martin scorsese's THE AVIATOR

i would have ended the movie at the moment the Spruce Goose took flight--what a perfect and generous ending that would have been.

-- s1ocki (slytus...) (webmail), December 30th, 2004 1:08 AM. (slutsky) (link)

angel at my table, dude

Also, I loved Gangs of New York. But that's because 5 minutes in I realized it was a Mad Max movie (or a Warriors prequel, more to the point), and I decided to enjoy it that way instead of worrying about whether it was a major work by a major artist. It's ludicrous and stupid and borderline incoherent, but it made me giddy.

???

i actually think AAMT is one of the greatest films i have ever seen. the particular mix of nuanced subjectivity and a lightly ironic distance makes for a really satisfying biopic. it also revelations of editing and framing, scene construction, acting (esp. kerry fox), at almost every moment.

although, ironically, it was made for TV.

why "ahem"--it was set up as a miniseries. it's actually interesting to reflect on how the three-part aspect of the series became an essential formal ingredient in the film.

you're right of course--but i still think it would have been neat to end that way considering everyone knows how his life ends up. give him his great moment and intentionaly leave out what happens later.

just kidding






just kidding about being kidding






no seriously, just kidding

The Aviator has a zippy middle, and if you can see it in a good theater, a truly stunning plane crash. (Not to mention blue grass in hommage to early Technicolor.)

>does he just need (DiCaprio's) name to get financing in the first place?<

For expensive period epics? Bingo. Leo isn't terrible, esp early on when Hughes is a ridiculed neophyte, but he needed an actor whose voice has changed. Beatty would've triumphed in that part 30 years ago.

HH, like all successful super-capitalists, was a prick.

yeah i just think the movie intentionally left out a lot of bad shit about hughes, it was kind of a whitewash don't you think? i don't really understand how scorsese viewed him--a flawed hero? autistic genius? misunderstood visionary?

and yeah, leo was ok at the beginning but i dunno about the second half of the movie. he had to deal with some excruciatingly long scenes though.

"hell's angels" is k-corny, but the fight scenes are pretty cool.

I didn't like the camera flying into leo's face/through moving propellors/other not nice places shots.

I think I am mellowing, somewhat, in my old age. of course, I didn't like this movie, whilst I was watching it, but now I think it was probably OK. I watched "I, robot", last night, and quite enjoyed it.

still, I wish this had not been made.

The song itself doesn't derail the scene by making it obvious, it derails the scene by being a really bizarre, poppy choice that has nothing to do with what the characters are thinking/doing. To me, it doesn't ruin the shot completely, but it is a bad soundtrack choice.

and an oscar for schoonmacher?! i mean when she was good she was AWESOME but how bad is the editing in this movie?

A) Two days previous, I rewatched Raging Bull. This was a mistake, because it makes things like this or GONY look about 4000000000x times worse than they probably are.
B) Were they kidding with the casting in this movie? Cos if they were totally riffing in some ridiculous meta-saddo manner, it's fantastic. If they actually stunt cast people like Gwen Stefani and Jude Law and Kate Fucking Beckinsale as these people and actually meant it, I'm horrified and disgusted. Cate Blanchett doesn't really acquit herself as Kate Hepburn very well either but compared to "Leo" she's a shining star. WTF was the point of casting Jude Law??? It was distracting, amazingly distracting, moreso than even the Gwen Stefani thing, to the point where I just actually blurted out, "Are they fucking kidding? Is that Jude Law? As Errol Flynn?". Also the awful dialog introducing him that yes, indeed, this is ERROL FLYNN, not JUDE LAW, DASHING ERROL FLYNN instead! Jarring and hideous, I wish they did the Zoolander David Bowie treatment instead of the dialog, just flashing "JEAN HARLOW" or "ERROL FLYNN" underneath these people and doing away with the ridiculous dialog introductions. Jude Law casting only worth it for the moment where he gets hit in the back of the head by some hurled plate or food item, whatever the hell that was. The idea that Kate Beckinsale has about 1/1000000 of Ava Gardner in her makes me want to puke. Who put this together? And where can I get their drugs? Apologies, again, if this was actually meant to be a total farce, a mockery of 1940s and '50s Hollywood, and NOT a serious motion picture drama.
C) If I ever have to see "Leo's" ass again, I'm ripping my own eyeballs out.
D) Afterwards, I put on Witness, which is a better movie and also, previously unbeknownst to me, features a young VIGGO MORTENSEN as an AMISH. Hands up, who knew that, come on. Sadly, no Jude Law.
E) The Senate hearing scenes were enjoyable.

