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Searching for Bobby Fischer

Director: Steven Zaillian

Cast: Joan Allen, Ben Kingsley, Laurence Fishbourne, Joe Mantegna, Max Pomeranc

Released: August 11, 1993

Oscar nominations:

Best Cinematography - lost to Schindler's List 

In case you weren't sure, the title is NOT referring to trying to find the actual Bobby Fischer, but rather the NEXT Bobby Fischer. Good, glad we cleared that up! 

So I should probably preface this by saying I know nothing about chess. I have never played it, I don't know the rules (I probably wouldn't understand the rules!). Much like one Jon Snow, I know nothing (about chess)! That said, I quite enjoyed this movie (even though I had no idea what was going on when chess was being played). You'd think watching people play chess would be one of the most boring things (and I'm sure it is in real life!), but the movie does a good job of keeping it cinematic.

This movie sort of reminded me of The Wizard. You know, that movie was about a young boy who is a video game prodigy and this movie is about a young boy who is a chess prodigy. I will say that this movie is better, but let's be honest, pretty much any movie (within reason!) is better than that one! 

The chess prodigy in question is a seven-year-old boy named Josh Waitzkin (played by Max Pomeranc). I had no clue Josh was a real person and that this movie was based on a book of the same name written by Josh's dad, Fred Waitzkin. But to be fair, I don't follow the chess scene, so I'm not familiar with any big name chess players (and to be honest, I'm not sure how big a name Waitzkin was as he was really a child chess prodigy). Yeah, I've heard of Bobby Fischer, but I feel like he's one of those big names everybody's heard of. I didn't know anything about him except he was really good at chess. We get some small Bobby Fischer history lessons sprinkled into the movie and he seemed kind of like a jerk. I did a quick skim through his Wikipedia page and yikes! He allegedly idolized Hitler and was glad that the 9/11 attacks happened. I'm not sure why you would want to be compared to him! Yes, I realize that they're only comparing Josh's chess skills to Fischer's chess skills and they make it a point to say that personality wise, Josh is nothing like Bobby. At this point in time (1992/93), I'm not sure how much is known about Fischer's truly problematic view of the world. If we really were searching for Bobby Fischer, I don't think I'd want him to be found! We don't need to search for him anymore, though, because he died in 2008. 

Heh, one of my notes I wrote was, "Bobby Fischer seemed like a whiny baby". I can't remember exactly why I wrote that, but it seemed like he was always complaining about something as young Josh tells us in voice over. (BTW, this kid was not the best enunciator of words so it was sometimes difficult to understand what he was saying in voiceover). I swear he told us that he complained about his view of his hotel in Iceland was too nice. WTF? 

So when we meet Josh, he's a kid who's just turned seven and he lives in New York with his parents, Fred and Bonnie (Joe Mantegna and Joan Allen) and his little sister. He enjoys watching Vinnie, a presumed homeless man (played by Laurence Fishbourne) play chess in Washington Square with other men. This movie never states what year it's supposed to be, but the real Josh Waitzkin was born in late 1976, so it would have been 1984 around the time he got into chess. Funnily enough, that was the year his portrayer, Max Pomeranc, was born, so there is only an eight year difference between them. I did wonder if they got a kid who was a chess player to play Waitzskin since they'd probably want to cast somebody who knew what they were doing and sure enough, according to the Wiki, Pomeranc was was one of the country's top 20 chess players in his age group at that time. Like I said, this came from Wiki, so who knows how reliable it is. 

So I haven't read the book (obviously, or otherwise I would have known Josh Waitzkin is a real person), so I'm not exactly sure how Josh learned how to play chess. His parents didn't teach him and he didn't learn at a friend's house. The movie makes it seem like he learned just from watching Vinnie and the other men in the park. Can you just self-teach yourself to play chess? I would think you would need to know the rules. Bonnie notices that her son has been fascinated with the chess players in the park, so she takes Josh to one old man in the park who's supposedly some great chess player from the past. His table has a sign that says you can play a game with him or have your picture taken with him for five dollars. (We will later learn that you don't make a lot if you're a world renowned chess player). Josh plays the man and loses, but Vinnie is watching him play and is impressed with the young boy's chess skills. He tells Josh's mother, "Your boy used pieces in combination to attack." Whatever that means, but it certainly impressed Vinnie. He asks Josh his name and Josh tells him. When he asks him, "Josh what?" his mother tells him not to give out his last name, but of course he does and Vinnie writes it down. 

When Bonnie reveals to her husband that Josh played chess in the park, her husband replies with, "Josh doesn't know how to play chess." She answers with, "Yes, he does. Don't ask me how, but he does." Yeah...the movie really never explains HOW he learned how to play chess and the parents seem to accept it. I'm sure it's more expanded on in the book. Josh's dad works as a baseball analyst/sports writer (something like that!) and likes to bond with his son over baseball; Josh is even on a Little League team. This has nothing to do with the movie, but the actor who played him sounded so much like Ray Romano, that I kept expecting Doris Roberts to come out and exclaim, "Raymond!" 

After hearing this revelation that his son knows how to play chess, Fred decides to bring out the chessboard to play a game with Josh. The game ends fairly quickly and Fred wins. He confesses to his wife that he should have let Josh win and was even giving him an opportunity to win. Bonnie tells him that Josh wasn't trying to win. Fred decides to play again with Josh and this time he tells him to "really try."

This time they play seriously and it takes so long for Fred to decide how to move his pieces that each time it's his turn, we see Josh playing with his sister during one of his dad's turns, talking on the phone to his friend (who he tells that he'll be right back when his dad calls to him that it's his turn, he runs to the living room, moves his piece, then runs back to the phone), and most humorously, Josh is taking a bath after his dad his finished thinking over a move and when he tells Josh it's his turn, Josh tells him exactly what he wants moved and he ends up winning the game. While it seemingly takes his dad several minutes to make a move, it only takes Josh a few seconds and he knows exactly how to move the pieces to win the game. 

Fred takes Josh to the Metropolitan Chess Club that he knows about from a guy that writes the Chess Column at the same newspaper he also writes for. Um, excuse me, Chess Column?? What? Is this only found in big city papers? I have never heard of a Chess Column in a paper before; granted I've never actively looked for one before. I also don't read the newspaper, I mean, how archaic.  

