This is Not a Review of "Hugo"
BAKER STREET | NOT A REVIEW
by Eric J Baker
To paraphrase French surrealist painter René Magritte, This is Not a Review of Hugo. Except I’m not being ironic or existentialist. I’m issuing a warning and a promise: This is not a review of Hugo.
And this is not Sacha Baron Cohen. Not yet, anyway.
It’s not even a review styled after those of our own James Tuttle, whose write-up on The Immortals had me laughing out loud the other day. See, there’s a dearth of shirtless hunks in Hugo, which is good since it’s a kid’s movie, but it’s also bad since shirtless hunks is mostly what Tuttle talks about in his movie reviews. I’ll just say Scorsese’s new film is elegant and fluid, rather less grimy than Taxi Driver, and stocked with a mix of actor’s actors (Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer), cinema legends (Christopher Lee), and promising young talent in Asa Butterfield and Chloë Grace Moretz, neither of whom annoyed me. Which is almost a miracle, since I don’t like kids that much, unless they are marinated in a sweet-and-tangy apricot glaze and baked at 350° for about 2 hours (or until golden brown).