Talk about finding a good reason to put a smile back on the face. Enjoy.

Courtesy of Yael Rozencwajg at Yopps

Still, I’m not sure why Dial 101 should lead to the police…

Part biography, part novel, part compendium, part flip book!

To ring in the new year, we went to see the new Martin Scorsese film, Hugo, based on the book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick. This 2 hour+ film did not seduce me on the merits of the direction, plot or acting. I thought of it more like a nostalgic film for the film industry. At best, Hugo is a film about time, rather than a film of all time.  However, the “picture” — as in the cinematography — was at times delightful. Being in Paris and having been a student of film at university, I can appreciate the desire to recover and repurpose archival film and the wonderful creativity of Georges Méliès. The film does a good job of reinserting old film into a new context, which I am going to assume was one of Scorsese’s primary motivations for making the film.

Oh yes, there was one other thing: vocabulary.  The charming young Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) spent the entire film showing off her good English vocab.  I smiled, thinking that maybe some kids would pick up some words.  Only problem, there was no clickable link through to the dictionary to verify the meaning!

The collateral messages

Meanwhile, if I may not have been overly thrilled with the writing and some of the acting, I did have a few “moments” in the film, where my internal message center lit up.  Here are the three parts to the film that did ring true for me:

1. Find your North.  I like to use the expression, “to find your North”, because we all need a compass to guide us, especially through these turbulent times.  As the film explicits for the film industry, we sometimes yearn for the nostalgia of the “good ‘ole days,” filled with tradition and, yet, synonym of rejecting change.  I particularly liked the passage when the small boy, Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) says to his co-adventurer, Isabelle, that in machinery every piece has a purpose.  And, Hugo and Isabelle, being a part of the world’s machine, have their purpose, too.  The point is find one’s purpose, or one’s North.
2. Storytelling.  A common theme these days for brand marketers — because brands need to learn how to tell a story to which its customers can relate — storytelling has long been monopolized by the cellulose film industry.  As was exposed in a delightful TEDx Marin speech by Robert Tercek, we as a culture have handed over the reigns to Hollywood to do the storytelling for us and that it is time for us to take storytelling or “personal narrative” back.  Dreams and storytelling are what films can bring to us.  But, we should all be allowed to have our individual dreams in real life (IRL) and to be able to tell our stories (blogs and more…).
3. The French smile.  The Station Inspector of the brilliantly reconstructed Quai d’Orsay train station, is played by the ever surprising Sacha Baron Cohen, aka Borat and Ali G.  Not the nicest of Station Inspectors, but certainly up there with the quirkiest, the French Inspector is not good at smiling.  As the film goes on, he develops a repertoire of 3 smiles with which to seduce the flower girl.  I’m not sure how intentional this was, but it certainly made me think of the French lack of propensity to smile in a happy way (as opposed to a smirk), much less to laugh.

I’m not going to make you go out to see the film with this review.  The film has its moments and I enjoyed Christopher Lee as the librarian, Mr Labisse, and Ben Kingsley as Georges Melies.  Kingsley, whose birth name was Krishna Bhanji, typified a rather international crew.  Hugo is a touching tribute to old film with a couple of poignant moments, but not well enough written to have more than 2.5 out of 5 rating.

Korea by night from satellite, via MSNBC

I wonder: do they operate by candlelight?

I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the premiere of Resistance, a new film with Michael Sheen and Andrea Riseborough, directed by Amit Gupta and based on the novel, Resistance by Owen Sheers.

The story is fictional and is based on the concept: what if D-Day had failed?  In late 1944, the Germans invade Britain and an English resistance movement is formed.  Without ruining the plot, the film has two wonderful points to it:

• Despite being a war movie, Resistance shows no outright violence; and despite plenty of romance intrigue, it shows no sex.
• The suspense and acting is carried out less through dialogue and more through silence, eyes and the unsaid.

Filled with subtlety, Resistance attacks the central question: life is filled with choices and the decisions we make will mark our lives.  The question is explicitly posed by Michael Sheen to a young boy, who ends up executing the only visible act of violence in the entire film.

What coursed through my mind during the film was what would I have done?  How would I have handled such a situation?  Moreover, the film explores the psychology of the [German] occupier in a much more sympathetic way than does the typical Hollywood movie — without ever suggesting that the Germans were necessarily all good guys.

I thought the acting was enticing.  I particularly enjoyed the polyglot, Tom Wlaschiha’s interpretation of the laconic Albrecht (the German commander). Some of the lighting and scoring could have been better, and if at times I was a little confused by the plot, I enjoyed the film for its effort to explore the thin, blurred lines that happen in war (and, most emphatically, in life as well).

I did manage to sneak in a question to Michael Sheen (who was sitting right behind me) about what made him elect to be in this film.  His answer was quite matter of factly: “just because I know Owen [the writer].”  I pursued, “so you got to know the story and that hooked you?”  To which, he answered, “Actually, I just did it because I know Owen.”

Well, it may not be a blockbuster film, but it is a film that makes you think.  What if…

The film is just out now and I’d be happy to hear of anyone else who has seen the film!

PS Kudos to my friend Isabelle Georgeaux for co-producing the film.

Mary Poppins, the musical, is on tour — currently at the New Amsterdam theater at 42^nd Street on Broadway — where I went with the family last week.  It is a show I strongly recommend, providing you see the lead played by the exquisite Laura Michelle Kelly.  Ms Kelly had just returned to the show after a 4-month absence to shoot a film, so we were exceedingly fortunate to see her play the part of Mary Poppins.

If, at the beginning of the show, I was nervous because the acoustics did not seem to be optimized, I was utterly blown away by the performance of Ms Kelly.  She combines a beautiful voice, wonderful grace and a beguiling beauty.  I was entranced by the sparkle in her eye: contagious pleasure.  No wonder she has won acclaim and awards for her role.

The set was splendid and Gavin Lee, also a well decorated performer, plays a great Bert, singing one of my all-time favorite show tunes: “Chim Chim Cher-ee.”  If some of the other supporting roles were less powerful, little would sway from me from wanting to see this version of Mary Poppins again.

Some trivia

A little “trivia” about Mary Poppins:  Do you know who was the author of the original book (written in 1934)?  It was Pamela Lyndon Travers, OBE (originally Helen Lyndon Goff, per wikipedia).  Ms Travers was an Australian-born British novellist, who refused to make a film at first after Disney’s initial approaches.  It was not until 1964 that Disney managed to gain the rights and produce the wonderful film version with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyck.

The only thing missing from the musical is the song “I Love to Laugh”… Then again, that’s a good reason to go watch the film again.

Sending y’all some sugar

On a final note, Mary Poppins features the most memorable song: “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down…”   When this play was written, it was not known that sugar – which means “love” in southern slang – would become one of the world’s plagues.   Maybe they could convert the text to “a spoonful of love”?

In any event, please go and see the play if you have a chance.  It will surely bring a light step to your walk and a smile to your face.