Just saw The Aviator & thought di Caprio was pretty good.  I've thought that maybe I'll have to make amends & stop calling him di Crappio from now on.  I thought he really inhabited the role.  I've knocked Scorcese a number of times for making Leonardo his new golden boy, but it was a really good movie I thought and Leonardo was the reason. 

Jude Law is on screen for like 6 minutes total.  One would have thought that he could've gotten more screen time.  I wonder how much he was paid for his cameo.

Comments from anyone who has seen The Aviator?

I agree. When I first heard about this movie I really didn't think Leo was a good pick for this role, but I have to admit, he really nailed it! Also Cate Blanchett was amazing and I was really happy to see "Hawkeye".

Yeah, I was surprised to see Hawkeye looking so old. As a conservative my sentiments were with Hughes vis a vis his argument with the character played by Alda. His performance was great as senator Brewster from Maine.

In The Basketball Diaries and What's Eating Gilbert Grape I could accept the character on his own merits. In those movies di Caprio was actually acting I would say. In Romeo and Juliet, Titanic, and especially Gangs of N.Y. I could never truly enjoy his performance because I kept thinking that it was di Caprio doing such and such character.

In The Aviator di Caprio does put in a very strong performance. I was able to set aside my biases based on those previous movies I mentioned, and truly believe that he was Howard Hughes.

I would say that di Caprio's performance in this respect is better than say Sean Penn's in "I am Sam". I could never get over the idea that it was Sean Penn playing a mentally weak guy, and that somehow this guy with mental problems just seemed a little too smart or too driven to be believable.

I agree that Cate Blanchette was pretty good, but I kept thinking . . . is she over-doing this? BTW, I thought the lunch scene with Hepburn's family is pure brilliance. Again, I found myself agreeing with Howard Hughes; or at the very least the screen depiction of him.

Yeah... Leo was pretty damn good in that part - dammit. And I'll tell ya, every time I see the scene where Leo gives the stick to Cate to fly the plane and she says, "Crap?" It cracks me up.

Something about her performance in The Aviator bugged the crap out of me. Never could put my finger on it except that maybe it would be anyone trying to do Hepburn. No one on this Earth can do her.

It took me a couple of times to watch the movie and get into when I finally did (wish I had seen it on the big screen even though our tv is about half the size of a regular movie screen. Have they shrunk?) and I thought it was a pretty damn good movie. Dicaprio is not one of my favorite actors bui he did a fine job as nut-case Huges.

I know where you are coming from with the Hepburn thing - she's been imitated and parodied for so many years (my favorite is of Martin Short using her voice to mimic the sound a car makes when it won't start), it's difficult to portray her.

Did HH really crash a plane into the suburbs? Regardless, that film put me off drinking milk for a couple weeks.

Yes, his plane really did crash into a Beverly Hills neighborhood. He was testing a spy plane and when it starting to have problems he tried to land at the Los Angeles Country Club golf course. Instead it clipped three houses before it crashed into another. That scene was hard to watch for me. Still, drink milk though.