Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, Ltd.

August 14, 2007
Catch Me if You Can and The Aviator
Filed under: Movies — duane @ 9:13 pm

My wife, Jen, and I recently watched a couple of DiCaprio movies that we had gotten in from NetFlix. Normally I would post a review of each of these movies separately, but since I’m not sure that I’ll actually watch these again anytime soon, I thought I would just get some of my thoughts down about each movie.

The first one we watched was Catch Me if You Can, which is based on the real-life Frank Abegnale, Jr., a teenager-turned-con-artist and forger. I have actually seen the real episode of To Tell the Truth that the movie opens with, so it was kinda cool to see it briefly with DiCaprio. The story is even more amazing given that it’s based on a true on; sure, there were certain liberties that were taken with it, but the idea of a teenager successfully impersonating an airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer, all while forging checks was really interesting.

A key part of the movie is the relationship between Frank and his father; while this was made up for the movie, it was crucial from a story-telling perspective because it helps to set up the relationship between Frank and Hanratty. The conversations between them on Christmas keep Frank a teenager who really misses his family. Family is his primary motivation; he runs away because of the divorce of his parents, and he sticks with Hanratty at the end because of the death of his father.

I really enjoyed the movie and would highly recommend it for people that haven’t seen it yet.

Next we watched The Aviator, directed by Martin Scorcese. This was a big movie when it came out, but Jen and I didn’t get around to watching it until now. Now, I have to admit, it was probably a mistake to watch this movie right after something else. The Aviator is nothing if not very long, and after having sat through one movie, we should have either stuck with something light, or just called it a night. That said, I will say that while I enjoyed this movie about the legendary Howard Hughes (whom I had only seen protrayed in film in The Rocketeer), I did feel that it was a little too long in the middle. The early part of the movie, concentrating on Hughes’ Hell’s Angels, as well as his relationship with Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett), was very interesting. The final parts of the film, which focused on Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin) of Pan American Airlines attempts to keep TWA out of the international airline business and the flying of the Spruce Goose, was also very interesting. However, while I understand why it was so important, the middle part, focusing on Hughes’ OCD, often lost my interest. I may feel better about it if I watch it again, but that’s how I felt at the time.

Another minor quibble I had was about Cate Blanchett’s Katharine Hepburn. I have been a big Kate Hepburn fan since middle school, when I saw her in movies like Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story. Interestingly enough, these two movies span much of Hughes’ and Hepburn’s relationship as portrayed in the film, during her “Box Office Poison” days. I felt that in the early seens, she appeared older than she should have; one of the reasons I loved her in Bringing Up Baby is that she was so cute (not something you often hear about her). Blanchett is a wonderful actress, but there were times I felt that I was watching someone do a Katharine Hepburn impersonation; that could be just because it’s been done so many times before, I don’t know.

I do believe that The Aviator deserves all of the praise that it got at its release; for the most part, my problems with it are small ones, and probably easily explained. As I said before, I’ll probably have to watch it again.

That’s all for now; I’ve got several other reviews I need to get to, and I’ve decided to add even more to my plate by watching the remake of The Fog, and recording a movie later on called The Warrior. Oh, and Olivia D’Abo’s cute. That has nothing to do with anything, except that as I type this I’m watching the end of Conan the Destroyer, which while inferior to Conan the Barbarian, is still a movie I enjoy.