Like a piece of fine literature projected onto the big screen

Rating: 9/10 (27 March 2012)

I just rented this movie on amazon and set aside two hours to watch this, and I'm in love with it.
This movie is both great in general terms and in a personal touch. I am a big fan of movies, I like the movie-going experience, and I am also an adventurer, so in that regard, this movie touched my heart. Hugo is a boy who used to work with his father fixing clocks and tweaking other sorts of gadgetry. When his dad passes away, Hugo keeps on working on his dad's last project, an automaton that is missing a key to make it work again. This makes me curious about simpler times (1930's), in a culture where people were more polite, well-dressed, well-mannered, and a young boy could learn how to work with machines just by following his dad's footsteps. What is it about France that makes movies so classy and great? (The Artist and Midnight in Paris were nominated for best picture, along with this).
One of my favorite aspects of this movie is how much it looks and feels like a book adaptation. I could point out some scenes and parts that could be analyzed and interpreted in different ways like Shakespeare literature. For example, when the actor tells a young Rene Tabard that dreams come from movies, it made me pay attention to how the movie was showing some scenes that were dream-like, like when the train derails and crashes through the station and out the window in to the street in Hugo's dream. I also thought the parts with the dogs and their owners and the train inspector's love interest were an example of old style movies, in the sense that they were not 2 hour long videos like today, but rather short scenes and skits that, when composed together, told a simple story, like "Trip To The Moon".
And then there's the score. Oh man, I am in love with the score that plays in both happy moments and sad moments and work perfectly. Overall, a great experience, my only regret is not watching it on the big screen, in 3D.