But Can Bill Gates Fly A Plane?

The Aviator is a biopic about Howard Hughes. When it opens, we see young Howard, buck naked, standing in one of those $12 swimming pools getting the swab job from mommie.

Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaa nelly!!!!

Mommie has a germ fetish. They're everywhere, you know. You can just imagine where this is going. It won't be long before she's turned young Howard into a little blonde nutcake. After all, it's the wave of the future, wave of the future, wave of the future, wave of the fut-.

I get ahead of myself.

All kidding aside, The Aviator is a solid biopic about the rise, and turbulence, of a man who long held the title as the world's richest man. I was a kid when Howard Hughes died, growing up on the southside of Tucson, Arizona, not far from Hughes Aircraft. I don't remember how much Howard Hughes left when he died, except that every Baptist preacher in the country took advantage of the opportunity to answer that question with a cheesy punchline: He left it all.

Martin Scorsese's latest isn't really about Howard Hughes the billionaire, or even Howard Hughes the nutcase. It's about the early Howard, from the time his parents died, leaving him a small fortune, to his last public moments: the Senate hearing into his "war profiteering" and the public spectacle over whether he could get the Hercules (what some called "The Spruce Goose") to fly.

My favorite part of the movie is the early period, when Howard Hughes fancied himself a filmmaker. In fact, it's not difficult to see why Scorsese was so taken with this man's life as a subject for a biopic. His black-and-white film, Hell's Angels, was just the kind of thing we'd expect from Scorsese - if he'd had a budget as seemingly limitless as Hughes'. Here's a guy who barely knows his way around, and he's shooting a World War I dogfight with enough planes to equal the airforce of many current countries. He goes so far over budget, it's a scandal - and that's before he reshoots it in sound. It's a good thing color film wasn't on the horizon, or he'd have shot it a third time.

Hughes' attention to detail brings in Professor Fitz (Ian Holm), a meteorologist, who would becomes a Hughes employee for the remainder of Hughes' public life. What was this guy's initial job? To find clouds - big ones that look like a breast. And why? Because Hughes discovered (in a way that must have tickled Scorsese) that it doesn't matter how fast the planes are flying; if there's nothing to fly past, they might as well be models.

Not bad for a guy who never went to film school.

And now for the Oscar discussion. Hughes' adventures give him access to many a pretty face, as we all know what an aphrodisiac loose change can be. The neat thing is that it brought him into contact with Hollywood legend, Katherine Hepburn (Kate Blanchett) - who was just nutty enough to find common cause with Howard Hughes (That still doesn't explain what Liz Taylor saw in Michael Jackson, but I guess we'll have to wait for her biopic).

Hollywood's target audience won't remember Hepburn. She died last year. Her last film, Love Affair, was released ten years ago. To the film's real target audience (including those of us who saw Taxi Driver and Raging Bull in theaters) she was known for her feisty, razor-sharp comebacks and her inability to be dominated as the weaker sex. Her own career, in fact, went through severe turbulence when audiences banned her performances for her wearing of pants, her confirmed atheism and her belief in the viability of socialism.

Kate Blanchett's performance of her is absolutely stunning. It's almost like watching Hepburn come back to life - the young thing, not the old woman I saw as a kid when I went to see Rooster Cogburn. Blanchett channels both her larger-than-life personality, as well as her defects, that she seems to walk right out of the screen. (Or maybe that's just the mushrooms talking.)

Hughes' tendency to pump his success money into aircraft, and the boldness with which he bought up TWA, could only put him at odds with Pan-American Airlines, personified by Pan-Am Exec, Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin) (Jeez, think of the irony of a company that wants to set up intercontinental routes being headed up by a guy whose name sounds like a pun for "one trip"). Trippe knows where Hughes is headed and uses the oldest, most effective method for cutting down fast-growing weeds: political muscle.

Soon, Hughes is facing an investigation for his opposition to a bill that would give Pan-Am a monopoly over trans-Atlantic routes. The head of that investigation is Senator Ralph Owen Brewster (Alan Alda), a man who has been in Pan-Am's pocket so long, he could probably tell you whether the Trippe family jewels swing side to side, or just rock back and forth.

Weaving in an out of Hughes' public battles are the "little" people. Noah Detrich (John C. Reilly) is the man Hughes look to for more cash the way Captain Kirk looked to Scotty for more power. Gwen Stefani does a good job of playing Jean Harlow. Jude Law does a cameo as the annoyingly irksome Errol Flynn (whose table manners weren't quite as impressive as his, shall we say, swordwork). Willem Dafoe puts in a cameo as a sleazy paparazzi Hughes pays off. Kate Beckinsale almost steals the show (behind Kate Blanchett) as Ava Gardner, the Hollywood vamp who drew Hughes in, but reportedly refused to let him buy her anything but dinner.

All of these wonderful stars go to work, making this film purr like a kitten, but if anyone deserves notice, behind Leonardo DiCaprio, it's the Kates. This movie is really a tale of two Kates.

So, how was the bugger?

Here's what I liked. I liked the photography. Scorsese's cinematographer, Robert Richardson is first rate. Watching this film was a pleasure. I also liked the acting, which was first rate. I liked those parts of John Logan's script that made prop jobs sleek and cool again - not an easy feat in this day and age. I loved the costume design by Sandy Powell (I want some suits that look like those). I enjoyed the fact that John Logan's script takes us to places that are not as well known, such as Hughes' penchant for pushing the limits on censorship.

Here's what I didn't like. Most of the stars, other than DiCaprio and the Kates, were under-used. I'm not saying Scorsese should have added another twenty minutes to the film, so that each of these could say three more lines. I just thought the film was heavy with recognizable stars, many of them having a lot less to do than their talent deserved. I'm tired of seeing Willem Dafoe doing grunt work. I don't think John C. Reilly has much charisma out of his dummy roles. Brent Spiner (the guy who played Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation) is scarred for life. That guy can't go anywhere near a camera without making me stop and go, "Oh crap, there's Data."

Did I see Scorsese doing a cameo as a doctor? If I did, Scorsese has lost a lot of weight - not that he was ever Roger Ebert, but wow. That Subway diet must be quite the thing. If I didn't, this guy needs to buzz his eyebrows, before they take over his face.

The Aviator works best when it's exploring the fascinations of Howard Hughes. It drifts into predictable "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" territory when it sets up the big confrontation between Hughes and the government. It becomes uncomfortable to watch when we get mired in Howard Hughes' nuttiness. A little of this goes a long way. Unfortunately, Scorsese doesn't stop with a little.

All I can say is this: Momma's, don't sponge bath the kid past two. And please don't make such a big deal about germs. The human race got this far, didn't it? It wasn't until the last century that we even knew what a germ was - and diaper wipes are even more recent.

I once left a tuna sandwich in the trunk of my car, in Winter Haven, Florida - and then went back for it at lunch, when I got really, really hungry and didn't have an alternative. Yes, I ate it. No, I didn't die. That's why you won't catch me standing in any corners talking to myself. Unless I'm muttering something like, "Nice rack, nice rack, nice rack." But that comes with the territory.