Hugo ****

Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Richard Griffiths
Frances de la Tour, Asa Butterfield, Chloë Grace Moretz
Ray Winstone, Emily Mortimer, Jude Law, Christopher Lee

During a not so seemingly special moment in Hugo, the eponymous protagonist (Butterfield) and his friend Isabelle (Moretz) sit in a movie theater as they proceed to watch a film. That familiar clickety-clack sounds fill the air and then the camera focuses not on the movie being displayed but on the projector's light from which the images emanate. For a second or so, particularly because of the film being in 3D, audience members will undoubtedly feel as if they are the figures being projected. If cinema is life and god is but the projectionist changing the reels, then no other movie has captured this spiritual connection like Hugo.
Directed by the one and only Martin Scorsese (a god among filmmakers to continue with the metaphysical argot) the film is an adaptation of Brian Selznick's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret and centers its attention on the title character, an orphan living clandestinely in the Gare Montparnasse train station in Paris. After the death of his father, the little boy moved to the station where he's accidentally in charge of maintaining the clocks while trying to repair a mysterious automaton left behind by his father. 
Convinced that the curious contraption will reveal a message from his late father, he spends night and day trying to make it work, in the meantime stealing food and supplies from the station's various inhabitants. Scorsese (along with the majestic work of production designer Dante Ferretti) creates a microcosms in which the little boy moves around like a Dickensian hero, trying to stay away from the cartoonish Inspector Gustave (Cohen) and thoroughly fascinated by an enigmatic toy store owner who simply goes by the name of Papa Georges (Kingsley).
To reveal more plot points would be sinful but it's more than enough to say that Hugo along with Georges' goddaughter Isabelle, embark on an adventure to unlock the secrets of the automaton which leads them to a remarkable discovery.
Less obsessed with the telling of the story than with the universe that it tries to recreate, Scorsese too sets out on an adventure that's equally moving, didactic and thoroughly enchanting. Eventually the plot involves the creation of cinema and particularly the pioneer works of Georges Méliès who we are told was one of the first artists who realized films were the essence of dreams.
On the surface Hugo seems to be a simple story about finding your place in life - its protagonist thinks that a life without purpose is the equivalent of being a broken machine - and Marty isn't one to deny the little boy his dream. Lovingly he approaches the youngest characters and makes us question exactly how much responsibility does the world put on children?
As an essay on infancy, Hugo makes harsh questions regarding children's roles in a society that seems to ask so little and yet so much of them. Aren't children supposed to be the future? If so, then Hugo's own fate seems marred by the harshness of his past experiences and in order to survive he has obviated his creative nature for more mechanical duties.
Scorsese too wonders if in a way we aren't all machines trying to find our own purpose, waiting perhaps to be fixed. This is best expressed through the inspector who due to a war injury has to wear a mechanical brace on his leg. Other filmmakers would've simply turned the inspector into a Tin Man-like character trying to find the heart among the metal parts, but Marty knows best and lets us see that even if Gustave is the only one wearing a metal device, almost every character in the movie seems to be running on some sort of invisible clockwork, duly repeating their daily tasks perhaps unaware that there is magic out there.
This pessimistic look on life might seem to harsh for a family film which is why Marty joyfully lets us know that magic is still accessible to us and merely requires for us to buy a movie ticket.
In a way then, Hugo isn't exactly about the little child but about Marty himself, a notorious historian and film preservationist, whose mantra seems to be something along the lines of "movies are the gift that never stops giving".
The director takes us back to the early days of cinema which went from being a fad to turning into the most cohesive of the arts. The film meticulously constructs key moments in cinema history mostly involving Méliès work. We see the early master at work in his fish tank-like studio where mermaids coexisted with dancing skeletons and annoyed moon men. If you've often wanted to reach out and touch what was projected on a movie screen, this film literally gives you the power to do it, using an impressive work of 3D cinematography in which every layer seems to be thriving with life.
Towards the end of the film, we are treated to what can only be called a miraculous achievement as moments from ancient movies become nothing less than tangible dreams. Yet in order for us to appreciate cinema more Marty reminds us that because of its all-encompassing powers, movies require that we become familiar with the other arts. His film isn't merely a poem about cinema, but an ode to the power of creation and the power to achieve sublimity through arts. Hugo has countless literary, theatrical and graphic art references; if not just see the way in which the clockwork in the station resemble cubist masterpieces that force us to take a second look in order to determine their structures.
Few movies dare to find the soul in the machine with such effortless proficiency and undeniable love. During one of the film's most breathtaking moments, Hugo has a nightmare within a nightmare and when he wakes up we realize that this is Marty's way of reaching out to us and asking us to never let go of the dream of cinema. Like a Tinkerbell armed with a camera and unbridled passion for his craft we have no other choice but to applaud him and kindle the fire of his devotion.

