Come anticipate David Fincher's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"

the trailer looks gorgeous.

saw the trailer for this the other day & meant to start a thread -- looks fantastic

Except for Brad Pitt (and his fake accent) it looks like it might be interesting.

very strange lit piece to become a huge-budget movie. I smell Fight Club box-office disaster again.

Yeah this is a bit of wishcasting to imagine this as any sort of box office smash.

I mean, Fitzgerald -- I think every film of Gatsby has died...

the re-use of Morricone's "Days of Heaven" music is mighty queer. was it not recycled in another movie fairly recently?

fight club was a box office disaster???

It was a "disappointment."

In US theaters, FC grossed less than half of what it cost.

I bleeve that music from DoH is in fact Tchaikovsky?

the re-use of Morricone's "Days of Heaven" music is mighty queer. was it not recycled in another movie fairly recently?

-- jed_, Tuesday, June 17, 2008 5:09 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

it's used everywhere. last time i remember seeing it in a movie was in "femme fatale," but that's just because it's become the cannes music, and the openign scene is at a cannes premiere.

xp to morbius: it's actually saint-saëns, "the aquarium"

weird. everyone i knew saw it---i thought that, for better or worse, it had become one of those movies that everyone has seen

xp

I still haven't seen it!

i just saw it again like two weeks ago. i still like it ok but the ending is atrocious

oh, is it? i thought it was Morricone. it's still way overused, though.

many xposts

im sure it has, by now

thinking back to its actual release though, i do recall it being a disappointment

anyway i think we can all agree that the fact that hollywood gave fincher tons of dough to make this is a good thing

xps

morricone riffs on it for the DOH score xp

Fight Club was a BOMB. It did well opening weekend, and when the frat boys discovered it was not a hurray-let's-fight bonecruncher, it died.

(I'm sure it went into the black eventually in its retail afterlife)

when the frat boys discovered it was not a hurray-let's-fight bonecruncher, it died.

It isn't?

no, honey

it is, but its themes were much to intellectual for its target audience to get a handle on

-_-

drink yr urine, deez

trailers usually have some random-ass music that's not in the film, right?

Quite often.

i feel like i've seen eight hundred trailers recently using that really bombastic track from Kill Bill.

Or the theme from Requiem For A Dream.

ya it always happens. lots of them use the music from "aliens"... or "solsbury hill"... etc etc

there seem to be trends in it too

yeah "Solsbury Hill" used to be cliched in trailers but after that fake Shining trailer I think it's just hilarious.

"in da club"

In US theaters, FC grossed less than half of what it cost.

Budget
$63,000,000 (estimated)

Gross
$37,023,395 (USA) (27 February 2000)

"Did not make back estimated budget," yes. "Less than half," no. "Slightly more than half," yes.

(I'm sure it went into the black eventually in its retail afterlife)

"Fight Club won the 2000 Online Film Critics Society Awards for Best DVD, Best DVD Commentary, and Best DVD Special Features,[52] while Entertainment Weekly ranked the film's two-disc edition #1 in its 2001 list of "The 50 Essential DVDs", giving top ratings to the DVD's content and technical picture-and-audio quality.[53] In 2004, after the two-disc edition went out of print, the studio decided to re-release it due to fans' requests.[54] The film grossed $55 million in video and DVD rentals.[55]"

Anyway, this like pretty great. I was curious if the whole "aging backwards" thing would be done in ludicrous Jonathan-Winters-on-Mork-&-Mindy stylee, but seeing the trailer, I think the execution looks really, really cool.

xp to morbius: it's actually saint-saëns, "the aquarium"
There is a great animated version of this on HBO's Classical Baby 2.

you can throw Fox's marketing costs into the FC theatrical release. I always read the budget was about $75 M.

holy shit what a great trailer!

the shot of the bullets coming at him on the boat is like :O

quicktime version here

the idea of a young babyface carrying the weight of loss/experience by the end makes this so much more intriguing than your run of the mill oscar bait. that and Fincher, obviously. Camerawork is totally on par for him. stellar.

woah

and robert redford cameo too?

wow, this looks incredible the HD trailer.

