LaFountaine

On Saturday, I saw the movie “The Aviator”, which starred: Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale, Gwen Stefani and Adam Scott.

The storyline involved the following: “ The young and idealistic Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) is driven by two forces in his life: airplanes and Hollywood. The Aviator begins in the 1920s, as Hughes obsessively works on his silent debut film Hell's Angels, which he ends up scraping completely to remake as a talkie, thus making it the most expensive film of its time. While embarking on doomed affairs with Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) and Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale), Hughes also builds a plane that makes him the fastest man in the world in 1935. The millionaire even engineers a new bra to make the most out of Jane Russell's cleavage for his next film The Outlaw, while running TWA and building planes for the government during WWII. Yet, the mental illness that would consume Hughes later in life begins to rear its ugly head after he breaks up with Hepburn. As does his dogfights with Pan Am's Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin), who sics his in-pocket politician, Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster (Alan Alda), on Hughes--which, coming after the flyboy crashes his experimental spy plane, leaves him with only a couple of good fights left in him. Hughes eventually stands up to Brewster's senate investigation, and then manages to finish and ceremonially fly the Spruce Goose. But soon he makes his final descent into undiagnosed and untreated madness.”

I give the movie a “A”, and the movie is worth the price of an admission ticket, a large popcorn, a large soft drink and a small soft drink . Though it’s not my best movie of the year, I thought the film was excellent entertainment. The acting and directing were excellent.

posted by Frank LaFountaine @ 9:48 AM