The Aviator (2004)

I've said it before and I'll say it again…if you can't tell your story in about 2 hours, you don't have a movie -- you have a miniseries!

This might have been a decent film if it'd been considerably tighter, but there's really no telling. As it stands, I was just irritated and confused. Howard's mid-movie descent into madness in the screening room is too abrupt...or are we to believe that a fingerprint on a glass would be that traumatizing? In the same vein, the return to semi-sanity is really, really quick - Ava shaves him and buttons him up and he's ready to do battle at his hearing. Well, well -- if it's that easy to overcome, why doesn't he do it every damn day? Ugh.

Cate Blanchett is, however, really really good.

C-