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTczMjIzOTY2M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMzM3NTYyMQ@@._V1._SX274_SY400_.jpg

this guy he is from ork

zodiac's probly my fav serious movie of the last 10 years or so and this looks like some old bullshit imho

music in trailers is often recycled when the movie score isn't finished yet.

it's not out till the autumn: doubt the picture is even locked, knowing fincher.

i love trailers that are all music, maybe some VO & little to no dialogue or sound from the scenes you're seeing

New trailer brings out how problematic the story could be for film, but it looks, uh, ravishing.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/thecuriouscaseofbenjaminbutton/

how do you mean?

i think it brings out how problematic brad pitt could be for film.

xp, structurally. To see the premise in effect on screen makes me worry, but the screenplay is supposed to be OK so perhaps all is well. Definitely looking forward to it.

structurally it's fine. the detail of the story, the ins and outs of the love affair, are a bit less good. but it's like totally moving.

a Brad Pitt film is moving? Change you can believe in!

it moved me to the exit sign

oh MAN XD

Zodiac was one of my favorite films in years. And yet I have feel no compulsion to see this whatsoever.

Yeah, neither do I. This looks like a sentimental fable, something Frank Darabont would direct. But it's been showing up on so many lists!

There is a rocket ship in the trailer. That is good enough for me.

jmc, Zodiac was a sentimental fable.

kent jones is repping for it.

yeah, it isn't as good as 'zodiac' or 'fight club', but what is? it's more like 'forrest gump' than i'd like. but i didn't know what to expect, and i did find it moving.

wait, Pitt's mom is black in this? Did they do the Fitzgerald story as Gump or The Jerk?

That's his nurse, I assume. His father is white Baltimore society in the short story.

spoilers

mother dies in childbirth and he is raised by black folk.
it's set in new orleans.

Here is a nicely typeset PDF of the short story:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/qs7v9q

They should put the rocket ship in every scene. Or call it Rosebud.

this is a bitch to synopsize.

jmc, Zodiac was a sentimental fable.

― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, December 10, 2008 11:55 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this doesn't mean anything

it's pretty retarded, quelle fuckin surprise.

thing of it is, being sentimental is ok.

sen⋅ti⋅men⋅tal
   /ˌsɛntəˈmɛntl/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [sen-tuh-men-tl] Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective
1. expressive of or appealing to sentiment, esp. the tender emotions and feelings, as love, pity, or nostalgia: a sentimental song.
2. pertaining to or dependent on sentiment: We kept the old photograph for purely sentimental reasons.
3. weakly emotional; mawkishly susceptible or tender: the sentimental Victorians.
4. characterized by or showing sentiment or refined feeling.

people always mean type 3 of these. 'ccbb' (at its best and i have some reservations but blah) is 1 and 4. 'zodiac', which is the best film of the decade, is not any of them.

"zodiac, which is the best film of the decade"

^^real talk^^

geeks like crimegeek heroes, quel surprise.

Morbius since when do you give a shit about how much money a movie makes?? I thought that kind of thinking was for zombie consumer magazine whores

I don't; I wonder why the industry whores greenlit it besides Pitt.

http://www.dailyplastic.com/2008/12/2008-in-negative-kentjones-and-benjaminbutton/

(see Rosenbaum as first comment)

i have no idea what you mean by that?? like, i never really get wtf you're on about but i cannot connect "industry whores" your link and rosenbaum's ambivalence tinged with admiration in any meaningful way

i liked this movie btw and it is sentimental and i think "weird poetic hum" is nice if frothy way to talk about its appeal and like mark bronson i have some reservations but it is so v. v. pretty and i guess i just can't figure out what your deal is, here, doc.

nobody who champions Spielberg & Lucas gets to use "sentimental" as a pejorative

"Lamp" they're not fucking connected, I have no opinion on CCBB cuz I aint fucking seen it.

John I haven't liked anything Geo Lucas has touched in 28 years.

Fuck off politics & film threads.

