Movie Review: **** The Aviator (2004)

Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) is really messed up.  At times he is able to control his mental illness, but his demons seem to come out again.  He is a genius and a money making machine; but sometimes genius gets him in trouble.  He also has drive.  He supplies planes for TWA, but eventually buys TWA.  He orers some new long distance planes, and wants to use them for flights to Europe, but the owner of Pan Am, Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin) has the contract and a monopoly, and a senator, Senator Ralph Owen Brewster (Alan Alda) in his back pocket.  When he is brought before a senate hearing for misuse of public funds on airplane projects, he calls it the way he sees it, and informs the committee Trippe and Brewster work together and it appears the senator is influenced by Trippe due to money and donation.  Hughes in the end gets to move into Europe.  Managing his business affairs was Noah Dietrich (John C. Reilly).

Hughes is also a womanizer with a fling with Katherine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) and a desire for Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale).  

Hughes was also a test pilot, and crashed a couple of planes, the second of which almost killed him and left him with PTSD and burn scars.

Very good biographical sketch of Howard Hughes.

Movie Review: ****^Bridge of Spies (2015)

Tom Hanks is at his best in this movie as he portrays a lawyer, James Donovan, who is called upon to represent a Russian spy, Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) and as such gets tangled in the spying game as he takes the assignment to go to East Germany and arrange a transfer of the Russian spy for a U.S. U2 spy plane pilot, Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell), who was shot down over Russia.   This is an intriguing movie, and very entertainment.  It is also very historical as the Berlin Wall goes up at the time during the timing of these events, which puts an American student also in the mix of those for whom Donovan is also negotiating release.  The student was on the wrong side of the wall when the door was closed.  Alan Alda has a cameo part.  Steven Spielberg directs.  This is a good movie based on some history which is mostly forgotten.