Movie: The Aviator

Yesterday was officially my day off, but I went into the office anyway for about an hour, and then headed over to Angela's because for some reason I thought she was going to move yesterday. She introduced me to The Sims, a game more addicitve than it has the right to be. I hate addictive games. They are antithetical to progress on my creative projects.

I headed back to Bellevue to attend a going-away party for a guy who's leaving my company, after which Seth and I hit the nearby theater and took in The Aviator. I had a preconceived fear that I wouldn't like the movie because I don't like Martin Scorsese, but I was glad to be wrong: the film was great. I'm not sure if it's "best picture" great, but since I don't give two shits about the Oscars anymore, I'm not really comparing it like that in my mind. It was very "non-Scorseee" in that he dropped a lot of the intentionally gritty and numb feelings he typically uses in his films for a much more emotionally involved and personal portrayal of Howard Hughes.

Airplanes and a love for flying are the still points around which the rest of the movie turns. It's great watching Hughes tear into corrupt Senators, and there's a feeling of elation when the "Spruce Goose" takes off, but the best bits are when he's flying his experimental aircraft. Leo (and Angela was right, Goddamn he was a great actor in this!) portrays a Hughes who succeeds by and large by his own force of personality; the women, the airplanes, his business, is all conducted in a way that says "well, no one's told me I couldn't do this, and even if they did I wouldn't believe them, so let's do it," an attitidue I have to respect.

Scorsese did good. Not only would I watch this movie again, I would buy it on DVD.