AND I FUCKING LIKED ZODIAC I JUST DIDNT THINK IT WAS ANYTHING MORE THAN A PRETTY GOOD OVERLONG COP SHOW

AHOY, SPOILERS AHEAD.

I saw Benjamin Button yesterday at a Christmas matinee, and enjoyed it. Everyone involved, especially the technical departments (makeup, cinematography, and especially set decor) can take pride in it. It wraps up Pitt's fascinations with mortality, quasi-Buddhist impermanence (ala the forgetable Seven Years in Tibet or Meet Joe Black), and more recently, the social character of New Orleans (Brad & Angelina moved into a mansion in the Vieux Carre in '06). Fincher's trademark chiaroscuro lighting works well in the settings.

But its about those weighty subjects without really saying anything. The Benjamin character is tossed about by fate, but doesn't seem to take much from it or grow. The star-crossed lovers repeatedly avoid any satisfying consumation of their romantic longing, and when it does come, their relationship seems to pass in a few minutes of screentime. The remainder of the movie, on the other hand, digresses with montage shorthand for Benjamin's travels or Rube Goldberg mechanics of fate out of a Jeunet film. 15 years of Benjamin's self-discovery are represented by Pitt tooling around on a Harley. Another 15 years is represented by him looking wistfully at the Himalayas. About 30 mins of the 3 hour running time could have been cut without harm.

I think ebert's review was otm

it's technically pretty astounding, and all the performances are solid, but thinking back on it i'm not even sure what it was *about*

it's like stoner mindblown yeah but check it he ages BACKWARDS what would THAT be like

Oh my gosh does this involve as much staring at things and silently walking around as "Meet Joe Black"? Because if so, maybe I'm sold.

SPOILAR

The Benjamin character is tossed about by fate, but doesn't seem to take much from it or grow.

Utterly utterly otm. The dude comes back from fucking war, having seen 115 dead bodies or whatever and having his own ship explodered, and just walks into his house with literally no change to his character. Therefore that whole hour-long sequence with all the war crap could actually have been taken out completely, leaving a far less turgid and boring movie, and I wouldn't have left halfway through bored out of my skull and with a sore arse.

Also, the movie is clearly seen through Blanchett's character's eyes (I can't even remember her name), yet she's hardly in the story at all. The audience's expectations are not satisfactorily met for at least the first half, and by the second half it's so diminished by all the explosions that it feels like a subplot. That's at odds with the setting of the story (the hospital in ~2005) and the promotions which heavily feature Blanchett.

Also, 'have I ever told you I was struck by lightning seven times?' A cheap template bit of lol-pathos that worked on all the bogans in the theatre who chuckled on queue like laboratory rats. Horribly predictable and really really annoying.

God I hated this movie.

MORE SPOILAR

Also, why the fuck is Katrina in it? No pay-off at all.

Utterly utterly otm. The dude comes back from fucking war, having seen 115 dead bodies or whatever and having his own ship explodered, and just walks into his house with literally no change to his character.

otm. Fincher's problem then seems to be too reverential a treatment of Fitzgerald's entertaining but facile short story.

i'm still 50/50 on the film, but i would have thought the katrina thing was pretty central to its whole thematic thrust, no?

film has little to do with f scot fitzgerald.

...i would have thought the katrina thing was pretty central to its whole thematic thrust...

― Brohan Hari

Explain? Central rather than linked, tangential, supportive?

it's a lot about contingency, ain't it?

Haven't seen it, but your post aroused my curiousity.

sp

i'm still 50/50 on the film, but i would have thought the katrina thing was pretty central to its whole thematic thrust, no?

Thematic perhaps (although I don't get why but I'll take you on face value for now), but how is it necessary?

The whole production smacks of Oscar-bair, and the inclusion of Katrina is no exception.

Oscar-bait even

I'm still struggling to understand the relevance of the clock apart from omg its runing backwords just liek benjamin omg

it definitely is oscarbait, but that doesn't automatically make it shit. (it could have lost what i think are problems and still have been oscarbait.) true oscarbait would have done *more* with the katrina thing... im reviewing this so am not getting into this, though.

xpost

the clock is replaced in spring 2003. it must be to do with iraq... im kidding but otoh i can't think off a better explanation for it being that date.

rly though the waters coming up round the clock that runs backwards: movie symbolism. i thought it was poetic n shit.

im seeing this tonight! as with me and ilx, I'll probably love it since most of you seem to hate it.

note: Zodiac is easily in my top 5 of the 00's but the only other Fincher I can even tolerate is Fight Club.