Short (Slightly Homoerotic) Take: "August" and "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows".

The premise of August is simple: Troy (Murray Bartlett) returns to Los Angeles after living in Spain for years and decides to contact his ex, Jonathan (Daniel Dugan). Their reunion is marked by nostalgia and sexual tension, propelled by the notion that Troy wants Jonathan back but there are two problems: Jonathan still hasn't forgiven him completely for having left and he's also in a relationship with Raul (Adrian Gonzalez).
Where the movie could've been trashy and perpetuated the idea that gay men are promiscuous and soulless, it uses a very sensitive approach taking its time to explore who these men truly are.
You understand why Troy left and you understand why Jonathan would want him back. The film offers glimpses of their lives that could've been used for lurid purposes (how Raul for example is married to a woman in order to get a work permit) but instead it focuses on who these people are when no racial or sexual labels are attached. Troy's deep selfishness is heartbreaking in its black-hole voracity and Jonathan's naivete makes us all remember that sometimes we truly would give everything up to be with the one that got away.

The first Sherlock Holmes installment was enjoyable because it essentially conveyed the love story between Sherlock (Robert Downey Jr.) and Watson (Jude Law). Director Guy Ritchie is the master of the modern homoerotic action flicks (unless those slow motion sequences of ripped, sweaty bodies are in fact to attract all kinds of audiences).
The second one suffers because they aren't together all the time, in fact a recurring joke has Watson's fiancee (Kelly Reilly) worried about Sherlock getting in the way of her wedding. Give or take the queer subtext - even if in the end Watson always goes for Sherlock- the movie pretty much consists of sequence after sequence in which the heroes get in trouble while trying to save the world from the evil Moriarty (Jared Harris). Despite its glossiness and inarguable technical mastery the film drags because it reaches a point where you don't even know what mystery Sherlock is trying to solve. Ritchie always lets the big action scenes get the best of him and forgets to emphasize on the plot (an essential part of any mystery movie). Then all of a sudden Sherlock irrupts into Watson's honeymoon train compartment in full drag and you can't do but wonder how much better the movie would be if it had explored an angle as unique as this one.

Grades:
August ***
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows **

Contagion ***½

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Cast: Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law

Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Jennifer Ehle, Elliot Gould

Sanaa Lathan, John Hawkes, Bryan Cranston

Contagion opens inside an airport bar where American businesswoman Beth Emhoff (Paltrow), on her way to the States from Hong Kong, sits having a drink and talking on the phone while she waits for a connecting flight. As she hears her flight number being called out she leaves the bar. The camera then focuses on the small bowl of peanuts that sat in front of her. A title card reading "Day 2" appears. With a seemingly innocuous choice of editing, camera positions and additional information (we don't get title cards in real life), Steven Soderbergh sends us down a spiral of fear, the likes of which we rarely see in contemporary cinema.