Anyway, Fred is there to look for a man named Bruce Pandolfini (played by Ben Kingsley). Obviously, he is a real person and I looked up his stats on Wiki:

-He is still alive at the time of this review; he is 73.

-Wiki tells me "he is considered to be America's most experienced chess teacher."

-I thought this little tidbit was interesting; I haven't seen The Queen's Gambit; but now I'm interested to check it out:

In 1983, Pandolfini was the chess consultant to author Walter Tevis for the novel The Queen's Gambit, for which Pandolfini had also suggested the title. Decades later, Pandolfini returned as consultant for the 2020 Netflix miniseries of the same name.

- He looks nothing like Ben Kingsley. Okay, that wasn't in his Wikipedia page, but just thought I would throw it out there. 

Before Bruce accepts tutoring Josh in chess, he invites Fred to an adult chess tournament where all the national chess champs are gathered. This is where we find out that one of the great chess champs, Asa Hoffman (again, somebody I've never heard of), who grew up in a wealthy family and went to prestigious schools, plays 200 games a year and only makes $2,000 from doing it. I suppose if you come from a wealthy family, you can afford to immerse yourself in chess! Fred tells Bruce, "Clearly, you had me come here so I could see all this. But if you really wanted me to say no to letting my son play, you wouldn't have bothered. You want me to think you want me to say no, but you actually want me to say yes." Bruce just replies with, "I want back what Bobby Fischer took with him when he disappeared." I don't know if I was clear when I was talking about Fischer, but supposedly he would just disappear and nobody had any idea where he was. But then he would pop back up to play a game, then disappear again. 

Bruce has agreed to tutor Josh and during their first session they don't even talk about chess, let alone play it. Josh has a large selection of board games in his room and they play Clue. I did notice he had Stratego which is a game my brother also had. We used to play it and he would always beat me because I sucked so bad. That's probably the closest game to chess I've ever played. 

At their next session, Josh is at the Metropolitan Chess Club and Bruce has set up the board for him. He tells his new pupil, "The mate is four moves from the position in front of you." This absolutely means nothing to me! He wants Josh to figure out the moves in his head; Josh tells him he can't do it without moving the pieces. This prompts Bruce to knock the pieces off the board and they clatter onto the floor. A bit overdramatic if you ask me. But after staring at the board for several minutes he gives him the answer, "knight to C8" which pleases Bruce. It pleases him so much that he gives Josh a certificate that he deems is "very rare." It says "Master Chess Certificate awarded to ______ for highest achievement on ______ (date)." Bruce continues to oversell the certificate. He tells him it's only been given out a few times in history and "only to those who achieve a lot of master-class points." This is just a piece of paper; it can't be that significant, but he wants to encourage Josh to earn master class points because it will show that he's learning chess the way Bruce wants him to learn it. 

Speaking of which, Bruce tells Josh's parents that Josh shouldn't be playing chess with Vinnie and the other men in Washington Park. He tells them, "What I'm trying to teach him and what he's learning there are two very different things. Park hustlers play tactics, not position. They rely on wild, unpredictable moves meant to intimidate their opponents. ...It'll cost Josh dearly in real games." Fred was willing to agree to Bruce's terms, but Bonnie refuses because she knows how much it means to Josh and how much he loves playing chess there. Bruce tells her it will make his job harder and she just replies, "So your job's harder." This is the first hint we get where the mother has the kid's interest at heart while the father is more about honing the kid on his skill. 

Fred takes Josh to his first chess tournament (I missed where it was held) and while Josh was swimming at the hotel pool with the other kids who were also there for the tournament, another father asks Fred what his kid's rating is. I guess Fred has no idea what this means (I certainly have no idea what it means!) because he sees a sign that has the number 15 on it and tells him "fifteen" which the other father is amazed by the 1500 rating and tells him he doubts their sons will play against each other because his son, Morgan, isn't even rated 1000 yet. I looked up what a chess player with a rating of 1500 would look like. They would be an intermediate player with 5-6 years of playing the game under their belt. It said a bunch of things that didn't mean anything to me and added that they "will probably need a chess coach to improve further." I'd be curious to know what the rating he really was at that time; he certainly could have been close to 1500! I would definitely be rated a 0! 

At the actual competition, which takes place at a high school gym, the director of the tournament seems to be more concerned about the parents than the kids. He tells the parents they can watch, but he doesn't want any funny business - no throat noises, no comments, no eye contact, nothing where they might be giving a hint or a sign to their child on what to do.  

There's a funny moment where Fred is standing behind Josh, watching him play. Josh's opponent's dad is behind him and he's this big burly guy with his arms crossed, just glaring at Fred. I guess he's trying to intimidate him? Elsewhere, a fight breaks out when a father is accuses of pulling his ear and giving his kid a hint. The man claims he was just scratching it, but like the tournament director told them all, "Nobody cares if you're guilty or not" so all the parents are kicked out of the room and sent downstairs to the locker room (and locked in until the end of the tournament!) All the kids start clapping once the adults are gone and they can finally concentrate. I'm surprised they let the parents stay in the room in the first place. 

This movie is full of big name actors: Joan Allen, Laurence Fishbourne, Ben Kingsley....and we get another one when William H. Macy shows up as the father of the kid who is playing Josh in the final game. (A young Laura Linney will also show up later as Josh's teacher). A random kid keeps running back and forth to tell the parents what's going on in the game. When he finally comes to tell them the game is over, he just walks away and doesn't say who won (um, that's what they're waiting to hear, kid!) It is revealed that Josh won (of course) when he and Fred are on the train traveling back home and a sleeping Josh is clutching a trophy. This leads us to a montage where we see Josh collecting a bunch of trophies as he wins game after game. Their mantle is getting quite full! We also see him building a tower with all the chess pieces which seems kind of impossible. 

Trouble comes in the form of a new kid named Jonathan Poe who is deemed the new Bobby Fischer. Josh sees him playing the old man in the park and it appears that he's an even better player than Josh. I would hope he would be because he's been trained by his chess master, a stuffy elderly man with a beard, since he was four. It seems his parents just gave their son to this chess master (WTF?!) and he does nothing but play chess; he doesn't even go to school. (Again, WTF?!) Good Lord, I can't imagine anything more tedious than having to play chess all the time. All. The. Time! This kid is a chess robot; at least Josh is a normal kid who goes to school and as other interests like baseball and astronomy and building things out of Legos. Poe seems to have a uniform AND a catchphrase. In the three scenes or so we see him (all on different days, mind you) he's always wearing a white polo. He also says "Trick or treat" after he wins a game. I mean, he can't come up with a better or more relevant catchphrase? There's already one built in the game with "Check mate"! 

