1. Chris with his typical creative talent, sums up in concise and clear language in his first paragraph the totality of the movie.

2. By his second paragraph, though, he begins his paragraph with a somewhat misleading sentence using "celebration" and "ennobling" only to go negative with his personal belief that Hugo "lacks the magic" of earlier films suggestive that "more" is "often less" implying that Hugo has too much 3D and special effects that perhaps "ballet" or "music" can better present the magic of film. Curiously, Chris also implies, perhaps unintentionally that without more "sex" and "violence" that the raw energy in Hugo is lost. By calling Hugo "old fashioned" and "artificial" he seems to be comparing the movie to an artificial Christmas tree compared to a naturally cut, still living Christmas tree using the artlike sensation of the traditional ballet or carefully crafted music as preferable approaches to making great movies. The irony here, however, is that while Chris based on his past references to his distain of 3-D he at the same time close to contradicting himself by describing Hugo as "old fashioned" when in effect, Hugo incorporates the most advanced technology use of 3-D and CGI where Scorsese has accomplished the very opposite of "old fashioned" and brought a period film into the contemporary modern era with its rich and amazing use of leading edge science which in some ways replicates in parallel the same evolutionary path that early cinema took as if in a supreme gesture and tribute to Georges Méliès, Scorsese is himself following a similar path as Méliès. The difference between Chris's use of the word "artificial" and his early mention of the lack of "magic" is also suspect as both are similar in that "magic" is artificial and not real, and in essence Scorsese has accomplished in this movie is truly an artificial recreation of the magic of film within a film, bringiing actors and lavish set designs like Georges Méliès to reflect a dramatization of real life. What Chris views of neither "earth shaking" nor "exciting" may reflect in part Chris's having been desensitized through his having committed much of his time and energy and passion to experiencing so many, many movies and films that after a while, nothing seems new or fresh anymore. But for those of us who cannot commit their money and time to experience the wonderful plethora of movies, much like Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a single piece of chocolate to last an entire year and like Hugo, it can be a wonderful, amazing, and yes, exciting experience to discover a whole new 3-D and seemingly understated magical world of early film making and the stylistic characters that seem almost like a ethereal dream. Chris's complaint that children seemingly were not "energized" and only "entranced" seems to evoke within me more puzzlement. Chris's depiction of the "energy" criteria for judging a movie is mysterious in that his focus on "sex," "violence," and "energy" seems to be so blatantly Americanized, so commercially imbued with America's passion for high physical, perhaps brainless, almost meaningless hyperactivity that it surprises me how Chris whose international foreign experience could be so accepting of what seems to be a crass acceptance of American exploitation films. Personally, using Chris's own description of children and Hugo - that they appeared "quiet" and "entranced" seems to be a wonderful emotional behavioral experience for any movie to create... Just like the amazing, magical bed time stories - children are not necessarily jumping up and down on their beds, throwing pillows everywhere, but are dreaming and smiling delicious happy and content thoughts and feelings which for me in this hectic state of our society any parent would be gushing over with great satisfaction for any movie to be able to "entrance" their children in a quiet way, instead of a hyper-kinetic way. Yet by the end of the second paragraph Chris ends it like he started the paragraph changing to a positive tone for the movie which makes for a confusing paragraph indeed.

3. The third paragraph seems to be a rehash of earlier comments, though as with any of the eye of the beholder arguments the supposedly overly long movie at two and a half hours, is only as one's either boring experience or one's compelling, captivating, thrilling experience time sense allows. For those whose experience of the film and its 3-D is magical and entrancing, time seems to take a back seat and the experience becomes timeless instead of long.

4. Chris's fourth paragraph is somewhat of a puzzle in that, he has departed from his rather traditional flow of his earlier more fluid movie critiques in that usually such descriptive movie plot outlines (which is well done here) is almost always found in the beginning of the his commentaries so as to separate storyline from opinion (though Chris at times has departed from the absolute demarcation between storyline line and personal opinion). One might suspect that Chris's passionate feelings about this movie had him subconsiously move his strong beliefs about this movie to earlier in his usual commentaries so that readers would immediately feel his passionate distaste for many of the elements in this movie.

5. Chris's concern about the lack of the serious attention to early film history seems misplaced here, because the tone of this movie, its magic and as Chris would say "artificiality" isn't supposed to be a serious documentary or even docudrama as a film history lesson. The film's focus appears to me to be on the characters, the mystery, and the use of film history as an added but delightful backdrop to the main storyline which serves to enhance the primary story, placing the characters in a meaningful context and in somes way increasing the emotive and visceral experience by allowing the audience to discovery the mystery in the same time path as the boy in the story and with the same childlike viewpoint of the discovery (unlike that of an adult film historian).

6. Lastly, Chris's final paragraph is his complaint of the Oscar's playing it "safe" with its selection of nominated and best film choices. In the world of politics and art, the final choice of the best movie can always be argued on several levels as to its artistic merits, its political change the world merits. Such subjective aesthetic moral judgments eventually fall into the realm of philosophy and metaphysics and the neverending debate of art. Personally, for me, a great movie is one that stimulates, fascinates, evokes powerful emotions, educates, and leaves one with a great deal of satisfaction for having spent the time and money going to it. And Hugo did this for me.