However, having read a couple of biographies of Howard Hughes, I had a lot of background knowledge about him and wondered if enough information was offered in this film for viewers with no prior knowledge of the man. Did Scorcese make the right choices of what to leave out and what to focus on? It’s a question I find very hard to answer myself and I imagine it must be immensely difficult to adapt someone’s life to the screen. After all, if you’ve read ‘the book’ you keep noticing what’s been left out, yet if you haven’t, you might not miss it at all – or you feel you’re missing something but you don’t know what it is.

I thought the way Scorcese (and DiCaprio) portrayed Hughes’ obsessive compulsiveness was excellent. It crept in throughout the film, gaining intensity. Cate Blanchett’s Katherine Hepburn was OK – but why did they make her look so unattractive? Hepburn was beautiful, and so is Blanchett (albeit in a totally different way), but not with bright red lipstick making her mouth so huge it could eat Cleveland! Perhaps it was the style of the make-up at that time, but I felt it went a little overboard. All I could focus on was her mouth!

Beckinsale was good. She looked to me, for the first time, as a woman rather than a girl. Perhaps it was the extra pounds she put on for this production that helped that? Or perhaps she is simply maturing, beautifully?

I did feel this film was a tad too long (sorry Arjan). Let’s face it, how long can a person physically sit still to watch a film? Length is going to work against the director eventually, as the chances of viewers sitting through your masterpiece from start to finish diminish rapidly as you pass the 2 hour mark. After all, I’m sure Scorcese and most directors would prefer not to have a viewing of their work interrupted for toilet-runs and stretching exercises.

The fact that Scorcese ended the story where he ended it, I understand. But there are more interesting tidbits in the last two decades of Hughes’ life which were left out of ‘The Aviator’ and which I will mention here for those interested. The employees with which he had surrounded himself were chiefly of the Mormon faith. He appreciated the fact that they didn’t drink alcohol, if I remember correctly. However, as he became increasingly reclusive from the 1950′s onwards, rumour has it that these employees ciphened off Hughes’ millions into their own (and Mormon community) bank accounts and encouraged his isolation from the outside world.

Also, there’s a theory that his obsessive compulsiveness and mysophobia were agitated by the fact that he contracted syphilis from one of the hundreds of women he bedded in the 1930′s. Syphilis can make you go mad and change your personality and Hitler’s megalomania is sometimes attributed to his having syphilis too.

The final rumour about Hughes that I know of is that he apparently died from a common cold as he had no resistance to simple bacteria after so many years of living in obsessively sterile conditions. But I’m not sure if that’s actually true

First of all: I didn’t deem DiCaprio fit for the role. Yes, he is a good actor (always was), but he wasn’t (physically) fit for it. A simple case of miscasting; you don’t put Jim Carrey in an action movie either.

I also thought that Cate Blanchett was over-acting: she was too obviously mimicing Hepburn and that became annoying after a while. Suprisingly, I thought Beckinsale to be quite good in a funny role.

As far as the story goes, it didn’t know how to choose which aspect of Hughes to light out. The focus on his activities was too evenly distributed, as if not to appear incomplete in describing his life’s story. A lot of issues were tackled (censorship, corporate politics, movie industry, avaition, psychologic disorders, papperazzi, etc.) but no clear choice was made to explore some of those aspects in depth. I was more interested in the person of Howard Hughes and how such a succesful man could be so sick at the same time. His obsessive behaviour was the most interesting, but like in the story itself it was chosen nog to explore it. Too bad.

As far as the length was concerned: some parts were not serving the story and seemed like filler. Again, this has to do with Scorsese’s inability to make a choice here. He kinda did the same thing with Streets of New York.

Not a bad movie, but it didn’t get the maximum out of it.

just as long it’s not Calender Girls

All he did for the isolation scenes was grow his hair and lose his clothes (oh and pee into a milk bottle) and it was still Leonardo DiCaprio and not Howard Hughes. In my humble opinion.

I SO wanted to give Cate Blanchett a big thumbs up as I know it was an incredibly difficult role she had. But, being very familiar with Katherine’s Hepburn’s work, I have to say she did go a little over the top. Like I said, I felt like she had watched loads of her movies and copied/mimicked her rather than slipping into her skin. Which, for example, Judy Dench did beautifully in Iris.

And as for having the time to watch a movie. Well, if any friends of mine are reading this who have gotten perturbed at the fact I told them a week or so ago that I have too much work for hours in the day and aren’t going out for a month… I simply needed a break and got rescued by a friend for a few hours this afternoon. And what better place to chill than Amsterdam’s Tuschinki. Though I didn’t have my usual champagne as I had to come right back and work…

Especially the scenes in which he locks himself up in his room for weeks are really showing signs of DiCaprio’s acting capacities…

Anyway: I thought Blanchett restrained herself enough not to look silly…

Cate Blanchett had an incredibly challenging role as a film actress portraying a film actress (Katherine Hepburn) who’s words, voice, gestures are so familiar (though perhaps lesser so to a younger generation of moviegoers). I thought she had the hardest task but did a great job capturing Hepburn’s voice and her idiosyncratic way of expressing words. But I found her wild gesturing a bit over the top. She appeared a bit mad actually and not delightfully, intrinsically eccentric like our Kate. (She copied her rather than slipping into her skin.)

I loved the plane crash (no spoiler as it’s in the trailer) which was so realistic it was frightening (and definitely see this in a movie theater and not on a TV screen). And the ‘penetrative visuals’, were just fabulous…

And I loved the little touch of using Glen Miller’s Moonlight Serenade in the closing credits. Apart from it just being a great song anyway, the famous Big Band leader mysteriously disappeared on a flight over the English Channel during World War Two.

It’s a long film indeed. It keeps your interest but I would have chopped out a fair chunk about two-thirds of the way through.

An OK film.