Seeing that he's not the best anymore and not wanting to disappoint his dad, Josh tells Fred he doesn't want to go to the State Finals. He reasons that if he wins, everyone will be expecting it since he's a top ranked player. And if he loses, he's afraid of what other people will think, especially his dad. (Though he doesn't tell his dad that part). He tells Fred, "Maybe it's better not to be the best. Then you can lose and it's okay." I totally get what he's saying. Being ranked the best at something has to put a lot of pressure on that person. But if nobody is expecting you to win, if you lose, nobody will care and if you DO happen to win, people will probably make a bigger deal because they weren't expecting it! If you're already the best at something, does anybody really care THAT much? Thank God I'm so mediocre so I don't have to worry about this! Josh does go to the State Finals but ends up losing in seven moves; he clearly lost on purpose. 

Bruce sets some new rules for Josh including no more speed chess or games in the park. He knows Josh likes it, but it isn't good for him. He tells Josh they're teaching him all the wrong things. He also asks Josh if he knows what "contempt" means and tells him, "You have to have contempt for your opponents". Josh says he doesn't even when Bruce insists that his opponents hate him, which I seriously doubt since there are seven/eight-year-olds. Josh has the best response when Bruce says, "Bobby Fischer held the world in contempt." (What a shock). He simply replies, "I'm not him." This is pretty much the thesis of the movie: This kid is NOT Bobby Fischer.

At another lesson (this one at Josh's home; I'm confused, sometimes they had lessons at the Waitzkin household and sometimes they had the at the Chess Club; they seemed to be wherever was more convenient for the scene), Josh wants to know how close he is to getting his so-called "very rare" certificate. A frustrated Bruce pulls one out of his briefcase and tells him it doesn't mean anything and starts pulling out many more copies he has and asks him if he wants those too. Geeze, what an a**! Bonnie thinks so too because she tells Bruce to get out of her house. On his way out, he tells her, "To put a child in a position to care about winning and not to prepare him is wrong."

Later that night, Bonnie and Fred get into a fight. Fred agrees with the chess coach and says Josh is in a slump and is afraid of losing. Bonnie retaliates with, "He's not afraid of losing; he's afraid of losing your love." Fred finally sees the light and tells Josh it's okay if he wants to stop playing chess, but Josh tells him he wants to play at the National Finals in Chicago, where, to become the champion, a player must win all seven games.

Even though Bruce was a total jerk to Josh, Fred still invites him to go to Chicago with them. He says he can't go so they end up taking Vinnie instead. It's kind of amusing they take a presumed homeless man with them. But it is kind of sweet and Vinnie was a much better coach to Josh than Bruce ever was. Bruce does end up coming to Chicago and he patches everything up between him and Josh when he gives Josh a framed certificate saying that he "obtained the rank of Grand Master in the eyes of his teacher". He tells Josh he's proud of him and is honored to be his teacher. Aww. 

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that Josh makes it to the seventh and final game and his opponent is Jonathan "Trick or Treat" Poe. Josh's parents, Vinnie, Bruce, and Poe's chess master are all watching the game on a monitor. Right away, Vinnie and Bruce have a disagreement when Bruce doesn't want Josh to bring out his Queen, but Vinnie thinks he should. As usually, I have no idea what's going on. Josh ends up getting Poe's Queen and tells him, "Trick or Treat." I'm sure Poe loved that! 

On the monitor, Bruce sees that Josh can win in 12 steps. (How?!?!  I mean, I guess it is possible to see your moves in advance). We see Josh concentrating on the chess board as we're hearing voiceover from Ben Kingsley telling us the moves he should make as though Josh is hearing what his teacher is telling him the moves he needs to make. Even before he makes a move, Bruce can tell that "he's got it". Being the nice and decent kid he is, Josh offers Poe a draw so they can share the championship. Poe just scoffs at this and Josh tells him, "You've lost; you just don't know it." Poe still doesn't believe him and tells him to look at the board and Josh replies, "I have." He insists on them sharing the title, but Poe still refuse to take his deal and tells him to move. He does and he wins. Yay. 

The movie ends and a few title cards show up, telling us that Josh "still" plays chess and he is "currently" the highest-ranked player in the U.S. under 18. Remember, this movie came out in 1993 so those key words are no longer relevant! And since Bobby Fischer's name is in the title, we get a title card with an "update" on him: "In September 1992, Fischer emerged from secession to challenge his old rival Boris Spassky. After winning, he promptly disappeared again." I guess Bobby Fischer was not a fan of this movie. What a shock.

Eternal Spring

Tuck Everlasting

Director: Jay Russell

Cast: Alexis Bledel, Jonathan Jackson, Sissy Spacek, William Hurt, Victor Garber, Ben Kingsley, Amy Irving

Released: October 11, 2002

Viewed in theaters: October 12, 2002

Spoilers start right away, so there's your warning! 

Even though I've seen this movie before, I didn't remember anything about it. I just remembered the immortality part. If you had asked me what this movie was about before I re-watched it (and I had totally forgotten this movie existed, but then I saw it was on Hulu), I would have said it's about a boy named Tuck who is an immortal. Well, Tuck is the surname of the boy whose name is Jesse (Jonathan Jackson) and the entire Tuck family is immortal. 

This movie felt more like a made-for-TV movie than a theatrical release. For one thing, it's only an hour and a half, and for another, it's just not that grand of a movie. It gets pretty cheesy in parts. I didn't think the acting by the two young leads was particularly great. I believe this was Alexis Bledel's first feature film and this came out during the third season of Gilmore Girls. Plus the all around premise is a little creepy, but I'll get to that later.

The movie is based on a 1975 novel written by Natalie Babbitt. I haven't read it, but I looked up the summary on Wikipedia to note any differences between the book and film. One of the main differences is that the main character, Winifred (who goes by Winnie), is ten in the book and fifteen in the movie. She is played by Bledel. She comes from a very well-to-do family and would rather be playing with kids her own age and getting dirty than wearing her pristine white dress while she practices piano or knits. While we know this movie is not set in the present day, we will learn later that the year is 1914.

