Just got back from seeing Benjamin Button

[supportivemom]

Posted: 12/25/08 at 7:14pm

It's a pretty long movie but it did keep my attention. Cate Blanchett is wonderful! Actually, all of the acting was really good. It's a very sweet story filled with a lot of vivid imagination.

[BudFrump23]

Posted: 12/25/08 at 9:11pm

I'm pulling a twofur tomorrow and seeing this and Doubt! I am sure I will enjoy both.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 12/25/08 at 10:26pm

Sat through BENJAMIN BUTTON today. Seriously disappointing. A nearly three hour BORE. Excruciating. Only Tilda Swinton makes an impression as an actual living human being. Pitt's worst performance ever. A real shame.

[TheActr97J]

Posted: 12/25/08 at 11:34pm

I just returned from it and was also seriously disappointed. I wanted to like it a lot more than I ultimately did. It felt like it wanted to be this big epic, but in the end not all that much happened to him. In fact, I thought, apart from his affliction, his life was actually rather boring. Maybe Pitt and Blanchett don't have great chemistry or maybe it's the fault of the writing, but the romance between Benjamin and Daisy never really registered emotionally with me. Taraji P. Henderson, however, was superb and will get a well-deserved Oscar nomination.

Plus, the Broadway segment was just plain inaccurate. Look at the street scene outside the theater. The St. James UP the block toward 8th from the Majestic and the Barrymore on 44th? I don't think so.

Ultimately, I think it's a brilliant concept for a film (very Last Five Years inspired, no?), that wasn't excuted to its fullest potential. Zodiac is still Fincher's best film by a lot.

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 12/26/08 at 1:56am

I loved this movie. Fincher's best for sure.

[nygrl232]

Posted: 12/26/08 at 4:46am

>>the romance between Benjamin and Daisy never really registered emotionally with me.

Brad Pitt just always looks and acts like himself, and imo Cate Blanchett is rather Streepian in her acting--you can see those wheels turning, and it's hard to get into her performance beyond the technical.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 12/26/08 at 8:56am

That little Broadway bit was annoying, you're right. Benjamin attends what looks like the opening night of CAROUSEL and shows up LATE.

Not really LAST FIVE YEARS inspired, more like the other way round, since the short story was written about 80 years ago. The movie just never took off, it just wandered around the 20th Century for about three hours and then ended. What a bore.

[supportivemom]

Posted: 12/26/08 at 11:26am

Totally understand all of your criticisms. I also forgot to mention Tilda- I really liked her in this film. I went in with no expectations and I'm really not a big Brad Pitt fan. This is one of those films that half of the people will love and half will hate. It was just nice that my whole family went to see it together and I heard my daughter laugh out loud a few times- that was all worth it!

[Auggie27]

Posted: 12/26/08 at 2:25pm

I thought it was haunting and unforgettable, despite being ovewrought and overlong. It plays almost like a silent movie (I have a screener, and watchd some of it with the sound quite low...) Perhaps it's easier to watch at home, at 2 hours and 47 minutes, but I suspect it looks beautiful, majestically so, on the big screen. I think its cumulative emotional weight more than makes up for its shortcomings.

SPOILER

Favorite moment: "You're my Mama." The relationship between Benjamin and his mother is one of the most affirming portrayals of adoption ever put on film. And the movie isn't even "about" that.

[Craig]

Posted: 12/26/08 at 4:02pm

(spoiler)


One thing that bothered/frustrated me towards the end was the fact that Benjamin took off leaving his daughter because he didn't want to burden Daisy with having to raise two children. Yet Benjamin comes back when his daughter is a young teen and is a teen himself. In other words - he could have stayed and raised his daughter and been with the love of his life for many years - and his daughter, by the time it rolled around would have been plenty old enough to understand her father's predicament.

[jaystarr]

Posted: 12/26/08 at 4:19pm

DVD for me! willl wait till it get released.

J*

[colleen_lee]

Posted: 12/26/08 at 4:31pm

That bothered me too, Craig.

But, with the exception of that little shortcoming, I personally LOVED this film. I connected with both the Benjamin and Daisy characters and felt very invested in their stories. The end of the film had me in tears.

However, I do understand everyone's criticisms and I think part of the reason I was so touched was because it happened to be my birthday and I have been struggling with the idea of aging and the lost opportunities that I worry come with it. This film may have been more of a right thing at the right time experience for me than anything else.

[DBillyP]

Posted: 12/26/08 at 8:54pm

I am surprised no one yet has mentioned the technical achievements in this film, which I found remarkable. It is a beautiful story buoyed by impressive special effects, makeup, cinematography, etc. Also, kudos to Blanchett who, in addition to giving an excellent performance, did her own dancing in the film.

The one thing that bothered me was Button's reverse aging seemed to slow when we got to "perfect" Brad Pitt. While I certainly don't mind looking at him, it seems they let him stay looking near his real age for too long.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 12/26/08 at 9:36pm

I didn't mention them because I didn't think they were all that remarkable. They're just a lot of technical effects, that's all. They aren't used particularly well. All the millions of dollars and all the dozens of technicians can't make Brad Pitt into a good actor. They can't add life to those dead blue eyes or add emotion to that flat monotone. They can slap on the age makeup, which only really makes him look like Paul Williams. There's more going on, more life and and energy and simple plain honest emotion in any single frame of Gollum in the LORD OF THE RINGS than in the entire excruciating Gitmo-torturethon of BENJAMIN BOREDOM.

