-wide search to try and find the lock it will open, feeling that it will keep him connected to his dad and tell him something more. It’s quite an emotional treasure hunt from there as the grieving boy journeys all over NYC over many weeks meeting sympathetic strangers to try and find the lock and answer.

So far so good? Not to critics who bemoaned the film’s adaptation of the novel and its sentimentality. Also the boy’s precocious depiction drove some crazy, and others felt the story’s suspension of disbelief was too great. But despite a couple hokey parts, I thought the film quite powerful. Did it use the World Trade Center tragedy to manipulate emotions at every chance? Did it turn it into kitsch? I think it’s for everyone to decide. Personally I was surprised at how negative some of the reviews were and actually how good and moving and well made the film was. The actor, Thomas Horn, does a good job as the hyperactive boy, and the supporting performances by Viola Davis and Max von Sydow were excellent as usual. I remembered 9/11 and navigated the film without feeling overly cloyed. Now if only the film’s title were less of a mouth full. I never seem to get it right. Extremely what?

The British espionage film “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” finally came to our neck of the woods where we had been patiently waiting to see it since before Christmas. And this is a Commonwealth country mind you. So what’s with the late distribution?!

Well it turned out to be an intriguing film (well worth the wait), though not necessarily an easy one to figure out. As the final scene played out and the credits rolled, I heard a woman behind me say “I still don’t understand it.” And perhaps quite a few others didn’t understand all of it either, which is not too uncommon for a film based on a John le Carre novel. Murkiness lurks in the world of high-stakes espionage after all. It definitely helps if you’ve read the novel it’s based on or his others before seeing the film. More importantly if your spouse has read the entire le Carre cannon then you’re in luck, picking a brain and piecing the film methodically together when it ends.

On the basics, it’s not that hard to grasp. It takes place during the Cold War as a retired British intelligence veteran (George Smiley) is secretly hired back to uncover a mole within the top levels of MI6. Smiley suspects the mole is responsible for a failed mission in Hungary in which an MI6 agent has been shot and tortured for info, and subsequently he learns Moscow’s been behind the mission in order to remove the threat within MI6 of the mole’s discovery. Ultimately Smiley closes in on the double agent, setting up a trap for him to be caught.

It’s quite ingenious, the whole spy plot, and the Cold War paranoia feels palpable. Gary Oldman as Smiley is subtle but terrific, rarely speaking but moving his eyes behind coke-bottle glasses and out-maneuvering his adversaries. Oldman is very deserving of his first Best Actor Oscar nomination for this, though the category has stiff competition from George Clooney and Brad Pitt. The whole cast in “Tinker” is superb, and the film leaves you wondering long after it’s over about its details and conclusion. I can’t help thinking it was snubbed of nominations in the Best Picture and Best Director categories, but it did get one for Best Adapted Screenplay.

I heard quite a bit of criticism about “The Iron Lady” before I saw it on opening night, and yet I was pleasantly surprised to find it quite entertaining and interesting. The Hollywood biopic of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher definitely has raised hackles on both sides of the political aisle. For many liberals, the film goes too easy on Thatcher and her Tory policies, humanizing her despite her hard-line stances. For conservatives, the film shows her in too unflattering a light with dementia in later life, at a time when the real Thatcher is still alive. Some, too, don’t like the film for showing a dementia-suffering Thatcher talking to her dead husband throughout it, and for relying on too many flashbacks. Others say the film reduces her life to a series of superficial montages and lacks substance.

But I would disagree and say see it for yourself because the film is quite captivating. “The Iron Lady” doesn’t exactly presume to be an end all on Thatcher’s life and rule, but makes the prime minister come vividlly to life thanks in large part to Meryl Streep’s brilliant performance. The film also doesn’t shy away from her controversies and touches on many of Thatcher’s thoughts and the riotous events during her tenure. From what I’ve read, “The Iron Lady” doesn’t entail gross inaccuracies, it’s pretty straight on in terms of her chronology and policies.

The film combines some real footage of her time in power and delves into her life with flashbacks, looking back on her past from her later years when Thatcher has dementia. Although it seems quite risky to portray her with dementia conversing with her dead husband who comes to her in visions, it works impressionistically in the film by uncovering a side of the once powerful leader that is quite revealing. The filmmakers and Streep defend the portrayal of her dementia, saying it’s a part of real life and should not be covered up. As for the film’s controversial Iron Lady, they seem to leave her policies up to viewers and to posterity.

Surprisingly, the prime minister is only shown once with President Reagan (and none with the queen?) during the film, which seems a bit too little, considering how much they’re linked in that era. But go see “The Iron Lady” at your own whim or viewpoint but do see it.

I didn’t know much about “The Descendants” and thought it might be on the touchy-feely side based on the preview. But with Alexander Payne, who did “Sideways” and “About Schmidt,” as the director and screenplay writer, I should have known it wouldn’t be exactly like that. In fact it’s quite refreshing.

As a friend said the movie has Hawaii and Clooney, what’s not to like? Throw in a pretty good story, and it’s an engaging evening out. In it, George Clooney plays a father who’s trying to manage his two daughters after his wife gets into a boating accident. While she’s in a coma, he finds out she’s been having affair, which he begins to investigate. Meanwhile, he’s expected to vote on a huge Hawaiian land deal that’s been held in his family for generations. The pressures of both combine to upend his life and put him back in touch with his kids and former self.

As in “Up in the Air,” Clooney is quite a delight in this, as the earnest dad who’s trying to do the right thing. The footage of Hawaii, too, is wonderful in this flick in which Hawaii plays a key role. If you don’t want to move or go there after watching this, then perhaps you already live in paradise. The Hawaiian music throughout is fun and mood-setting; it definitely harkens you back to the islands. Even big wave surfer Laird Hamilton makes an appearance here, though his character is rather jerky.

It’s an entertaining and touching movie; the daughters, too, who struggle over their mom’s condition are quite good and affecting. Though a slight caution goes out about the movie’s strong, bad language. It’s rated R for a reason, mainly because kids will be kids and along with that can bring some colorful vocabularies.