AMERICAN BOY

title: AMERICAN BOY: A PROFILE OF STEVEN PRINCE

year: 1978

cast: Steven Prince, George Memmoli, Martin Scorsese, Mardik Martin

rating: ***1/2

Steven Prince, who played the gun-dealing babblemouth "Easy Andy" in the Martin Scorsese classic TAXI DRIVER, has his hour to shine. This, a documentary involving Prince, Scorsese, and actor George Memmoli (the really fat dude in MEAN STREETS and the guy who reluctantly allowed Stallone to ice-skate in ROCKY) sitting around a living room, is really a gloriously-glorified home movie, inserting images of the subject as a child between his bantering - with a more grating voice than Horseshack from WELCOME BACK KOTTER - about drugs, bagels, family members, working for Neil Diamond, and a lice-seeking gorilla. Few of the diatribes are interesting and some seem a bit forced. But it's during the last fifteen minutes, as he shares about killing a man in Arizona by shooting his six times, where things pick-up. The standout tale of madness involves Prince saving an overdosing girl's life by injecting her in the chest with an adrenaline shot while reading instructions on how to do so. Sound familiar? Neil Young's obscure track "Time Fades Away" envelopes the piece nicely.

THE AVIATOR

title: THE AVIATOR

year: 2004

cast: Leonardo DiCaprio

director: Martin Scorsese

rating: *1/2

The history of this man, Howard Hughes, was open game. We all know he was a kooky guy, but no one knows exactly what he did when he was alone. So Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio could go crazy with it. Urine jars lining a messy room where Howard won't touch anything, having locked himself inside, writhing bloody on the floor watching his own films. Or Hughes snapping off the grid and repeating the same word over and over in front of his employees. Or madly washing his hands with his own soap in public restrooms. None of this stuff fits within any interesting plot. It seems a distraction. And DiCaprio tries hard, but simply doesn't seem like a grownup, much less a famous one. Meanwhile, what the movie's about and why Scorsese worshiped Hughes in the first place was his aerial directorial shots from HELLS ANGELS: scenes so C.G.I. it hardly seems related to anything about when special effects were practical, and brilliant.