The last one was all sorts of fucked up, like "uhm, I don't really have anything to defend myself with, but hey, OTHERS DID IT TOO, YOU'RE JUST HATIN'!" How could that get anything but a "ninja please"?

Yeah, "The Aviator" really sucks, between this and "Million Dollar Baby" it's been a pretty poor year for hoary canonised directors.

(I like "Gangs Of New York"!)

Yes, this part was great. Ally is pretty much otm, the only thing I think this movie did competently was portraying ocd.

The last Senate hearing scene made little sense to me, I mean his point was something that he didn't say: the reason why none of the planes he was talking about were "delivered" to the military is because the military cancelled the orders. He crashed the spy plane, the military bailed on the contract for that and the enormo elephant-carrier. This happens all the time. So, I mean, it was all well and good, to point out about how 20 kajillion other people have had the same thing happen to them, but it seems like it would've been just as well to explicitly point out WHAT happened. I mean, he HAD the planes, they just told him at the 23rd hour that they didn't want them anymore, they didn't want him to do more testing on the spy plane, oops hey now. It doesn't seem like he should be held responsible for their contract jumping.

Haha I do find it quaint that one of the central dramas of the movie, besides the inherent mental drama of Hughes's breakdown, is between PAN AM and TWA. I felt like patting him on the head, it's ok, sell it to him, in 45 years neither of your airlines will exist anymore. It's better to just let Alec Baldwin take all of that hit.

I really hope Scorcese realizes what everyone else in Hollywood has realized and stops working with him, because really this is just too much. I know that Leo basically cast himself in this film, it was his little project, BUT GONY + supposedly in Scorcese's next film? He really can't seriously think of the dude as a replacement DeNiro, can he? I mean he's awful.

Actually, I saw this on E! or something last week, so I will raise my hand.

Anyway, see, Matt Damon is not terrible. Even in movies I hated that he was in, he was pretty ok in the movie. I'm not 100% sold on him, but he could be alright. There are lots of pretty good actors in that age range, so why fixate on DiCaprio? I guess there's no way to answer that question. It just makes me sad. Again, I reiterate: do not watch Raging Bull in the week prior to watching more recent Scorcese.

2) DiCaprio's stardom = key to Marty getting $60-100 million budgets.

that's the problem!!

DiCaprio's stardom...I mean no one uses him anymore besides Scorcese, I can't remember anything he's done since Titanic besides GONY and Aviator. I mean I'm sure there must be something...right? It just seems like he's kind of one of the "Huh, oh yeah, he was in that boat movie, that's what he does now?" type of figures and not a bona fide star anymore, to put it bluntly. I'm sure that's part of it, I mean he did exec produce Aviator, so, yeah, I'm sure he's at least partially responsible for the budget on that one...

Also as already stated $100M epics aren't really "Marty's" thing, IMO.

Gear, you bizarro-anticipated my saying Scorsese's last New York-grit ramble was the utterly mediocre "Bringing Out the Dead." (Kundun and Age of Innocence are my fave post-Goodfellas films.) He's about 40-45 years removed from that world, I can see why it's no longer as relevant to him.

anyway, you guys are nuts!

the movie looks beautiful. the cinematography and period production design are very colorful, detailed, and convincing (for the most part, anyway; the flying sequences are pretty fake-looking).

the film's main flaws are in the script, which suffers from the usual glossed over biopic bullshit.

(This other movie is pretty good.)

i did hate gangs of new york though.