Scorsese's HUGO: intelligent, "personal," mainstream moviemaking (with nods to some better films) -- & the best 3D so far!

What an oddball wonder is HUGO -- the latest film from Martin Scorsese -- and what in the world will families, particularly the young kids, make of the movie's final hour? The whole thing runs two hours and seven minutes -- which is lengthy for a family movie, particularly one that, midway along, turns into nearly a documentary about the early days of French filmmaking (Hugo is set in Paris). TrustMovies loved the entire thing, even if he admits that much of the children's adventure section is B-level rather than A. (Yet B-level, when the production design is so delightful, and the cast so competent and energized, turns out to be quite enough to provide classy entertainment.)

Snowflakes in your eyes and all over your lap are one of the first sweet 3D effects that Scorsese (pictured at right) and his crew have whipped up, and they are lovely -- immediately setting the visual tone for much of what is to come. You'll soon be put in mind of Spielberg's A.I. (and not simply because of Jude Law and an automaton) before moving on to Dickens, Rostand and finally -- best of all -- to the movie medium itself as the source of magic, joy, dreams and creativity. It's no secret that Mr. Scorsese is a proponent of salvaging and restoring film; here he turns his passion into art of a sort, and one that might, if his film is able to reach young minds and eyes, lead these toward the light. (TM wants to take his grand-kids -- both bright and ages six and three -- to see this one, if only to learn whether or not they are enchanted and can understand the inclusion of the silent film footage.) Certainly, adults who accompany the children, if they have any appreciation of history and art forms, will get it.

What the filmmaker has done is to marry his tale of a young boy (Asa Butterfield, above, right) -- whose father (played by Mr. Law, above, left) and drunken uncle (Ray Winstone) tend the clocks in a Parisian railroad station -- who connects, rather badly, with the old man (Ben Kingsley, below, left) and young girl Chloë Grace Moretz who run a shop in the station that sells and fixes old toys. (That station is brought to gorgeous, detailed life by production designer Dante Ferretti and his crew.) Into this mix comes yet another story of an artist (early filmmaker Georges Méliès) whose work has faded from view and whose life has apparently ended.

It is here that Scorsese's film both enters what at times seems almost a documentary mode but also clearly touches the director's heart and mind. This section is filled with wonder, history and some fabulous ancient footage and soon becomes a marvelous tribute to both movies and Méliès.

If the chase scenes (several of them) involving the local gendarme (Sacha Baron Cohen, above, looking an awfully lot like the new hit leading man Jean Dujardin) and his doberman are second rate, there's a nice nightmare sequence (that steals from Elm Street and ups the movie's "action" quotient by several notches.

Cohen is adequate, as is his usually-better love interest, the station's flowergirl (Emily Mortimer, above: shades of My Fair Lady), while the secondary set of would-be lovers, played by Frances de la Tour (below, right) and Richard Griffiths (left), are a bit de trop.

Yet the main cast -- including Miss Moretz and Mr Butterfield, both shown below, and Helen McCrory (as Kingsley's wife) and Michael Stuhlbarg (as an early film historian) -- delivers beautifully, bringing the movie home.

And did I mention Christopher Lee (above, left), on full display and doing a very nice job as an unusual "librarian."

A word must also be said for the 3D effects: Granted, I have only see perhaps a half dozen of the newer 3D movies over the past few years, but to my mind Hugo is the best of the bunch (including, yes, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, though I have not yet seen Pina). Dimensions are so beautifully created via the various working of the clocks on view, and the stairways, the dark alleys, those snowflakes and so much more. This appears to be a movie that was filmed from the first with 3D in mind rather than some of post-transfers (Thor, anyone?) that are dark, drab and tiresome, from beginning to end.

Hugo, from Paramount Pictures, 127 minutes, open today, Friday, November 23, nationwide. Click here to locate a theater near you. Bring the kids -- and let me know what they think.

The Fran & Marty Show: Lebowitz and Scorsese score with the funny, literate documentary PUBLIC SPEAKING

If we can't read her, at least we can listen to her talk. "Her" being the notorious Fran Lebowitz, whom Martin Scorsese's camera captures doing (now that she doesn't write) what remains for her to do best: speaking, publicly. Hence the title of this funny, frisky, nasty new documentary.  Let the zingers fly.  Not that this is anything like an evening with Don Rickles. As is made clear from the film's first few minutes, as the lady sits chatting with (and being videotaped, as she is interviewed by) over-rated writer Toni Morrison, Lebowitz challenges us to see the difference between wit and mere humor (as she would have it, at least). The name of Oscar Wilde is also tossed about, not without apt comparison, in both authors' writing and visual appearance, TrustMovies thinks.

In PUBLIC SPEAKING, Scorsese (that's the happy he at left) gives us an 85-minute compilation of thought-provoking moments with this "writers'-blocked" speaker ("It's more like a blockade," says Lebowitz), who notes along the way that qualities such as niceness, kindness and their ilk have little place in real wit, or, in any case, the brand of it that she serves up.

So as not to ruin things for you (much, anyway), I'll refrain from quoting Lebowitz and let you have the fun of discovery. One of the things you may discover is how much like Wilde she is with epigrams that are indeed witty and clever but almost demand further discussion so as not to be taken as lightly and often foolishly as they sometimes come across. One example is her short "take" on the deaths from AIDS in the artistic/creative community during the early days of the plague (the 1980s), resulting, she says, in our current cadre of second- and third-rate art and criticism. What she says is almost breathtakingly shocking and, while probably not entirely correct, remains close enough for jazz. Her words bring up that old saw about so many in the creative community being homosexual -- and not just the artists but we who critique them. I suspect, should the movie be viewed in groups, by friends or in the workplace community, that much discussion, if not full-out arguments will ensue.

Fran no doubt will be happy about this, though just as pleased not to have been there to listen. She has little patience for fools, and ordinary intellects bore her. Her words -- about the very audiences who come to hear her and then engage in the Q&A that follows her talk -- are funny and not very nice. She's made a career out of being funny, not very nice but very bright and on-target, and Public Speaking should only enhance her reputation. Scorsese helps matters by keeping thing bouncing along, changing venues now and again, from her public appearances (below), to the one-on-one conversation for this film (at bottom), to the Grand Central Station clock (above), for which Ms Fran doubles as the VI).

Neither the director nor his "star" seems very interested in letting us get up-close and personal, though we do learn a little about her school days and later about her psychosomatic allergy to "gasoline," resulting in one of the funnier anecdotes that mixes supporting our troops with what Jesus would have done at the gas pump. Her true bête noire, however, is what has become of smoking in New York City, where smokers, she insists, are now stigmatized, just as the gay population used to be: a comparison that is, again, clever and a bit shocking but upon a little reflection simply does not compute.

Still, there is so much witty fun to be had here that fans won't want to miss it. Newbies to Lebowitz should get enough of a quick fix to perhaps seek out her earlier two books (Metropolitan Life and Social Studies) or attend her next public appearance.

Public Speaking, an HBO presentation, makes its debut tomorrow, November 22, on the famous cable channel and will continue showing off and on through the end of December. The film is also available via HBO On-Demand, starting Tuesday, 11/23, through Sunday, 12/19.  (And if you can wait long enough, it'll probably pop up on DVD.)