Last night, Megan and Brent and I (the Auckland chapter of the Martin Scorsese Fan Club) went to see The Aviator. I don't know how this film could *get* bad reviews (I'm looking at you, Village Voice). This is, obviously, some of my favourite subject matter - the interwar period! Frocks! Music! Shoes! Handbags! Film! Hollywood! Modernist design! - but even if you didn't like this stuff, oh, the cinematography, oh, the sweeping Scorsese shots, oh, the acting, oh, the unnervingly awful depiction of OCD! Special mention must be made of the scenes with the flashbulbs (who else would show that crunching glass but Marty?) and the way in which the golf-playing scenes seemed colourised. Genius. And I was so mesmerised by Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn that I could hardly breathe. She managed to get all the vocal mannerisms and gestures perfect without making her performance into a mere imitation. She seemed so real.

Poor Howard. He was rather awful, really. But I and women everywhere must thank him for the underwire bra.