Going into this movie I was a little put off. Well, I was excited cause Martin Scorcese is one of my favorites but I was kinda down because this movie is recieving so much praise and one thing I always loved about Scorcese is that even though he never wins best director and his movies never win best picture, his films always stand out better than the ones that did.
Taxi Driver, Casino, Gangs of New York. These are all some of the greatest movies made and are remembered as such. Well, it's a little early for Gangs of New York but just you watch. Anyways, none of them got the gold. Aviator will. And although it's probably deserved and long overdue for Scorcese, it will hurt the coolness factor a bit.
I guess the big question was whether or not Scorcese pandered to the Academy on this one. I mean Gangs of New York was his last film and he did a lot of things that made the film better but probably killed his chances of winning best director. But that's why he was the best director that year. Aviator is relatively tame by Scorcese standards. On the surface anyways.
I think at the end of the day, this is a story that was better told as a "tame" story. There was plenty of opportunity to show lotsa sex and more swearing and stuff like that but it wasn't taken. And that's okay. If we're gonna argue that things like that don't make a movie dirty or gratuitous because it's essential to the story, we have to look at the other side of that as well. Those elements weren't necessary to the plot and probably would've hurt the telling of the story, especially in my favorite scene of the film. No spoilers but it was a really intense crash scene that probably would've been less effective if I had been de-sensitized.
As well it should be mentioned that there were certain other elements that were really disturbing but probably wouldn't have been as disturbing if the movie had more "questionable content." I guess I'm beating a dead horse here but the point I'm trying to make is that this movie was very psychological and in order to get an audience to appreciate that, Scorcese needed to tone down other aspects of the film. This movie could've been about the sexual exploits of Howard Hughes but it wasn't It was about his psychosis.
As far as non-Scorcese factors go, Leonardo DiCaprio was absolutely amazing. I stand by my opinion that this guy is at his very worst: solid. However that doesn't describe his job in this role. A very well deserved Golden Globe nomination and I'm sure Academy is coming as well. All the supporting cast was solid but this was definitely Leo's movie. I don't think anybody else really stood out... Well mayba Kate Beckinsale. Holy hot!
I don't know a lot about Howard Hughes but this film really got me interested. As far as I know, all the events of this film actually happened but maybe not in the order that they appeared and maybe not as dramatically and Ava Gardner probably wasn't as hot.
I'm not too sure about where it ended. I'm still a little undecided about that but what I do know is that I loved it. At the end of the day, Scorcese knows what he's doing and in this case I suppose this is another great film, maybe the best this year, even if it does win best picture.
9/10
Back to Movies Page...
