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).

Rock Saved The Queen

BAKER STREET

By Eric J Baker

Anyone who has seen a Mel Gibson movie knows that the English are pure evil.

In Braveheart (1995), King Edward the Utter Bastard spends his days raiding Scottish villages and his nights raiding Scottish panties, much to the chagrin of one William Wallace. Not to be outdone, a total rotter named William Tavington shows up in The Patriot (2000) to burn down a church full of parishioners during the early days of the American Revolution. And who can forget The Passion of the Christ (2004), in which the usurper, King Richard III, locks Jesus in the Tower of London so he can take His place at the right hand of God?

The Brits killed Jesus and then made a film about it, "Life of Brian," which was not very funny, but because every snickering geek thought Monty Python was hilarious no matter what they, did you sort of chuckled along with it. Lame. It was a case of the emperor has no jokes.

I think it was Posh Spice who said, “With great evil comes great invention.” Or maybe it was me. I forget. But it’s true, is it not? The Nazis invented rocket engines. The Soviets put the first man into orbit, Yuri Sputnik. That kid invented Facebook. Given that Great Britain is the hub of all that is wicked, it’s no wonder the English are responsible for some of the most game-changing inventions in human history, like…for instance, the… the…um…