One day she goes off into the woods after her uptight parents (Amy Irving and Victor Garber) have told her they're sending her away to boarding school. There she sees Jesse drinking from a spring. It's clear that Winifred has no people skills because she doesn't even try to be discreet that she's flat-out spying on him. She steps out into the open, watching him as he drinks. When he sees her, he's not angry, but you know he's not thrilled that this girl is out here and obviously shouldn't be. He asks her how long she's been there and she replies with, "Not long" and tells him that her family owns these woods after he tells her she shouldn't be out here. She agrees to leave, but wants a drink of water first. He tells her no, that the water is poisonous, which was pretty stupid since he was just drinking from it. When she heads towards the spring, he grabs her and she screams and runs away, exclaiming she's going to tell her father. She doesn't get very far because Jesse's older brother, Miles, catches her and they take her back to their house and their parents, Mae and Angus Tuck (Sissy Spacek and William Hurt). Of course, Winnie is totally freaked out since she's been basically kidnapped and just wants to go home. Mae is being very sweet and motherly to her, telling her they're not going to hurt her.

This is where the movie gets a little weird and makes me wonder if the novel comes off the same way. The Tuck family tell that they will let her return to her home as soon as they can trust her, but they never tell her their big secret until much later in the movie and even then, Jesse sort of just lets it slip out. We learn that Winnie has lost track of the days she's been imprisoned, but don't worry, she's having a grand old time as we see her and Jesse in this super cheesy montage where they're running slow-motion through a field of flowers while flailing their arms. Oh, how that made me cringe! I felt really bad for the actors. I can just imagine the director yelling at them, "Jump higher, move your arms more." Meanwhile, we get snippets of her poor parents who are worried sick about their daughter and get the police involved to find her. 

While Winnie and Jesse are spending more time with each other, they begin to fall in love. At one point she asks him how old he is and he tells her he's 104 years old. She tells him to be serious, and he says he's 17. And technically, both answers are right. When Winnie tells him, "I wish this moment could last forever", he tells her about the water that grants not only everlasting life, but also makes one immortal. When he said they were immortal, I just assumed they could never die of old age or get sick, but no, they can not die of anything. If they get shot in the head? Still alive! If they fall off a cliff? Still alive! If they get bit by a rattlesnake? Still alive (even without the antidote!). They literally cannot die. They're just like Claire, the invincible cheerleader from Heroes! Although, even though she could fall off high ledges and walk through fires and not die, I feel like there is a way to kill her since Sylar had a plan to do so, I just forgot how. Something about taking her brain? But with the Tucks, I get the impression they are immune to any type of death.

Jesse tells Winnie the story of the spring, how back in (hang on, let me do some quick math...) 1827, his family found it while traveling and started drinking from it. Everyone, but the cat that is. They quickly realize something is up when their horses are shot at by hunters who mistake them for deer (really?) and they don't die. We also learn that Jesse fell from thirty feet and didn't get one scratch on him and that someone else was bitten by a rattlesnake and was completely fine. Miles's wife left with their two children, saying he "sold his soul to the devil" and called the spring "witch craft" and "black magic". Needless to say, they did not drink from the spring. She ended up in a mental institution because of her ramblings about a spring that grants eternal life. While Jesse seems to embrace his eternal youth and long-lasting life, Miles sees it more as a curse and hates it. He wanted his kids to drink from it too, but that seems pretty cruel as you are permanently stuck at the age you are when you drink from it, and I imagine your brain is permanently stuck at that age too. I don't know how old his kids were, but they looked pretty young in the flashbacks. Can you imagine if you had to be five years old for the rest of your life and could never escape from it? Oh my God, that would be terrible. I'm glad his kids did not get to drink from the water, even though one of them did die when they were a teenager, but the other one lived a full life even if he never saw his dad again. And honestly, being seventeen forever (like Jesse) doesn't sound that great either. Now I realize that when he drank the water he didn't know this was going to happen. I feel like if you were going to be stuck at a permanent age, early thirties is where you want to be. You're old enough where you don't look like a teenager and you don't have to get carded for anything and you can still be an active member of society and you don't need a permission slip for anything, but you're also still young enough to be active and not worry about the psychical downsides of aging. Basically, you're not too young, you're not too old. Actually, this movie reminded me of The Age of Adaline where Blake Lively plays a character who has been stuck at the age of 29 since the early 20th century. Every few years she moves to a different location so she doesn't make anyone suspicious about her non-aging. Because of this, she isn't able to be close to anyone and even her own daughter out-ages her and they tell everyone she is her grandmother. In this film, the Tucks just seem to hang out in a house hidden in the woods and this is why they kidnap Winnie and keep her until they think they can trust her because they do not want her telling anyone about them.

Jesse tells Winnie that she's the first girl he's ever told this to because she's the first girl he's fallen in love with and wants to spend the rest of his life with. He wants her to drink the water. Now, in the book, from what I found out on Wikipedia, Jesse wants Winnie to wait until she is 17 and then drink the water so they will be the same age (remember, she is only ten in the novel!) and then they can get married. I'm not sure if there's a romance in the book like there is in the movie (God, I hope not!), but I guess he just wants someone to spend eternity with.

I don't understand the appeal of wanting to spend ETERNITY with anyone, even yourself. Sure, I understand if you meet your soul mate you want to spend as much time with them as possible and cherish every moment, but think about it - if you and your partner could live forever, then you would take each other for granted, you would be stuck with this person for the rest of your (and your partner's!) life and then you probably wish you could die! Nothing would be special anymore. This is one of the many reasons why I hate Twilight so much. Are we supposed to think it's so romantic that Bella and Edward are going to live forever? I remember one scene in the book where Bella is having a fit because Edward had to leave her for one night, and it's like, relax, you guys are going to spend the rest of eternity together, I think you can handle one lousy day apart, good Lord! There is a really bad line in this movie that could have easily been in a Twilight book - that's how much it made me roll my eyes! When the Tucks are ready to take Winnie home, Jesse tells her, "If I could die tomorrow I would do it just to spend one more night with you!" First of all, let's calm down. The girl is only fifteen. They make this line sound very sexual for a PG Disney family movie! They probably should have changed "night" to "day".

Winnie is seriously considering drinking the water, but after she hears Miles tell his story about how eternal life isn't all it's cracked up to be, she begins to waver. She does like the idea of never dying, but when Angus tells her, "Don't be afraid of death, be afraid of the un-lived life," that is what cements her decision NOT to drink the water.

