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Reviews
The Aviator (2004)
Disappointing
The Aviator like the Spruce Goose itself only takes flight briefly and is an overall disappointment. The thrills to be had are in the flight sequences. However they are done digitally and in the editor's suite. Scorsese's hand is rather flat on the throttle and the script plays too broadly. You get the feeling that Scorsese himself is not quite in love with his subject, Howard Hughes. The scenes that should work such as Hughes caressing the rivets of a plane are seen through a cynical eye. DiCaprio portray's Hughes as a nut and sociopath. Maybe he was in real life but it's as if they want you to not like this guy. Not exactly the right approach to making an audience friendly picture. We also have a poor sense of continuity. After suffering massive wounds from a plane crash, Howard Hughes heals up amazingly well and quickly. Totally glanced over is the fact that he became addicted to morphine after this event. If 75% of your body is burned and your heart has been dislocated to the other side of your chest cavity I think you're going to care more about killing the pain instead of washing your hands.
I can't help but think that James Cameron would of been a more apt choice to make this film. I believe his sensibilities are more in line with Howard Hughes. He would of portrayed Hughes as more of a Ayn Rand type character than a tragically flawed anti-hero.
Hollywood Ending (2002)
The Allen Attic
Yes Hollywood Ending is Woody Allen on cruise control. The man has thirty-two films under his scrawny belt so give him a break. I find that even mediocre Woody Allen is still better than 95% of comedies released each year (Big and small studio releases). The jokes fall flat more often and there is the initiation phase that lasts about twenty minutes into the film. Yes it is difficult to imagine a man as geriatic looking as Allen with the likes of Tea Leoni and Beverly Hills 90210 stars but this is a Woody Allen comedy, love it or leave it. This is the same man who created Sleeper and Bananas. His last few films hark back to his simpler era. Hollywood Ending after the before mentioned initiation phase where the viewer must clear his or her self of pre-concieved notions (Mia Farrow, Soon-Yi, pedophilia etc.) and just enjoy the show. This is not Crimes and Misdemeanors or even Manhattan Murder Mystery, Hollywood Ending is Allen clearing out some ideas, crafting them and putting them on display for his audience hoping to get a few laughs. If you are a fan then catch it while it's still playing at a local cineplex. Most likely you'll have the theater to yourself where you can indulgently chuckle at even the most mundane of the Allenism's and not feel embarrassed.
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
Undeserving
Minor Spoilers
A Beautiful Mind
I've never been a big fan of Ron Howard nor Akiva Goldsman and maybe this colored my subconcious going into A Beautiful Mind, however I will say that I went into this film wanting to like it; or to love it like so many others have. Unfortunately, I cannot say that this is the case.
As much as people would like to say that Ron Howard has matured as a director, he's still just competent at best. Much like John Nash deciphered simple newspaper headlines I saw through the mechanisms used to bring his story to the screen.
This film is such a hodge-podge of other movies, Fight Club meets Awakenings meets Rain Man come to mind that I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Don't laugh at my comparison, Ron directed The Grinch and Akiva wrote Batman and Robin; these guys are hacks. James Horner even jumps into the act by recycling his Titanic theme during a key scene in the film. I rolled my eyes some more. Horners done this before, but not this obvious. John Nash's winning the Nobel Prize for Economics is skirted over favoring tepid dialog and tear jerking. Perhaps Nash's story wasn't cinematic enough to be told literally that it needed to exagerrate the scizophrenia and romance elements. Further insulting is that the story is not factually correct. Nash clinically did not have schizophrenia until 1959, many years after completing some of his most complicated mathematical work. It is clinically proven that a schizophrenic in incapable of such a task. So much for realism. I'll take David Lynch's take on the subject in Muholland Drive any day over this drivel.
The cast is good as it should be, however I feel Crowe is mis-cast as the lead. He was great as the paranoid everyman in The Insider and believable as a, well gladiator in Gladiator but in Beautiful Mind he seems a little out of place playing an eccentric mathematician. He plays the part well but I unfortunately didn't buy it.
All in all, not a bad film but not deserving of all the acclaim it's receiving.