"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:wl9Gd.7986$OF5.1171@attbi_s52...

Well, we went to see "The Aviator" last night, and -- amazingly -- I have
to
admit, he pulls it off. By the end I forgot who the actor was, and got
caught up in the story. DiCaprio especially captures Hughes' descent into
madness in a very realistic (and chilling) way.

(And the lady who played Katherine Hepburn was marvelous.)

It's not a great movie, but it's good, and the flying sequences --
although
not perfect -- are worth the price of admission alone.

I thought the same. Granted, I thought blaming it all on Hughes' mother was
a little trite -- sort of Oprah Winfrey meets the Fortune 500 -- but it was
a good movie.

There are some big holes in the "Howard Hughes was crazy" theme, as some
reviewers pointed out. For one thing, how did a guy who supposedly had such
a fear of germs ever have sex? It almost supports the idea that Hughes'
insanity was a put-on, partly because it entertained him, partly because it
caused his enemies to underestimate him, and partly because it allowed him
to do whatever he wanted without anyone questioning him. It could well have
been useful in his work with the CIA, too. Hughes was involved in
intelligence from the beginning of World War II. He might have liked being
able to explain away his dropping out of sight for long periods of time by
letting people think he was a crazy person holed up in his cell.