Ben Kingsley plays a man in a yellow suit who is supposed to be the villain, but he didn't seem very villainous to me. Not until we learn he wants to collect the water and sell it to people "for a price", but Mae hits him in the head with a shovel before he has a chance to. Mae is arrested for murder and is to be hanged, but Winnie and the others know she won't die and then everyone will become suspicious, so they devise a plan to help Mae escape. This is when Winnie has to say her good-byes to the Tucks and can finally return to her family.

The movie ends in "present day" 2002 where we see Jesse on a motorcycle. He looks the same as he did in 1914, only now he's wearing jeans and a leather jacket. We see that he's come to visit Winnie's gravestone which says she lived a good 100 years (1899-1999) and was a wife and mother (and probably grandmother and great-grandmother), so we know she took Angus's advice and lived her life. I was glad the movie went this way and did not have Winnie drinking the water. 

Man On Wire

The Walk

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon, James Badge Dale, Ben Schwartz

Released: October 9, 2015

If you've seen the 2008 documentary, Man On Wire (which won the Oscar), then you are familiar with the story of Philippe Petit, the French famed high-wire walker who walked between the two World Trade Center Building towers when they were first built back in '74. This guy is lucky to be alive because my God, you would have to be stupid or insane (or both!) to do that. Though I imagine if he had not been so lucky, I doubt there would have been a movie made about it...we don't need another depressing story involving the World Trade Center! I had actually never heard about him and the crazy stunt he did until the documentary came out. 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Petit and he does a passable job with the French accent. We get a background of his childhood and early years and his love for entertaining people in the streets of Paris where he did magic tricks and worked as a mime for money. He falls in love with wire walking when he goes to a circus and sees it being performed for the first time and sneaks into the circus tent to try it. His soon-to-be mentor, Papa Rudy (Ben Kinglsey) chases him out of the circus tent, but is impressed by Petit's juggling skills. He teaches Philipe how to tie knots and rig up the ropes. Philippe learns to wire walk in a park with a rope only a few feet off the ground. He becomes friends with a photographer named John Louis (Clement Sibony) who he will later hire to join his coup and becomes romantically involved with another street performer named Annie (Charlotte Le Bon....I thought she was Katie Holmes with a French accent when I saw the trailer for this!) 

While waiting in a dentist's office, Philipe sees the World Trade Center being advertised in a magazine. The ad states they will be the tallest buildings in the world when finished and compares how much taller they will be compared to the Eiffel Tower. He is determined to wire walk between the two buildings. Why anyone would want to walk across a thin piece of cable between two 110 story buildings where the distance from point A to point B is 150 feet is beyond me. Even Papa Rudy, who supports Philippe, tells him he would never want any of his tight-rope walking sons to ever do anything like that ....because it's so stupid! Okay, I added that last part, but I'm sure it's what he was thinking! Philippe said he wanted to be the only person in the world to do that because it would make him special. I have never understood people like him who do crazy stunts like that just because they want to get famous and gain notoriety...but it certainly worked for him. 

Petit calls his mission to walk between the two tall buildings "The Coup" and hires more accomplices to help him including someone who is terrified of heights. I feel like that's the worst quality you could get someone to help you in a task like this! But he's really good at math so they think he will be useful in that regard. They plan to get more people "working on the inside" to help them when they get to New York.

Petit practices wire-walking between two points of Notre Dame. While still high and he could have easily killed himself if he fell, it was nowhere near as high as what he would be doing in New York! He picks August 7 as the day he will be performing his stunt. The night before, he gets very anxious and keeps going over their plan for The Coup. Before he left, Papa Rudy told him he should use a safety harness, but Petit, having too much pride, refused. I must say, I'm on Papa Rudy's side on this. So you wear the harness and if you make it, you're so far up that nobody can even see you wearing it (although he did have his photographer friend taking photos so perhaps he was worried about that?), or God forbid, if you happen to fall, then at least you'll still be attached to the wire as you're dangling in the air. I don't think people are going to get mad that you're wearing a harness because at least you're not dead on the ground! 

They get everything set up, but not without a few hiccups. I remembered a lot of this stuff from Man On Wire. Annie, on the ground, stays up the entire night with binoculars. At one point, the next morning, Petit is changing into his "costume" (just blank pants and a black turtleneck) on the side of the building. It is the literal side of the building as he jumps over a rail guard and is perched on just a few inches of building. (As you can see from the above photo). Even though I know this is all green screen, the visual effects are very effective because I definitely got a sense of wooziness whenever he did that. He drops his turtleneck and Annie sees something falling and is freaking out until she realizes it's only an article of clothing. Can you imagine if you were about to perform a stunt that would receive world recognition (which it did) only to fall off the building before you even attempted it? 

At one point, he and the guy afraid of heights have to hide from a security guard who has come up to the roof and Petit has him go over the rail. I felt so bad for the guy! I think that would terrify anyone whether or not you had a fear of heights! It didn't seem to scare Philippe which I guess is why he's the perfect person to do something so crazy. He has a long pole he holds which much help him with his balance. He crosses the towers once, which was his original intent. Annie sees him crossing and tells pedestrians all around her to look up and soon a large crowd will gather. If I were on the ground that day, I would NOT look because I would be too scared for him. I would be the person covering her eyes telling me to open them when it's over!

When Petit gets to the other side, he says there is something calling him to cross back to the original tower from where he started from. Okay, this makes sense because if this had been a task on The Amazing Race (though they would have been wearing safety harnesses!), they would have to cross once and then back. But then he ends up crossing the wire six times which is insane when once would have sufficed! At one point, Annie mutters to herself, "Okay, Philippe, that's enough, time to come down" and I would have been thinking the same thing if I were her! Like, quit being stupid before you get yourself killed.

The reason he keeps on the wire is because the police have come up on both towers so he's goading them. He seems to get either very comfortable or very confident and "bows" to the towers, sits on the wire, and LAYS DOWN. What the hell is wrong with this man? There's a scene earlier in the movie when he's practicing on a high wire in the circus tent and he's done well and only has three steps left, but ends up falling and catches the wire. Papa Rudy tells him he must never lose his concentration and not get too cocky. I feel like he was getting a little too cocky doing all these insane stunts. He is really lucky nothing went wrong! 

