THE AVIATOR TRADING PLACES

HOLLYWOOD BIOPIC

Martin Scorsese directs Leonardo

Dicaprio as Howard Hughes in this epic biographical drama about the American billionaire aviator, inventor, businessman and film-maker. It’s a long film at close to three hours, but the time positively flies by as we follow Hughes through his rise and fall from the 1920s to 1940s. Scorsese knows his cinema and looks back lovingly on those golden years as Hughes directs and woos a bevy of silver screen sirens, notably Katharine Hepburn

(Cate Blanchett, left with

Dicaprio) and Ava Gardner

(Kate Beckinsale).

CLASSIC ROLE-REVERSAL COMEDY

This gutsy 1980s comedy, from The Blues Brothers director John Landis, follows a rich banker and a street hustler who are made the subject of a bet to test how each man will perform when their circumstances are swapped. The film packs some subversive punches, and Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy are marvellous as the cruelly role-reversed pair, who are both set straight by Jamie Lee Curtis’s smart and sassy prostitute (left, with Aykroyd). Veterans Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy are equally good as the misanthropic puppet masters of our mismatched heroes.