I agree that Oscar-bait != shit, but this movie feels like it was aimed at winning Oscars from the outset, with literally no other purpose.

uh, this movie is "Oscar bait" only in that it stars Brad Pitt and was hugely expensive. It is, fortunately, also a type of languorous (if flawed and overlong) adult story that will never be made by a major studio ten years from now.

If you don't know "what it's about," I'm just gonna envy you. Rewatch on the far side of 40.

Production design great throughout ... and Tilda Swinton! I believed every goddamn word she said.

You also have to love a film that uses Beatles on the TV for '64 and "America 2Night" for '79.

I thought you weren't seeing it?

Like a box of chocolates slowly being uneaten.

no Alex, never said that.

I misread seen as seeing above.

Alright, Morbs, I'll see this tomorrow or Friday, on your rec -- if it sucks, I know where you live.

That's not exactly an unqualified recommendation above.

I know -- I trust Morbs' unqualified recommendations (except when it comes to Billy Wilder films).

*qualified, rather

uh, this movie is "Oscar bait" only in that it stars Brad Pitt and was hugely expensive.

uh, everything about this movie is oscar bait

this was very moving at times and very trite at others---it's a thin line, but the film does attempt to remain relatively tasteful. there is no big emotional fanfare moment, that i could see.

it does, at times, capture that strange and sad feeling of life as a passsing, and it's hard to think of too many big films (or any) that do that.

^yes, exactly

On the other (dumbass) BB thread, ppl are dragging out "hack" accusations. Uh, what? This film is somehow less "personal" than his turds, The Game and Panic Room? Then who cares?

Pitt's character/cipher being a dullard doesn't bother me, same can be said of Pip, David Copperfield, etc.

saw this film's poster in the subway defaced to read " JAMIN BUTT "

much porn parody potential w/ Benjamin Butthole

Morbs, I just meant that for a director who's demonstrated his own personal style, this is bloated and indistinct studio filmmaking, and charges of hackery on that other thread - coming not just from me :) - are totally legit. Also considering it's gigantic marketing campaign here in LA - posters everywhere to remind every Academy voter of Pitt's expressionless face on every streetcorner - it most definitely falls into the turgid "Oscar bait" category that usually gets full by X-mas, when this shit was not coincidentally released

bloated and indistinct studio filmmaking

silly.

it is oscar bait, going on release date. but zodiac was meant to have an oscar-worthy release date. and besides, name me a film that isn't marketed in some way or another. like bela tarr or wong kar wai's people aren't like 'venice? cannes? berlin? fuck it nah, let's go for mid-august coastal release, it'll find an audience somehow.

the film has shared concerns with earlier fincher films; it just puts them a bit more directly.

omg, it IS nrq.

Vichi, Ron Howard was attached to this movie once, if you want to meditate upon "bloated and indistinct."

personal style v overrated (oh, the DePalma camera gyrations)

would watch Jamin' Butt

personal style v overrated

No wonder you like screwball.

xpost co-sign!

E, on yr next NYC visit we're gonna watch Theodora Goes Wild or I'm Not There (I have the chloroform).

is special guest stars mark bronson NRQ?

i don't really get the point of that post, but as far as this is concerned:

>like bela tarr or wong kar wai's people aren't like 'venice? cannes? berlin? fuck it nah, let's go for mid-august coastal release, it'll find an audience somehow.<

...there's a ginormous difference between entering your art film in an art festival and praying against increasing odds that it even GETS distribution, and studio-machines (like Miramax particularly in the Weinstein era) blitzing the trades and the LA Times come award season for their Oscar campaigns....so, yr analogy falls apart there. Also, mid-August actually WAS always planned as a conscious release date for certain ambitious people, like Mr Shymalan!

