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| | The Aviator film review, In Film Australia |
 | | His 2001 film, the messy, shambolic and epic-sized Gangs of New York, hinted at a populist sensibility almost completely alien from his previous work punctuated by American crime – the dark, gritty urban dramas that prowled city streets in the pursuit of softening the hardened edges of criminals, outcasts and misfits. |
 | | The first chapter of the film dedicates itself to the production of Hells Angels, acknowledging that Hughes went way, way, way over budget, re-shooting expensive aviation sequences because he was determined to capture clouds in the background, and then re-shooting just about everything to cater for a new technological innovation – the talkies. |
 | | The film’s most interesting sequences are the public hearing meetings between Hughes, Senator Ralph Owen Brewster (Alan Alda, nominated for an Oscar for his small but important part) and a congregation of trigger-happy media, who accuses Hughes of treason against the United States for failing to produce anything from his multi-million dollar grants. |
| www.infilm.com.au /reviews/theaviator.htm (814 words) |
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