Hugo
Méliès-y Shady of Winner
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG | 127 min

So, there’s this orphan kid (Asa Butterfield) who lives and works in the clocks of a Parisian train station.  When he’s not being chased by Sacha Baron Cohen with a mustache, he’s trying to re-build Bicentennial man.  When he’s not doing that, he’s stealing stuff from cranky ole toymaker Ben Kingsley.  When he’s not doing that, he’s hanging out with Kingsley’s ‘daughter’ Chloë Moretz, who is way too mature hot for being a 14 year old.  399393939 movie hours pass of them two kids running around, causing minor mischief and making endless lil ragamuffin faces, while also borrowing books from Christopher Lee, and listening to a bearded Michael Stuhlbarg talk about his boner for pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès

Wait, what does Méliès have to do with all this?  Well ya see, Kingsley is not only a cranky ole toymaker, but HE’S ALSO GEORGES MÉLIÈS!!!!  But he doesn’t care about movies anymore, CAUSE OF WORLD WAR and MOVIES BEING TURNED INTO SHOES or something, but the kids care and so does his wife (Helen McCrory) and so does Martin Scorsese, who turns the last brilliant third of this movie into a love letter to early cinema AND a giant PSA for film preservation!!

moral of the story: it’s a kid’s movie where all the great stuff is about the adults.  the kids stuff should have been thrown out the window and this baby shoulda been all about Méliès, cause Kingsley hands in a f#$king crowning achievement performance as the cinemagician.  also, there should have been a naughty sex scene between SB Cohen and Emily Mortimer.  also, the 3-D is not as great as everyone’s making it to be.  also, they should have cut out 98% of the kids stuff and replaced it with 3-D clips of how hot Louise Brooks was, or maybe with some modern 3-D hotness like this!

Toying Around: art imitates life

Verdictgo: last third is beyond breast in show, but the first two-thirds keeps it a Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Hugo is quasi-moto-awesome currently in a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

but before we go, imagine if Asa and Kodi Smit-McPhee switched Chloë movies!!!  LET THIS IN!!!

Chloë 9ever!!!

Let Me In
Swede Child o’ Mine Comes To America
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

In an era of vampire-overload, not much has really stood out as being exemplary, even if yer teeny Twilights and Southern-burnt True Bloods have proved to be popular beyond reasonable belief.  The chilling little 2008 Swedish film Let The Right One In (LÃ¥t Den Rätte Komma In) was a step in a better, more human direction, and yet we barely thirsted for the blood lust put on display (maybe it was that unforgettable yucky crotch shot that left a bad taste in our eyes!).  A darling of the critics and winner of numerous awards, Hollywood took notice too and decided to give the material a spin on our shores, with Cloverfielder Matt Reeves helming the ship.  The time remains in the 80s, the holm has been shifted from Stock to Los Alamos, New Mexico, but everything else pretty is much the same (the snow! the eerie lighting and dull colors!  the killer pre-hipster hipster wardrobes!), although any sorta Swedish fishes have been replaced with Now & Laters (one of our personal flavorite candies), and thankfully no crotch shot.  And so????  Although it’s basically a carbon copy,  Let Me In > Let The Right One In

YES, the remake works the material better than the original Swedish entry!  And no, the answer has nothing to do with reading subtitles vs not!!  So how then? Somehow, someway, the connection between the bullied, timid, lonely mortal Owen (The Road‘s Kodi Smit-McPhee, dang, this kid sure loves dark material!) and his mysterious, distant and equally lonely immortal new neighbor/playmater Abby (Chloe Moretz, who is the very definition of kick-ass, and the true star of Kick-Ass) is juss stronger, in English, and in New Mexico!!  Maybe it’s the magic in Smit-McPhee’s scared wider-eyes??  Or the uncanny charm of Moretz’ crooked smile???  Put those together and that kind of bond is WORD!!!!!!!  Then there’s all the bonus goodness, like Richard Jenkins, who plays her guardian devil, and occasionally dresses up like a ghetto Zodiac, and is involved in an amazingly filmed car crash scene, from the point of the view of the auto’s interior!  Or how about the always dependable Elias Koteas, who’s dressed eggzactly like Kubrick on the set of The Shining?  Can’t hurt!  And how about the main bully (Dylan Minnette)??  Um, bestestestest teen a$$hole cruising for such a bruising since Scut Farkus, that coonskin capped chap in A Christmas Story!!!!  Let yerself into Let Me In, regardless if you saw the original or not!

Birds of Prey: Cara Buono shows her face and hot bod as Faye Miller on Mad Men, but as Owen/Kodi’s absent onscreen mom, they barely even show her face!!!  luckily we do get to look at Sasha Barrese, and even get to see her boob!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Def Worth A Peepers

Let Me In sucks blood but doesn’t suck at all at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…