The police send up a helicopter to tell him he needs to get off the wire. I can't remember if this was in the documentary or not because I feel like having a helicopter hovering above a wire walker would be very distracting and add even more danger to his situation. One officer threatened that if he wasn't going to get off, he would have to come out there to get him which made me laugh, because, oh please, like that guy's really going to step on the wire, let alone step over the side of the building! Once Petit  steps off the building, he is immediately arrested, but as he's walking handcuffed through the building, everyone is applauding him and he becomes an overnight worldwide sensation. 

During the movie, he is narrating from the Statue of Liberty with a view of the World Trade Center in the background. This was a little confusing because I was wondering if he was narrating from a few years after '74 or it was the "present" (although the WTC wouldn't be there and Petit is in his 60s now so it wouldn't make sense for JGL to play him as he is currently), but then without mentioning 9/11, he mentions 9/11 and you don't see the towers in the background anymore and it's quite depressing, but then the camera pans and you see the towers! What the hell? I guess it was suppose to be symbolic more than anything. I remember them never mentioning anything about 9/11 in Man On Wire which I always found odd since Petit had such a special attachment to the buildings; much more special than anyone else would have. In The Walk, he says that he was granted a pass to go on the observation deck and it would never expire and he could visit anything he wanted. Super depressing. While I knew there was that restaurant, Windows on the World, near the top of one of the buildings that had a great view of the city, I had no idea there was an observation deck on the roof. That's quite terrifying knowing that now! 

Can I just say this movie has one of the worst titles I've ever heard: The Walk. I mean, are you kidding me with how boring and generic that sounds? Ooh, let's go see a movie called The Walk. Nobody would want to see that. Horrible name. The documentary got the much better name! And while I enjoyed The Walk, Man on Wire is the superior film.  

Nights at the Museums

Night at the Museum
Director: Shawn Levy
Cast: Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Carla Gugino, Ricky Gervais, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Bill Cobbs, Kim Raver, Paul Rudd
Released: December 22, 2006
Viewed in theaters: December 23, 2006

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Director: Shawn Levy
Cast: Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Hank Azaria, Robin Williams, Christopher Guest, Ricky Gervais, Bill Hader
Released: May 22, 2009
Viewed in theaters: June 1, 2009

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
Director: Shawn Levy
Cast: Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Ben Kingsley, Ricky Gervais, Rebel Wilson
Released: December 19, 2014

Two years before the first movie being released, I had been to New York City with my mom where we had visited the American Museum of Natural History which had quickly shot to #1 as my favorite museum of all time ever. (What was #1 prior to that? To be honest, I had never given it any thought.) So when I heard about this movie where all the exhibits come to life at night, I thought it sounded like a cool concept and was curious to see it. While I enjoyed it, I was a bit nit-picky. Obviously, if you have been to the AMNH, then you know it was not filmed there! (Which I get.) But they could at least tried to make it as similar to the real one! True, it's been awhile since I've been there, but I do remember that the dinosaur on display in the main lobby was not a T-rex like it was in the movie, but in fact two dinosaurs: a mother barosaurus and her baby. I suppose a T-rex is more frightening and exciting for a movie audience, but there were more dinosaur bones upstairs that they never had come to life! Although I don't think the AMNH has a T-rex because if they did, it probably would be featured in the lobby as the first thing you see! I kept waiting for the movie to show this HUGE grizzly bear that I remember seeing in the North America section (you know, the same section where you would find Lewis and Clark with Sacagawea!). I would be way more scared of that than the three lions that are in the movie....but there was no bears, grizzly or otherwise. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Larry Daley (Ben Stiller), a divorced father of a son, gets a job as a night guard at the museum when times are rough for him and he just needs anything that will give him a paycheck. He replaces three nigh guards who are retiring (played by Dick Van Dyke, Bill Cobbs, and Mickey Rooney). They give Larry a list of instructions which he will soon find out will come in handy. Even though this movie is called NIGHT at the Museum, there are actually three nights that are shown. The other two movies only have one night.

The first night, naturally, is the introduction of the characters who come to life. A bored Larry ends up falling asleep at the front desk (sidenote: how come they only have one night guard now when they used to have three? Maybe they are trying to cut costs?) and when he wakes up he is baffled to see that the bones of the T-rex are gone and thinks Cecil (Dick Van Dyke) and the others have played a trick on him and that they have made the dinosaur bones vanish in a David Copperfield type illusion. But no, the skeletal dinosaur has come to life and starts chasing Larry who hides under his desk and grabs the instruction and reads them for the first time. The first one tells him to "throw the bone", which he does and the T-rex hurries after it like a dog, wagging its bony tail. While I definitely would be freaked out if dinosaur fossils came to life, I really wouldn't be worried about the dinosaur eating me as there is no digestive tract!

Larry soon realizes that everything in the museum has come to life. There's Attila the Hun; the aforementioned Sacagawea; cavemen; an Easter Island Moai; a large menagerie which probably has the most iconic character, Dexter the capuchin monkey, is part of. Dexter torments Larry by stealing his keys, peeing on him, biting his nose, slapping him, and he will continue to be a pain in Larry's ass for the next two movies. Teddy Roosevelt (played by Robin Williams) acts as Larry's guide and offers to help him the first night. He is a wax statue on a horse in the lobby. He brings up something later in the movie that I had been wondering: these are not the actual people that are being shown at the museum. As Teddy tells Larry, he is not the real Roosevelt, but a wax figure made in a factory somewhere. However, he acts like a leader and emulates many of the traits the real Roosevelt had as so many of the other figures with their real life counterparts. (That would be a little creepy if the museum had the corpse of Teddy Roosevelt on display!)

Two other characters who will prominently be featured in the next two movies are a miniature version of a cowboy named Jedediah (played by Owen Wilson) and his rival in the display next to him, a Roman general named Octavius (played by Steve Coogan). In all three movies there will be a running gag where the two of

them will be in some sort of dire situation and the camera will pull back to show a very calm scene. It's funny at first, but the camera pans back too many time that it stops being funny. In the first movie, they are getting blasted by air from a tire, but when the camera pulls pack we just see a car sitting there.

