Nominations: Leading in nominations with eleven – Picture, Director, Cinematography, Art Direction, Adapted Screenplay, Visual Effects, Costume Design, Film Editing, Sounding Mixing, Sound Editing, and Original Score
The Film: The eponymous hero Hugo Cabret is an orphan who lives in a train station and manages the master clock. The audience follows Hugo (played by the delightful, bright-eyed Asa Butterfield) on a strange adventure as he tries to make sense of the memories of his father while trying to repair a strange, silver automaton. Along the way he meets equally loveable characters like the sweet bookworm Isabelle, Sacha Baron Cohen of Borat fame playing the bumbling Station Inspector, and Ben Kingsley’s Georges Méliès who was a real life filmmaker and magician.
The film is a rare, current example of a 3D film that was designed as a spectacle around the format and therefore deserves a special place some day on your DVD shelf next to the likes of Avatar. Not only does the film give viewers a concise overview of early film history, but it treats that history with such obvious love and reverence as the intricate mechanics of photography and F/X unfold over an engrossing two hours, layer by wonderful layer.
The Odds: With the fierce performances from The Descendants and the awe-inspiring grace and intuitiveness of The Artist to compete with, Hugo is far more likely to nab secondary awards. As PG films have a far lower success rate of winning (the last PG movie to win best picture was Driving Mss Daisy, twenty-two years ago) and Scorsese has already achieved Oscar winner status for 2006’s The Departed, it’s probable that the big awards will pass this movie over.
Hugo is currently showing at the Movies 8 Tallahassee theatre. Check show times on Fandango.
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