Once Beth is back in the States, she suddenly falls ill with a strange disease that sends her into a coma and kills her a mere minutes after the movie begins. With this bold move Soderbergh reassures us that for the next two hours, no one will be safe.
Contagion then deals with the discovery, propagation and consequences of this new lethal virus that is transmitted by contact and has no apparent cure. As the virus grows, we meet different characters who deal with it in their part of the world as society around them begins to crumble. Soderbergh also divides them into different aspects of our current world, without making them a too obvious "group". We see the emotional part with  Beth's husband, Mitch (Damon) for example, who has to deal with his wife's sudden death as he must survive in order to support his daughter.
There's also Dr.Ellis Cheever (Fishburne) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who tries to clear doubts that suggest the new virus might be a bioweapon by sending his colleague Dr. Erin Mears (Winslet) to investigate. Their stories are more related to bureaucracy and the handling of disasters by local governments which provide the film with eerie echoes of the H1N1 epidemic and the way in which the American government has dealt with events like Hurricane Katrina and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Their storylines are also linked to the scientific community represented by Gould, who plays a genius biology professor and Ehle, who plays Dr. Ally Hextall, a CDC scientist commissioned to find a vaccine.
As the story begins to occupy a more global aspect, we meet Dr. Leonora Orantes, a World Health Organization epidemiologist who is sent to Asia in search of "patient zero". Scenes involving her character are filled with an exotic dread in which we are reminded that despite the world's global union feeling, we are still pretty much on our own. Soderbergh makes her scenes scary and mystifying by recurring to the use of multiple languages which instill a very primal fear in audience members. Is he perhaps suggesting that xenophobia is acceptable under special circumstances?
Other characters include slimy conspiracy theorist/blogger Alan Krumwiede (Law), a down on his luck janitor (Hawkes) who finds himself in the midst of a disease which to him remains incurable due to his lack of money and Aubrey (Lathan), Dr. Cheevers partner who gets involved in a political disaster.
Soderbergh has proved in the past that he's a maverick at handling parallel storylines with unifying, often enlightening, clashes. But while in Traffic he did something a bit more orthodox in terms of dramatic structure, Contagion offers him the chance to do his own hybrid of Nashville and Outrbreak. Those expecting an ultimate message of salvation, or even a unifying climax will come out severely disappointed as Soderbergh makes a case of maintaining the pieces of his mosaic separated.
Their detachment might come off as cold-hearted by usual standards but Soderbergh sees himself as a scientist trying to dissect the various pieces of his experiment (an autopsy scene is done with such straightforwardness that you can't help but feel both revolted and mesmerized). He leaves it to his actors to create flashes of humanity within the hyper-realism of his direction. Cotillard for example brings a worldly charisma (and a serious working woman hairdo) to her scenes, while Ehle becomes a joy to watch as she puts all of her Streep-ian attributes to work as she delights herself with her work discoveries.
Paltrow, who the film sometimes uses as a morality clause, is haunting, as she represents the face of an irresponsible (if only by ignorance) branch of American society and Winslet delivers one of the year's most powerful emotional punches in less than ten scenes.
His insistence to keep the stories from coming together has a remarkable symbolism because we realize that he's trying to contain infection from seeping to his other characters. By maintaining them apart, Soderbergh might be making the film's strongest point which is a questioning of the benefits of globalization.
This is confirmed in the finale which might be a bit facile but still shocks us to our very core by reminding us that by trying to make the world a smaller place, we have also made its decay much easier to obtain. With his expert use of editing, cinematography and sound (there are scenes without dialogues that creep under your skin) Soderbergh creates the kind of movie that transcends genre but becomes effective even within them. The film is scary because it feels possible and its use of scientific fact and borrowing from contemporary history only makes it more valid.
Martin Scorsese said that horror is related to physicality but terror is more related to what we feel, with Contagion Soderbergh might've created one of the most terrifying films of the decade.

Ever woken up in handcuffs before?

Robert Downey Jr. has.
Read my short notes on "Sherlock Holmes" here.

My Blueberry Nights **

Director: Wong Kar Wai

Cast: Norah Jones, Jude Law

Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, David Strathairn

At first glance Wong Kar Wai's first English feature film seems to be like all his others.

Dreamy atmospheric mood? Check.

Conventional situations approached in unconventional methods? Check.

Sexy, heartfelt performances from his cast? Check.

Flawless musical taste and a fixation with one particular song? Check.

Why then is the film so lacking in something? A purpose perhaps or an emotional truth to support its ethereal themes.

The answers must have gotten lost in translation and what we get is the story of Elizabeth (Jones) a New Yorker with a broken heart who befriends Jeremy (Law) a café owner with whom she finds company, trust and all the blueberry pie she can eat.

It's obvious that they like each other, but in the blink of an eye we find Elizabeth unexplainably living in Memphis and working as a waitress, while sending postcards to Jeremy who has no idea why she left.

Apparently neither does she and much less do we.

She goes across the country meeting people only to realize what she needed was always in front of her. This story has been told a million times, one of the best renditions occurs in the land of Oz, which is why the charm should lie in the anecdotical appeal this should have on Elizabeth's life.

What we get is a series of quirky characters, beautifully acted, but with not much to say or add to the plot.

Portman is particularly good as a feisty gambler with a sad family history who makes the film glow with life despite an awful hairdo.

Weisz is also affecting, but her Southerner comes off looking more femme fatale than grieving victim playing the wife of an alcoholic policeman (Strathairn).

Law has never been so charming and sweet and Chan Marshall from Cat Power gets a small cameo which she infuses with melancholy and regret.

But most of the film rests on Jones' debut performance and she moves through the film in a manner reminsicent of her approach to music: with a lethargic seductiveness that can immediately captivate or irritate you.

Her unusual beauty is bewitching (and curiously the other women in the cast seem to have her same type) but she lets Elizabeth fade too much within the stories of the other people.

She is easily overacted by most of the ensemble, some of her scenes with Portman are cringe worthy, but if you can notice this so easily you have to ask yourself why did Kar Wai choose her as his heroine.

Her ability to disappear might make a point within itself, because maybe the story isn't even supposed to be about her and more about the world which she hadn't seen.

But if he turns Elizabeth into a McGuffin what is the point of having her at all?

The same can be said for the settings. New York City becomes a, beautifully shot, café with painted letters, neon signs and fluorescent pastries.

Memphis becomes a red country bar and Las Vegas is a series of slot machines and poker tables with a view of the desert now and then.

If the places were not important either, why the hell travel then? Even more important why should we want to come along for the ride?

The film might try to explain itself when it argues that "sometimes it's better off not knowing and other times there's no reason to be found".

But it will probably have lost you long before.