After the first night, Larry wants to quit and tells the curator (played by Ricky Gervais) he won't be coming back. But after seeing how proud his son is of him, he decides to stick with it. This time he goes in more prepared, or thinks he is anyway. He has read some history books so he knows a few things that might help him with dealing with the live exhibits. He has secured his keys to his belt and fakes Dexter our with a pair of plastic keys. He gives a lighter to the cavemen so they will stop bugging him and they are amazed by how easy it is to start a fire. However, one of them gets out of the building to start a fire in the trash and ends up turning to dust when the sun comes up. Is the caveman also a vampire? No, that is what happens to the exhibits if they are not in the building back in their poses when the sun comes up.

The third (and most adventurous night as he will soon find out), Larry brings Nicky so he can see the displays come to life. Nothing happens and I thought that they were purposely not coming to life because they only let the night guards see them, but it is soon discovered they are not able to come to life because Cecil has the tablet. Oh, I forgot to mention the reason why everything in the museum comes to life: so there's this Ancient Egyptian tablet and it brings everything to life. Yeah. I don't get it either. That's got to be worth a lot of money! I had totally forgotten this storyline where Cecil and the other two guards were the bad guys and wanted the tablet because apparently besides giving life to wax figures, it helps old men have more energy (there's a really bad joke I could insert here, but I won't go there) and they want it so they can stay healthy and spry. At one point Cecil does a backflip. It's just totally random and out of left field. Everything comes to life when Larry gets the tablet back and the exhibits help Larry and Nicky stop the three old men. It gets quite ridiculous because at one point Nicky is riding the T-rex through Central Park.

The only way to stop them is to awake the mummy (I think he was a real mummy and not a prop one because in the third movie we will find out he is an actual person who was awaken from the dead? I think?) It's an amusing scene because Larry and his son are really scared and when he unwraps the bandages you think it's going to be some deformed corpse, but it turns out to be a good-looking young guy, an Egyptian prince named Akhmenrah.

I thought there was going to be a romantic sub-plot between Larry and Rebecca (Carla Gugino) who works at the museum and is writing a dissertation on Sacagawea, but they just have one "coffee date" when she offers to tell him some information on the Native American when he asks her. There is a romance between Teddy and Sacagawea, but it mostly consists of gazing into eyes and hand holding. Rounding out the cast is Paul Rudd who plays Larry's ex-wife's new smarmy boyfriend.

Larry has an idea for bringing the museum to "life" at night (which everyone thinks are either actors portraying the notable figures or, in the case of the animals and dinosaur, animatronics) because in a weird plot point, the museum had been having low attendance which made me LOL, because, please....I really doubt the freaking best museum in the world ever has that problem! When I was there, you had to wait in a long line to pay for your ticket (totally worth it, though). Wait...this might have been in the second movie where this happens....shoot, I don't remember!

Before leaving this movie and the American Natural History Museum (because even though there are thousand of exhibits you could base on several movies, the other two movies take place at different museums), I had to share a cute story from when I visited that museum. While my mom was waiting in line, buying the tickets, I was sitting on this circular bench and there were people all around me (I'm telling you: there is no problem with low attendance!) and I overhear a conversation between a mother and her son, probably no older than six. She tells him he has the choice of either visiting the new frog exhibit or going to Central Park. The kid was quiet for awhile, pondering this decision and finally declared he wanted to see the frogs. I silently praised his choice. After all, the frogs were only temporary.

Battle of the Smithsonian is my favorite in the trilogy and that is mostly thanks to Amy Adams who is the MVP of these movies (even though she is only in the second movie). As you can tell from its title, it takes place at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., another museum to which I have been. This time, Larry has only been working at the museum part-time because he has another job selling something he invented...I can't even remember what it was. He was an inventor in the first movie too and had invented the Snapper where you snap to turn off lights, but since the Clapper was already a thing (and way easier to clap than snap!), the Snapper did not sell. His new invention is a big hit and he has become successful. He finds out the museum is being renovated and they are shipping several of the artifacts to the Smithsonian. This pretty much includes every character from the first movie except for Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams is only in the beginning and end and has a small scene in the middle), the T-rex bones, all the lions, and the Egyptian prince who comes with the tablet, except that Dexter has stolen the tablet to bring it with them. So you guessed it....everything at the Smithsonian will be coming to life!

Because there are so many new characters, a lot of the exhibits from the first movie take a back seat. The only ones who have a pivotal role are Jedediah and Octavius, our mini friends. We have the antagonist, a corrupted pharaoh named Kahmunrah played by Hank Azaria (also the older brother of Akhmenrah who he is obviously jealous of). He wants the tablet because it will open a portal that will help him take over the world. Or something like that. He enlists the help of three bad guys from history: Ivan the Terrible (played by Christopher Guest) who insists his real name is Ivan the Awesome; Napoleon Bonaparte (played by Alain Chabat) who is very sensitive and snippy whenever someone mentions his height; and Al Capone (played by Jon Bernthal) who is only shown in black and white which I thought was a cool touch. In a funny scene where he's trying to recruit even more famous baddies, we see him talking to characters off screen saying how much an honor it is to meet them and the camera pans to reveal Darth Vader and Oscar the Grouch.  Kahmunrah has kidnapped Jededian and put him in a sand timer and tells Larry if he doesn't deliver him the code to open the portal in that alloted time, then his "little friend will die."

Helping Larry along the way is Amelia Earhart. (Not the real Amelia, of course, but a wax figure). This is where Amy Adams comes in and she is so delightful in this. She has a very 1940s, rat-a-tat-tat way of speaking and does it very effortlessly and I know that cannot be easy! She rattles out such lines as "You haven't been able to take your cheaters off my chassies since we met!" and "I think we've been jimmy-jacked!"

Instead of just famous figures made of wax and animals coming to life, this movie takes a new twist on things. Paintings come to life, sculptures come to life, the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln memorial comes to life, the bobble-headed Albert Einstein toys come to life. (I feel like there are no rules to this magical tablet...pretty much any inanimate object can come to life!) Since there are so many new characters to meet, it's no wonder many of the ones from the first movie are all but cameos. There is a bust of Teddy Roosevelt that Larry and Amelia get advice from. He is, of course, voiced by Robin Williams and when he learns that there is a full-bodied Teddy Roosevelt at the Natural History Museum he gets very jealous.