...there's a ginormous difference between entering your art film in an art festival and praying against increasing odds that it even GETS distribution, and studio-machines (like Miramax particularly in the Weinstein era) blitzing the trades and the LA Times come award season for their Oscar campaigns....so, yr analogy falls apart there.

not really. it's a difference in scale, but the principle is the same. (euro-auteurs tend to have state assistance, dunno about WKW and the like.)

all you're saying is that 'art films' (defined how?) are de facto better than hollywood films.

i'm not saying that at all

Like a box of chocolates slowly being uneaten.

A+++

what's the ginormous difference then? WKW is under threat of not getting distributed, whereas miramax-promoted oscarbait gets crazy marketing dollars... miramax distribute WKW! it's all money.

xpost

Name that film:

A white man is born fatherless in the south with birth defects that lead many to think he may never walk nor live a normal life. His saintly mother believes in his potential anyway. At a young age, the man learns to walk and sheds his exoskeleton of locomotive aids. Around this time, he also meets the love of his life, a vivacious girl who grows into a bold woman who parts ways with the man to have her own wild adventures. Meanwhile, the man reaches adulthood, and puts in a wartime stint in the U.S. military. During this stint, the man proves at first an indifferent asset, but during his one firefight, he turns out to be very valuable, saving the day singlehandedly, while also witnessing the death of one of his best friends. The man also spends much time on a small ocean vessel, serving alongside a rowdy, grizzled, hard-drinking man of the sea. This salty sailor serves as one of our man’s two best male friends; the other is a black man who first teaches our man the lessons of friendship before departing forever.

Our man wanders all around the world, his life brushing up against key historical moments of the 20th century. At some point he returns to his childhood home, and his mother dies. The man comes into considerable wealth through blind luck. Around this time, his lifelong love returns from her adventures, ready to commit to him. During their brief time together, they conceive a child. The couple part ways, due to the woman’s perceived inability to take care of the man. He does not raise the child through its early years but later makes an appearance in its life. The woman eventually dies in bed from illness. The man’s later years are hardly touched on, even though the movie has lavished much attention on his early and middle years.

The entire story dwells repeatedly on the theme of life’s uncertainty and, in contrast, on the notion of fate or coincidence. The film’s symbol for these themes is a small object seen hovering improbably in the air. A narrative frame scene punctuates the story, as does the main character’s drawling voice-over.

Acceptable Answers:

Forrest Gump; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Wo_Ow.

where was that pasted from?

The tale is in the telling, and some of us have never seen Forrest Gump.

Another summary: A man goes on a journey.

Man goes on a journey describes at least half the stories ever told. Epic point by point correspondence with fucking Forrest Gump does not.

"epic"

There are differences too, you know. Like he ages backwards.

touchay

Amy Taubin's lengthy interview w/ Fincher here:

TAUBIN: I’m not a fan of Forrest Gump, to put it mildly. The first time I saw Benjamin Button, I wasn’t aware that Eric Roth wrote both films. But when I put that together, I watched Gump again and loathed it just as much. What’s strange is that the two films pose very different worldviews and yet they share so many narrative tropes and devices. For example the way the first person voiceover threads through both films.

FINCHER: Yeah, and particularly his flashes in time. I used to joke with Eric about “and we see just that.” ...Whenever we had something that was talked about and we’d see it at the same time, we’d let it slide if we felt it was emotional—it would sort of cut through everything. For instance, [Mr.Gateau says] “Perhaps the boys that we lost in war might stand to come home again.” And then you illustrate it—you literally cut to it [the footage running backward]. And that was one of the moments where we said, well you’re going to have to do that. But for the most part we wanted things to stagger and be dovetailed. He [Benjamin] talks about something but it doesn’t happen just then. Because that kind of irony allows people to put up their emotional chain mail up.[/i]

They actually spend a fair amount of time w/ older BB, cuz that's when HE'S BRAD PITT THE MOVIE STAR. As for when he becomes old (a kid):

Why couldn’t you use the same method when he’s a young boy as when he’s an old man? Once he’s regressed to 12 years, you begin using child actors to play Benjamin…

Not enough money. We could have, but it would have been a lot more expensive. When he’s 12, it’s Brad’s voice though. The actor who plays him when he’s sitting at the piano, we had to make his ears smaller, because Brad has these small ears.

