Knew I was going to hate it

Rating: 10/10 (2 February 2013)

My college dorm was watching the Oscars. Sweet, I thought - time to shine with my intellectual, high-end movie taste. Then the nominations came up; that's when the problems began. The Artist, War Horse, The Descendants - not only had I not seen the movies, I hadn't even heard of them. Well, I had seen Harry Potter and Transformers. That didn't make me especially proud. So there I sat sighing, as just a couple films separated me from elitist movie criticism.
With this year's Oscars coming up, I knew what I had to do. It was now or never: I had to catch up on last year.
To be honest, I was in the mood for a comedy. But work was work. And becoming a knowledgeable Oscar watcher somehow meant watching anything but a lighthearted comedy. Still, my mood for something funny and uplifting meant movies called The Descendents had to go immediately. The Artist - aka black and white 1930s-wannabe movie where the main actor (also won Actor Oscar, incidentally) speaks the grand total of 2 words - seemed like a bit too tough of a challenge. People said Midnight in Paris was good, but I wasn't dying to revisit the city whose people smirked at me when I bought the wrong baguette or wore shorts or wore something non-black/white/beige or spoke English or spoke French or did anything really. So that was out. That left me with Hugo. An adventure movie about a little boy, when I wanted a comedy about grown-ups. Tough luck. I hadn't even started it, and I knew I was going to hate it.
And then I loved it. The visual effects were amazing. I didn't watch the movie in 3D, but even in 2D I felt enveloped in the story, flying through clock towers and transported back in time to the 1930s. But these 1930s didn't seem old and grim like they often do in films - they were vibrant and mysterious.
The plot itself was very touching, albeit unrealistic. I found myself crying a couple times through the movie, and the relationship of Hugo with his father was depicted very sweetly. Hugo himself had beautiful eyes, and his friend Isabelle was very cute (reminded me of Hermione (young Emma Watson), because of the puffy curly hair and love for reading books!). All the actors played well, and you didn't feel for a second like you were watching rather than living the plot.
The thing I liked most about it, though, was that at its heart Hugo is a tribute to early filmmakers. People today are often caught up in glam, colorful Hollywood productions with one-stereotype characters and cotton candy sweet endings. True, we had the unrealistically happy ending here too, but we also learned about the history of the invention of film and black and white movies. It's not often that a your typical American would pass up some juicy reality TV to learn more about the early history of creating black and white, soundless movies. But thanks to this movie, we gained some real understanding and respect for these early pioneers of one of our favorite pastimes - and had the best of times while doing it.