Technical smechnical. Tilda Swinton accomplishes more by simply smiling than all the big CGI gimmickry combined. She lights up the screen in a way that all the technocrap in the world can't approach.

[pushdabutton]

Posted: 12/27/08 at 5:19pm

I agree that this movie is flawed but I loved it. The African-American woman that played Benjamin's mother was great. Does anyone know who she is?

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 12/27/08 at 6:30pm

Her name is Taraji P. Henson, she was in HUSTLE & FLOW and performed at the Oscars. She has received a SAG nod for her role in this film, hopefully an Oscar nod will follow.

[xoangel2789xo]

Posted: 12/27/08 at 8:14pm

I felt like this movie was a little too long, but I thought the lightning bits were so funny. When I first saw the trailer, I didn't think I would enjoy it, so in a way it went above my expectations. I also thought the age flow got a little weird when he reached his normal self. All in all, I enjoyed it.

Did I ever tell you I was struck by lightning seven times?

[Select a Member Name]

Posted: 12/27/08 at 8:48pm

Did I ever tell you I was struck by lightning seven times?

Those little flashback bits were my favorite part of the movie.

[kover22]

Posted: 12/28/08 at 1:15pm

Taraji P. Henson used to be on a Lifetime series called The Division, with Bonnie Bedelia,Nancy Mckeon, Tracy Needham,Lisa Vidal and Jon Hamm. I watch the reruns everyday lol.

[sweetestsiren]

Posted: 12/28/08 at 6:54pm

Just got back, and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. It was long, but I didn't really notice that until it was nearing the end, so it held my attention well. I ended up swept up in the story and invested in the characters. I'd wanted to read the Fitzgerald story before seeing the movie but didn't get to it, so I'm interested to see what was added/fleshed out in the adaptation. Acting-wise and technically, I thought it was a very impressive film. I do have to agree that there are more provocative places they could have taken the concept, but it works for what it is -- a simple love story. It reminded me of a much better-done Love in the Time of Cholera.

Craig, I wondered about Benjamin coming back again, too. It occurred to me that it might be attributable to his growing younger/more impulsive. He made the decision to leave when he was an adult, and went back on it when he had become a teenager. Updated On: 12/28/08 at 06:54 PM

[jasonf]

Posted: 12/29/08 at 4:27pm

sweetestsiren, I didn't really get the impression that his maturity was decreasing at that point though. Internally, he was becoming older. Thus, my issue was that at the end he seemed to regress through childhood - so then shouldn't he have been born able to speak and mature? Something in that didn't quite sit right with me.

That said, I loved the movie. I thought it was a BEAUTIFUL film technically speaking, and Cate Blanchett who usually annoys me didn't as much here. Brad Pitt never bothered me as an actor - I think he's good not great, and if that was indeed him as the older Benjamin, then he definitely impressed me.

[shpants]

Posted: 12/29/08 at 4:36pm

I just saw the movie, and like others, liked it but didn't fall in love with it.

***SPOILER***

One part I didn't really understand - when Benjamin was born, he was the size of a baby, just a really old looking baby. When he died, he was a baby, with a baby face. I guess by that logic he should have died a full sized adult with a baby face...which I guess would have been hard to depict, but really interesting to see!

And yes, seeing Brad Pitt in his "teenage/twenties" years was nice. Too bad there wasn't more of that! :)

[sweetestsiren]

Posted: 12/29/08 at 6:34pm

I wondered about the aging, too. I get the idea of a parallel between the way you come into the world and the way you leave it, with getting smaller and feebler towards the end, but I had thought they'd have Benjamin regress towards infancy without shrinking to be the size of a baby. I was fine with the way he was born because speech/walking/etc. are products of experience, and he was really a baby experientially who had an old person's infirmities physically. If anything, it would have been logical for it to take longer than normal for him to develop the ability to speak.

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/29/08 at 7:02pm

Just saw this movie today. I posted my thoughts on Facebook, but I'll post them here as well. No real spoilers included:



I'm sure there are many deeply personal reasons why we are affected by certain movies. I'm at that halfway point in my life now and am fully aware of it. My parents are older now, and one is very ill. I can only tell you this before I also add that few movies have affected me the way this one did today. Not in many years. For me, it was poetry on film.

In general, I'm drawn to movies that tell stories. I love "tall tales," too. And I love F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote the short story that this is based upon.

Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett give solid and quietly astonishing performances. They let the story be the star here, and rightfully so. That is not to take away remotely from their work in the film. I was also very impressed with Tilda Swinton and Taraji P. Henson as Benjamin's mother Queenie.

David Fincher has done an outstanding job, directing Fitzgerald on film. It's a delicate balancing act, to be sure. I would be quick to add this is one of the most successful film adaptations of Fitzgerald's work to date. And it's a first-class production, throughout. From the mind-blowing makeup and realistic special FX, to the art direction, costumes, editing and music score.

I'm not sure I would say this movie is for everyone. I'm not sure I would say F. Scott Fitzgerald is for everyone, either. (Sad as it may be.) And for those not yet standing at the crossroads of time in their lives, not yet facing it for one reason or another, I can seem them fidgeting, or finding this "too long" or less impacting than I did. But for me, I will not soon forget this curious case.

Updated On: 12/29/08 at 07:02 PM

[pushdabutton]

Posted: 12/29/08 at 10:26pm

Well said best12bars! I couldn't agree with you more!