A fantasy, a children's dream, and a very adult appreciation of a brilliant filmmaker

Rating: 8/10 (24 March 2012)

Hugo (2011)
This would have been my vote for Best Picture for 2011, especially if you limit the voting to nostalgic visions of silver screen history. This sort of does exactly what "The Artist" does, paying loving homage to early movies, "Hugo" is so much more imaginative, filmed with overflowing ingenuity and fluidity (it is a Scorsese movie I know), and it pays respects more directly and beautifully.
Yes, this really is a love letter to the first decade of mature movies before "Birth of a Nation" and full feature films. Here we rediscover the short cinematic (very cinematic) inventions of French filmmaker Georges Melies. Never heard of him? Well, that's why you should see this movie. At times it almost plays like a fabulous documentary (to its detriment as a movie, but to the benefit of Melies), so you do learn quite a lot about this man. And it's mostly accurate. Things that get stretched for the sake of the movie are reasonable enough.
(By the way, a little known reference to Melies, charming and beautifully done, occurs in the otherwise flawed "Klimt" and is worth watching just for those scenes.)
There is a feeling that this is a children's adventure, but even more than "Where the Wild Things Are," this is a movie for adults, and kind of about adults, too. The two leading kids--a girl and a boy--are terrific but in that child actor way where they fill their roles perfectly (not like, say, the slightly older Judy Garland in "Wizard of Oz"). The adults are not quite caricatures, and make the film have a lot of depth, but they are kept in check by the children's storytelling aspect to the whole enterprise.
Whatever the limitations there, it's the filming, the sets and costumes and moving camera and special effects, always kept in check, that make the movie special. If you are interested in the also-rans of the Oscar season, this is the first to see. If you want to just have an enjoyable bit of escapist and light hearted filmmaking, this is a must. And if you are curious about Melies, there is no better place to start.