A biography that stands out in a year loaded with biographies.

Rating: 8/10 (17 August 2006)

I have a little beef with most of the movies that came out toward the end of 2004: a lot, a LOT of them were biographies that were undoubtedly going for the Oscar, which was why I was rooting for Million Dollar Baby, Sideways, and anything else that was an original idea with fictional characters and a chance that audiences wouldn't get it. Its not that I hate biographies, but all this overexposure to them made me aware that they all have the feel of, well, like my brother puts it, "This person is really important and heres why." Thats why I've come to the conclusion that my judgments of biographical films will mostly depend on the relevance of the subject/person, which may sound shallow, but this is OUR money and time, folks.
The Aviator, the story of moviemaker/pilot/screwball Howard Hughes, makes the cut because while some of the ideas feel reheated, the film as a whole feels less reheated than its Best Picture opponents Finding Neverland and Ray, respectively. Hughes was quite a psychopathic study that is often referenced and/or the inspiration to other nutjob characters (I can think of one in John Grisham's novel The Pelican Brief). Why he went haywire remains a mystery today, but Martin Scorsese's film implies it was due to a combination of stressful events throughout his long drive to be somebody and his anal retentive disorder. While most of the cast is pretty much miscast (I'm glancing at Kate Beckinsale, but I'm staring a hole through Gwen Stefani), Cate Blanchett's winning performance of trend-setting screen legend Katharine Hepburn is spot on. The M*A*S*H-er Alan Alda is a hoot as the punk of the plot; it's just no fun waiting through half the movie for him. On the other hand, if the film did anything lasting on me, it cemented my opinion that Leonardo DiCaprio should be called an actor before he can be called an aging heartthrob. In fact, I'd venture to say he probably should've beat Jamie Foxx for Best Actor. My favorite scene is the can't-look-away crash of the XF-11 in the California neighborhood; from what I read, every detail of the scene was truthfully done, including how lucky Hughes was to survive it. I know, there are plenty of how the brain works movies out there these days, but this Citizen Kane-like film contains one of the most accountable tales on the subject and is shown with as much clarity as Scorsese could. And again, DiCaprio delivers like the pro he is.