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Movie of the Week #16 - The Aviator
First Martin Scorsese this time around with the animated The Aviator from 2004.
Are you familiar with other of Martin Scorsese's movies and how do you like this compared to his other movies? Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.
The rest of the schedule for February is:
- 19th: Batman Begins
- 26th: Gangs of New York
I hope I am not the only one having seen this? :)
Anyways, as ashowcase for the early Hollywood industry, I liked this more than the majority of Babylon.
Despite being almost 3 hours long, it doesn't feel like it with it's fast pace from start to finish. We go from one big massive project to the next, and new female companions in between as well. Along with some decent flying spectacle, though a few with questionable CGI. The movie rarely settles down or slow the pace to get a bit deeper into one topic, but I guess that is a conscious choice to reflect on the erratic lifestyle of Howard Hughes. It was difficult to keep track of where his business was at any given time, you just get a sense that something massive is always under way.
DiCaprio does well in showing the duality of Howard Hughes with his outwardly confidence and his inner struggles. While the movie as a whole was pretty entertaining with an engaging narrative, the sheer amount of stuff that happens at a breakneck pace also made everything feel a bit flat and superficial in the end.
I know Scorsese is one of the most renowned directors of the last couple of decades, but I have yet to see something from him that really impressed me. His early works of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull were narrower and personal depiction of men that were tough on the outside but with serious problems on the inside. A theme that seems to prevalent in basically all his movies to some degree, including this one. His later movies are more epics, starting probably with Goodfellas which I think is decent enough, but I am also a bit weary of mafia movies - and Robert DeNiro. I do plan to give more movies of his a chance. Besides Gangs of New York I have Shutter Island and The Departed on my soon-watchlist.
I don't think I've watched The Aviator since it came out, so I can't really add to much of the discussion here.
You might find After Hours an interesting watch. A much smaller scale movie than the three hour epics he's been filming lately. Don't know why you don't like Deniro, but he's also not in it. No mob story either.
You should also try some "Sunday School" Scorsese like The Last Temptation of Christ and Silence. Both heavily Catholic films, but also terrific meditations on faith.
Well, I do like DeNiro, just not seeing him in yet another mafia role. I really liked him in Jackie Brown because he had a very different role in that.
Then definitely get some King of Comedy in your Scorsese rotation.
Let's see if this can even reach half of the comments from the Spider-Verse thread. I have an overall feeling the Scorsese thread for this month are gonna be less active.
I watched this back in 2021 when all I was doing was getting drunk and watching movies. I got in the mojo of watching a lot of Oscar movies (both successful films and failed bait) from the 00s and this was part of it. I also watched three other Best Picture nominees from this year: Finding Neverland, Sideways, and Million Dollar Baby around the same time. And I saw the remaining nominee, Ray, a few months ago.
I'm not mad Million Dollar Baby won at all, it's currently my favorite 21st Century Best Picture Winner (which will hopefully soon get taken over by Oppenheimer). But I wouldn't have minded this winning Picture, and I think Scorsese would have been a deserving Best Director winner (he won the Globe for Director as did the film win Drama).
It's a gorgeous looking movie. The way it mimics the color correction process from Old Hollywood. The production design and the costume design. Everything about this film is so lush. I think it might be Scorsese's best looking film. It's his love letter to Old Hollywood, this is his La La Land or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Very deserving tech wins all around (it won Cinematography, Costumes, Production Design, and Film Editing).
There were a couple of people talking about Leonardo DiCaprio being a bad actor in a Midweek Movietalk Thread last week. DiCaprio is the god damn GOAT, he's probably my favorite actor (at least top 3). I know he went through a phase on the internet where everyone really loved him back before he won the Oscar. But that's largely dissipated by now, and some RLM-like sentiment about Leo is still around as a result of that.
As far as I'm concerned DiCaprio should have three Oscar's by now: The Revenant, Wolf of Wall Street, and this one. The scene where he begins to stutter and repeat himself is an incredible piece of acting from him. Also, having seen Ray now, Foxx is just a bad winner. The movie is overall mediocre, but I don't think Foxx gave an award winning performance there at all and I would equate him to Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody. I would have taken Johnny Depp in Finding Neverland over him. Blanchett is also great, another well deserved win for the film. Playing Hepburn and nailing her comedic timing.
It's a great film and it shows Scorsese's range as a filmmaker considering he keeps getting "typecast" as the gangster guy. I will point out that it's interesting that the Scorsese films chosen for this are films that are seen as both weaker entries in his filmography and Oscar bait from Scorsese (as they were both released before he won for Departed).