"small ears"

oops here's the interview link:

http://filmlinc.com/fcm/jf09/fincher.htm

Hah, so they found someone who looks NOTHING LIKE BRAD PITT and made his ears smaller.

really, who cares?

I've always been an advocate of Hollywood using its effects wizardry in the service of a human story as opposed to fanboy blow-em-ups, so I applaud the partially successful effort here. I'm also amazed Fincher says he prefers it be shown digitally, and I've seen no evidence that a single theater is doing that. Anyone?

No special effects razzle-dazzle could have improved Pitt's inoffensive stolidness.

but the most extraordinary thing about the character is his biological circumstance -- otherwise he's an Everyman. What's the best alternative?

I was attracted, in a contrarian sense, to the miscasting of Pitt, thinking that if illness and loss hurt someone this attractive then the situation has a special poignancy, but...

Our man wanders all around the world, his life brushing up against key historical moments of the 20th century.

ehhh no. the ccbb almost deliberately avoids this. like taubin i was not aware roth wrote it till after BUT was struck by comparisons while watching it. roth also wrote 'ali' and 'the insider'.

Ali and the Insider are pretty similar movies too. Will Smith is in both of them, for example.

Another summary: A shitty movie.

I'm pretty sure I just saw this projected digitally at the Metropolitan Arlington in Santa Barbara. It did look and sound great.

Too many motifs that didn't really make sense to me (or perhaps to the writer): hummingbird, Katrina, station clock.

I wouldn't say it was overlong (a film about a life is long), but it felt like there was a lot of wasted time. E.g. That series of coincidences Sliding Doors thing where Blanchett gets run over was a waste of five minutes and seemed unrelated to the rest of the film.

Morbius totally right about Tilda Swinton, who plays an incredible character very well. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett both really, really dull though.

The framing device also seemed redundant, although I guess without it it would have been a 160 minute montage.

And another thing: every time someone made a reference to Brad Pitt looking good, I remembered I was watching Brad Pitt. "You're perfect" got the biggest laugh of the night in the screening I was in.

this was exhausting

i enjoyed some individual scenes (young pitt encountering re-married cate at the dance studio, the tilda swinton segments) but ultimately i was pretty relieved when this ended

Frost/Nixon much more exhasting.

haha i saw that right afterwards! so, two "meh"s for the price of...two

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-curious-case-of-benjamin-button-david-fincher-165-mins-12a-1603710.html

^^ how i break it down to a certain extent, though lol my own review also mentions the prologue to magnolia but says this one done did the thing better. (i also reckon it's more in keeping with fincher's earlier stuff -- probably coz i had no idea it was written by the guy who wrote 'forrest gump' when i saw it.)

i had no idea it was written by the guy who wrote 'forrest gump'

hahahah i went on for 10 minutes to a friend about how this was 'like forrest gump, it hits the same notes, but its so much more subtle about it that i overlook how trite the points are at their essence'

clearly i am a douche

This film would have been so much more involving had they bothered to give Benjamin a personality.

i can appreciate that's that's true, rly, but when i was watching it it didn't occur to me. basically had uh immediate reasons to be projecting like a motherfucker -- and maybe that's how these kinds of films have to work.

i'd almost go the other route and say 'more interesting shit' should have happened to him, rather than him being that distinctive an individual. but not in a forrest gump 'being present at all these important moments in history' way.

i'd almost go the other route and say 'more interesting shit' should have happened to him

definitely. the episode with swinton stood out so much because, being born an old man notwithstanding, it was really the only interesting thing that happened to him.

the only interesting compelling thing that happened to him

"One might have reckoned that the director of 'Fight Club' and 'Panic Room' would become one of the key artists of the digital age," writes Kent Jones. "I don't think any of us, however, would have guessed that Fincher, with 'Zodiac' and 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,' would achieve a vision of time so heartbreakingly acute as to rival those of John Ford and Orson Welles."

