Scooter Chronicles

On Saturday night, Marcia and I watched the highly acclaimed movie “The Aviator”, which features the Oscar nominated performance by Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, and the Oscar nominated direction of Martin Scorsese. Of course they were both bested by Cate Blanchett, who won the Best Supporting Actress with her performance as Katherine Hepburn.

First and foremost, let me mention that neither Marcia nor I are big fans of Leonardo DiCaprio. I will admit that he is a good actor. I just always thought that there was too much hype surrounding him. Even with that, Marcia and I thought he did a good job and enjoyed the movie. The only problem we saw was he looked too young during Hughes’ later years. Of course Leo looks young in general. He is going to be 31 years old soon and can still pass for a high school senior.

If you hadn’t heard yet, the movie is about Howard Hughes and his love of flying. It concentrates on his mostly on his film production career, his drive to build better airplanes, and his relationships with Katherine Hepburn and Ava Gardner. I am not sure how much of the movie is true or embellished.

The thing that I really took to was Cate Blanchett. Can’t help it. She looked stunning as the red-headed Hepburn. And I can see why she was nominated and won the Oscar. As for DiCaprio himself, I had an attitude that his nomination was hyped because of who he is, and being directed by Scorsese. But I can see that at least the nod of a nomination was well founded. (Though I am glad that Jamie Foxx won instead for his performance in “Ray”.)

We enjoyed the movie, and were surprised at it’s length. It is about 10-15 minutes short of 3 hours. But it moves well, and is never boring.