Skip to main content

Benjamin Button is curiously good!

Of all of Fincher's films, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is clearly his most emotional work to date.

The story follows the life of one Benjamin Button - a man whose birth was both a miracle and disaster. He was mysterious born as an old man and soon discovers that he's aging backwards. The movie follows his life as he comes across new adventures and experiences along with the challenges of being different from everyone around him.

The story is loosely adapted from F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story of the same name. I say loosely because although the concept of a man aging backwards is used, almost everything else was changed. Not a bad thing at all - I was wondering how they were going to expand a 14 page story into a nearly 3 hour film (I'm still meaning to write a review on his short stories book).

Brad Pitt and David Fincher together is just money. They've had many successes in the past with Se7en, Fight Club, and now with Benjamin Button. There is a chemistry between the actor and director in this pairing that just works.

Cate Blanchett plays the love interest to Brad Pitt's Benjamin. There are few women in Hollywood who evoke elegance and beauty the way that Cate does... that on top of her accomplished acting experience (Nicole Kidman also comes to mind).

The movie is well done in terms of all the effects, sets, costumes and music to create the atmospheres of the past. The storytelling itself is also quite moving. It was kind of funny near the end during a sequence of scenes that are quite sad and weepy. During the moments of silence we could hear all the women in the theater sobbing. I whispered this to my sister and brother, and all three of us laughed quietly. Yes... we're dicks.

Of my three favourite Fincher movies, I'd have to rank Button second to Se7en but ahead of Zodiac.

Check it out if you can, it's quite an intriguing movie. Later geeks.

Comments

Kevin said…
What did you think of Pitt's acting on its own. Do you think his celebrity changed some critic's perceptions of his talent (or lack of it?)
The Lam said…
I've always thought he was a good actor. In this case he carried the whole show basically on his own. So much more credit to him for that.

Popular posts from this blog

Mark Waid's IRREDEEMABLE (Issues #1-7)

(Note: be warned that this review is on the spoiler heavy side, so read at your own discretion if you don't want the story spoiled.) Since I was a teenager, I always had this dream that I would become a quirky movie director and I'd make a bunch of crappy little horror movies to start with, but that my first big movie would be this anti-superhero movie. I dreamed up of an Apocalypse Now -like movie using existing Marvel superheroes where Captain America would go mad, slaughtering the innocent and go into hiding somewhere 'up the river'. There would be a detective like character (possibly superhero) that would be after him, interviewing his former teammates to find out what made the all-American hero go mad. Imagine my surprise when I started reading Irredeemable . Although not exactly the story in my dreams, it's pretty close. I started reading the series this past weekend upon the glowing review that those geeks over at iFanboy put up a few weeks ago. As far a

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3!!!!!!!!!!!! (PS4)

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is Activision’s latest entry into the bestselling Call of Duty franchise.  Developed by Treyarch Studios, the Black Ops subseries of Call of Duty games has been considered by many as the best of the COD games.  Whereas Black Ops 1 and 2 were direct sequels, BO3 seems only to be a spiritual sequel to its predecessors.  There is no direct or clear continuation of story from the previous entries.  Rather it takes the ideas of mind control and manipulation, and spins off its own story. It’s a futuristic world, where humans are infused with technology (much like Robocop!) and fight alongside and against robots.  This time around, you assume the role of an unnamed soldier, who together with your partner Hendricks and a CIA agent named Rachel Kane, track down a former Black Ops commander named John Taylor as he and his former squad appears to have gone rogue destroying CIA sites around the world.  The story will take you to Singapore, Egypt and ev

The League of Denial (2013)

The topic of concussions in sports is a dialogue that’s been growing the past number of years.  Do a search on ‘concussions’ and ‘football’ and you’ll get several thousand hits on the controversy that’s surrounded the sport.  It’s a challenging topic as the research is all relatively new, and the topic itself challenges the mentality and philosophy adopted by football loving Americans.  Now, I’m not a fan of football or NFL but when I saw this book lying at the local bookstore, my interest was piqued.  Although I’m not a fan of football, those that know me know that I’m an unabashed fan of prowrestling.  Talks about concussions are also quite a hot topic even within the prowrestling sub-culture.  Earlier this year, one of the hottest wrestlers of the current era, Daniel Bryan, retired early at the age of 34 due to a history of concussion related issues.  Interestingly, he was not permitted to return to the ring due to the disapproval by WWE’s medical director – a doctor by the name