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1125

yes, I disagree. Both good films tho.

i loved zodiac but i finally saw BB last night and holy fuck what a piece of shit

an exquisite, lovingly-crafted, meticulous boring piece of shit tho

amazed that eric roth could put the line "in life you never know what's coming to you" in a movie after writing gump's "box of chocolates, never know what you're going to get" line. shameless

i am way more interested in the second disk in that criterion edition than watching the movie ever again

ya i have the feeling this might be one of those cases where i enjoy teh making-of more than the movie

wow, one line pissed you off in 160 minutes?

I thought it was some of the best Hollywood craftsmanship since Ratatouille!

morbs did u actually like this??

I did, at least I teared up a couple times. Not as much as Kent Jones did. I'd put it my top 15 of last year (admittedly a shit year).

I'd put it my top 15 of last year (admittedly a shit year).

me too

I did, at least I teared up a couple times. Not as much as Kent Jones did. I'd put it my top 15 of last year (admittedly a shit year).

― Dr Morbius, Thursday, May 7, 2009 2:21 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

did you like forrest gump? serious question

never saw it.

this was meh in the extreme and I really wanted to like it. the biggest problem for me (aside from annoying framing story and useless katrina ) was cate blanchette. I mean, she is incredibly beautiful, but also was really unlikeable in this. maybe she was trying too hard to pull off her accent or something. tilda swinton's character had 1000x more charisma in the one minute she was in it.

I haven't seen this movie but I had a dream last night that I was watching it. And boy did the movie piss me off just like when I saw the previews.

not enough of "a ride" to be popular.

A new video essay on the film by Matt Zoller Seitz, along w/ the text:

By stripping away the political context that made Gump a pop culture hot potato, Button isolates and magnifies the story's emotional appeal: the sense that, no matter how strongly we believe in the notion that each person is the captain of his or her own ship, the unfortunate fact is that most of us are passengers on this voyage. ... Button is entirely about this sense of life: the realization that we’re quite small and powerless in the great scheme of things, and the most sensible response to this realization is to try to be as caring and decent as we can and appreciate the life we’ve got.

It seems odd to describe a $150 million Brad Pitt movie as unconventional, but in the context of commercial narrative cinema, the label fits. Show business is exactly that, and one of its imperatives has been to give viewers an escape from the world they know—a world in which it's damned hard just to get through the Department of Motor Vehicles line during lunch hour, let alone win the love of your ideal mate, show some two-bit thug what's what, or save your town, your nation, or the galaxy from evil....

None of the above should be construed as a condemnation of the usual modes of movie storytelling. They've been around for over a hundred years, they're descended from models hundreds, even thousands of years older, and they've inspired many satisfying and occasionally profound entertainments. But there are so many examples that it's easy to forget that there is another way of doing things—another kind of story, one that addresses the hard reality of everyday existence even as its imagery and situations reach toward the mythic, the symbolic, and the dreamlike.

http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/present-tense-20090508

this movie is all eye candy, zero content beyond a sort of glazed-over wistfulness.

not enough of "a ride" to be popular.

― Dr Morbius, Sunday, May 24, 2009 6:35 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

a "ride" is all BB is. it's like a CGI demo reel stretched out to three hours. the main character is a total zero, just a really cool special effect.

I empathize with all attempts to defend it, but mostly think the movie's long and relentlessly underwhelming.

honestly i went in really rooting for it... but the script is just terrible. cuts the movie off at the knees.

this movie is all eye candy, zero content beyond a sort of glazed-over wistfulness.

― s1ocki, Wednesday, May 27, 2009 10:15 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is OTM. the whole time i was watching it i was like "this looks beautiful... why does it suck?"

Except for that CGI hummingbird, that looked fuckin awful

which is totally recycled from the forrest gump feather scene too

not exploring new territory heah

i still say watch it again when you begin to feel old.

That's like saying listen to "Losing My Edge" when you turn 30. Pretty duh.

i won't deny there's some poignant stuff in this movie (especially the last 15 minutes or so which were kinda haunting). but it's not really earned and thus barely got to me.

i just do not get the point of the katrina framing device. I think my favorite part of the movie (aside from the tilda swinton section) was the beginning with the guy building the clock.

