Thanksgiving movies

Well it's December already, so I should post something new. I saw both The Muppets and Hugo movies on Thanksgiving.

I mostly liked The Muppets, but found Walter somewhat boring and didn't like every song in the movie. Still, I enjoyed seeing all the old characters and their jokes like "travel-by-map", so it was still pretty good.

With Hugo, I was mostly disappointed to find that Jude Law's part as Hugo's father was so small. It's like the slightest tease of him before the new Holmes movie comes out in a couple of weeks. I'll have to patiently wait it out, I guess. The rest of the movie was fairly good, though, and I was glad to see Ben Kingsley in such a good role. I know a little about Georges Melies already because his Trip to the Moon movie was actually featured in the prologue of the 1956 Around the World in 80 Days film; producer Mike Todd was unnecessarily showing off the contrast between the early film and his.

Hugo had a slight mystery in how an automaton that Hugo's father found and restored was connected to an old man who worked in a toy shop at the train station where Hugo lived. Having already seen the Melies moon film, I realized quickly why Melies seemed to recognize the sketches of the automaton; he had obviously made the automaton long ago, but lost it. So there was no suspense to me on that front, but only on when and why Hugo's uncle disappeared. Also, I thought the automaton would do something more spectacular than draw on a piece of paper, so I was slightly disappointed to see that most of the 3D action would take place in dream sequences and Hugo running through the walls inside the train station. But it is a beautiful, entertaining film, with a touching story. Even the minor characters in the train station had funny, interesting scenes and character developments.

Both movies were good for breaking the long dry spell since the summer, when I saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes and The Help. (I did see Tower Heist, but the anticipation for that wasn't as intense.) I guess I was hoping for more from both movies, but maybe nothing could have lived up to my expectations. I hope the Holmes movie won't disappoint me; I'm just going to hope Frycroft is awesome and never mind about the rest.