My favorite scene is when they go the the Air and Space Museum and Amelia is just enthralled. We did see Larry walking through here before the sun set and they didn't do the best job of setting this scene up. While we see all the historic aircrafts, we didn't see any of the famous aviators that are now being shown. Unless they were like Amelia and woke up in the storage basement and then came to the Air and Space Museum? But don't you have to be a certain distance from the tablet to do that? See, these rules of the tablet are so sketchy. I guess it really doesn't matter. They're about to do a launch and Larry has to abort all of them. Yeah....that would be bad news!

In the end he and his friends defeat the evil pharaoh and he brings everyone back to New York with the help of Amelia and her small plane (which managed to fit everyone in there...it reminded me of a clown car when they all just come tumbling out one after the other). She flies back to the Smithsonian...hopefully she made it back before she turned to wax so she wouldn't crash the plane!

Okay, remember how I couldn't remember if Larry had the idea to bring the museum to life after hours in the first or second movie? It was this one. I remember now because he notices a woman there who looks like Amelia Earhart (played by Amy Adams without wearing the wig or aviation outfit) and he asks her if she's related to her. For a second I thought it was Amelia Earhart and she had disguised herself but that was so far-fetched...even for this movie!

The third movie takes place at the British Museum in London. Larry has to travel there with Akhmenrah (the Egyptian prince if you recall) and his tablet because something is happening to the tablet where it is starting not to work anymore so Larry has to go see Akhmenrah's parents (the father is played by Ben Kinglsey) who are exhibits at the British Museum. It's kind of sad that Akhmenrah was separated from his parents. So the only actual "real" people in this movie, in terms of exhibits, are the mummies. Everyone else is just made of wax. There's a whole back story at the beginning of the movie that explains the tablet and how it was found when a very young Cecil (you remember him...he was played by Dick Van Dyke from the first movie) was in Egypt with his archeologist father and they unearthed a tomb that held the tablet.

This movie does not really bring anything new in terms of things we hadn't seen from the first two movies. Obviously, since it is set in an entirely different museum we do see new characters and exhibits come to life, most notable Sir Lancelot who is trying to find Guinevere. There is a silly scene where he runs up on stage in the middle of a stage production of "Camelot" and pulls his sword on Hugh Jackman. Um....okay, if that happened in real life, security would be on that guy's ass in five seconds. But he and Jackman just start arguing over who Lancelot is.

Ben Stiller also plays a caveman whose main goal is to annoy Larry. He was created for the museum in honor of Larry and his features were used so the caveman looks exactly like him and so he thinks Larry is his dad and follows him around all the time.

There's a scene where Larry is having a heart-to-heart with Dexter (the capuchin monkey) after Dexter almost died when it looked like the tablet was doomed, but Larry managed to fix it in the nick of time. I thought Dexter was going to slap Larry or bite him on the nose, but he kisses him on the lips which was really cute.

Anyway, I enjoyed these movies. They're just mindless fun. I kind of get a Jumanji vibe from them.

Weekly Movie #5

Hugo
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley Chloe Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen, Emily Mortimer, Christopher Lee
Released: November 23, 2011
Viewed in theaters: February 1, 2012

Oscar nominations:
Best Picture (lost to The Artist)
Best Director - Martin Scorsese (lost to Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist)
Best Adapted Screenplay - John Logan (lost to Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash for The Descendants)
Best Art Direction (won)
Best Cinematography (won)
Best Editing (lost to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)
Best  Costume Design (lost to The Artist)
Best Sound Editing (won)
Best Sound Mixing (won)
Best Visual Effects (won)

Despite having a bad viewing experience (at least for the first hour) and despite it being in 3-D (which I loathe) and despite the self-importance with all the "movies are great!" mantra embedded in this film, I actually did enjoy Hugo for the most part.

Let me explain each of these points.

Since this movie had been out for a good two months I wasn't at all surprised when I was the only one in the theater...until these two guys came in and sat in the back (I was seated in the middle) and proceeded to talk in Spanish throughout the movie. During the loud parts I couldn't hear them (and maybe they weren't talking during those parts), but I could hear them talking (in a regular speaking voice) when there were two characters onscreen talking to each other. It was highly distracting and really irritating. Thank God, though, they left one hour into the movie (I know because I checked my phone) and I could enjoy the movie in silence! I don't know why they would pay ten and a quarter to watch a movie they (presumably) couldn't understand only to walk out an hour later, but I was glad when they left. A quick public announcement: SHUT YOUR MOUTHS DURING MOVIES!!!

As for the 3-D, yes it was impressive, but I think the movie would have been just as fine in 2-D. I really hate wearing those glasses because your peripheral vision is blocked and it's really weird when you take off the glasses and see Ben Kingsley with four pair of eyes. Yes, I realize I shouldn't take off the glasses in the middle of viewing a 3-D movie, but it is a bad habit I have. I think 3-D is a passing gimmick and it doesn't add anything to the movie and I will try at all costs to avoid it, but sometimes you can't like with this film and the upcoming re-release of Titanic (which I will see hell or high water!) But I will admit the 3-D was top notch.

Being that Hugo is a love letter to the very first movies in cinema, it does get a little heavy-handed in its "movies are the best thing ever!"It reminds me when singers (mostly rappers) sing, er, rap about how awesome and rich they are. It's just so self-indulgent. I love watching movies, but when movies have to tell me how great movies are, it makes me roll my eyes. Show don't tell!

So despite those three things, I did like this movie. It's a beautiful movie to look at, even more beautiful than War Horse. It's about a boy named Hugo (Butterfield), as you may have guessed, an orphan who lives in a train station in Paris where he winds the big clock. Since he has no money he's always stealing food and other little knick knacks and a toy shopkeeper (Ben Kingsley) catches him and makes him empty his pockets and give all his possessions to him. This includes a notebook that is very dear to Hugo's heart because before his dad (Jude Law in one scene) died, they were working on a project together and the notebook has all the notes and sketches for the project. Hugo follows the toykeeper home after he threatens to burn the notebook and asks his granddaughter (Moretz) to make sure her grandfather doesn't burn the notebook and she promises she will look after it.

They get into a discussion about movies and the girl tells Hugo that her grandfather doesn't allow her to watch movies. We later find out that her grandfather is Georges Melies, a French magician who became one of cinema's first and famous directors. He had a love for movies and made many of them but once the war started he had to give up his dream because nobody had time for fantasy anymore. Hugo and his granddaughter find out about his past and persuade him not to hide who he is and be proud of all his accomplishments. A very nice tribute to the Golden Age of cinema even if it does become a little heavy-handed at times.