"Some men dream the future.  He built it."

Martin Scorsese's biopic of the legendary director and aviator Howard Hughes focuses on his early years, beginning with the 1930 production of Hell's Angels, then the most expensive movie ever made, and ending in 1947 with Hughes piloting the first (and only) flight of his mammoth flying boat, Hercules. Seemingly triumphant and still in his early forties, he's hovering on the brink of clinical insanity. Leonardo DiCaprio is excellent as Hughes, initially a careless young charmer, overtaken by physical damage and neurotic obsession.  His romances with Hollywood stars are well represented, with Cate Blanchett playing Katherine Hepburn, Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner and Gwen Stefani as Jean Harlow.  Jane Russell is represented only by her cleavage, in a hilarious scene before the Breen office, which ran the Hollywood censorship system.

"What a sad man. What brief glory. What an enthralling film, 166 minutes, and it races past. There's a match here between Scorsese and his subject, perhaps because the director's own life journey allows him to see Howard Hughes with insight, sympathy -- and, up to a point, with admiration. This is one of the year's best films."  Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

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