"earned" wtf

as in, i didn't care enough about any of the characters for it to seem any more than just... kinda spooky.

it wasn't enough to convince me that this movie was about actual human beings and not CGI-matting technology.

i mean this movie is basically the equivalent of a star wars prequel with a classy finish.

Yeah, the most interesting section of the entire film for me was the child-with-dementia angle. I was sort of disappointed that added up to about a minute and a half. I know stretching that out would've been unnecessarily painful, but I'd still prefer that to the crap about the buttons and the boat and the 10 minutes of Magnolia prologue leading up to Daisy's taxi cab accident.

the 10 minutes of Magnolia prologue leading up to Daisy's taxi cab accident

this was ridiculous - the whole "causality is crazy, man!" thing has been done to death so many times and HOW exactly was BB supposed to know all those details anyway!

i think we've done this and tho im a defender, i don't want to see it again too much. but i rarely agree w/ morbs and he is right about this.

i think the rainstorm katrina thing makes total sense. almost in a meta way: the film was set up for new orleans before katrina happened, and they worked it into the film. the meta thing being: david fincher is such a control freak, and his films are all "about letting go."

the whole "causality is crazy, man!" thing has been done to death so many times

maybe, but without such talent and shit? i thought fincher rocked it with that section anyway.

The justification for the Katrina framing device is weird. The framing device was already in there (w/o the hurricane), Louisiana offered better tax breaks so they chose there over Maryland. Then Katrina happened as they were about to move the production down there, and they thought "how can we ignore this?" I'm not sure I would have found that device compelling without the hurricane, but with it it just feels really off balance and distracting. Like this very significant weather event is an important part of the film, rather than just something they thought was dramatic or cool and was there for people to make what they will of it.

xp

The Sliding Doors thing is just completely anodyne and doesn't really make a point. Eric Roth's defence of it (apparently that and the lightning guy were the cuts suggested by the studio) was really unconvincing

fwiw i'm not mad at the katrina thing, i think it was a fine way to frame it

i think SOMEBODY's been listening to the creative screenwriting podcasts!

anyway that sort of causality shit is pretty much late-night dorm room stoner conversation level at this point, along with "what if we all see colours differently?"

anyway that sort of causality shit is pretty much late-night dorm room stoner conversation level at this point, along with "what if we all see colours differently?"

― s1ocki, Wednesday, May 27, 2009 5:51 PM (2 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

WHAT IF WE DO THOUGH?

hi i read boing boing (and don't i actually mention that podcast somewhere on this thread?)

haha.

i listen to it too!

and HOW exactly was BB supposed to know all those details anyway!

jeezus, this is like "how does Gavin Elster know Scottie won't make it to the top of the tower"

i think it was the spielberg thread i mentioned it actually. it is a good interview.

b buttons is a really interesting film, and in my head i want to see it again, but i remember being so frustrated by it the first time. i will probably end up with the criterion version though.

well how was he! i don't mind plot inconsistencies if they don't jump out at me but this was big enough to be a distraction xp

the making-of, from what i saw of it, was actually a much better movie

Katrina brings the finality of destruction and oblivion, just faster than a natural lifespan does

I liked the Matt Zoller Seitz stuff you pasted upthread, Morbs, but the drama, speed, uniqueness, etc. of Katrina doesn't seem to fit in with that view to the extent that it ends up rather than adding to a film like the one Seitz is talking about.

I thought Katrina made an old city young again.

ololo

(i meant to say "to the extent that it ends up _detracting_ rather than adding")

the curious case of why is this fucking movie so slow

what the fuck

made it one hour in, i surrender

punk ass forrest gump leaning posing the amazing oh gee never heard it before "what if everyone other than you got old and died" philosophical immortality quandry PIECE OF SHIT

Made me more angry than any film I've seen since Requiem for a fucking Dream. Worthless, vapid, self-important GARBAGE of the most execrable sort. Go fucking die already.