THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

When I first started to go through this reversal of aging film I was skeptical. I knew right away that this was a story adapted from F. Scott Fitzgerald. From what I recall about that book things don’t go so well. I also did not recall the book talking about the mother after this monster birth of a 5 foot 2 one hundred pound man. Once out Button proceeds to grow in reverse. He gets younger while all of those around him get older. The story is quite tragic.

As the movie progresses and follows the life of Mr. Button, he grows from this delicate man into a Brad Pitt sized person, and one we quite recognize. The movie follows his life from his “childhood” years in New Orleans, through his employment as a ship hand, his affair with a diplomat’s wife (played by Tilda Swinton) and his pursuit of the love of his life, Daisy (Cate Blanchett).

Every couple of years Brad Pitt comes out with these epic sort of movies and movies with really long titles, whether it beAssassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford,Meet Joe Black, Seven Years In Tibet and probably a couple of others, and the one thing they all seem to have in common is that they really are not that good. Or at least the don’t live up to the hype that surrounds a Brad Pitt movie. I always find that Pitt excels in a lot of the smaller roles he plays, whether it be Mickey in Snatch, Floyd inTrue Romance or Rusty inOcean’s Eleven. It’s those long-ass movies that just haven’t done it for me. It’s not necessarily his performance, just the movie in general.

For about half the movie whenBenjamin is a little old man, there is little to recognize of the buff and dreamy Brad Pitt as we normally know him. You may want to think it is another actor. Funny what special effects and all that other technology can do. To be fair, Pitt does a fair amount of good acting that helps you suspend your disbelief. As Benjamin does start becoming more physically in view to the Brad Pitt we know, the women in the audience come to life. The moments in his life that we peer into are well chosen and Pitt does a better than Pitt job to make the character live for the audience.

In the end, I will say that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a well made movie. It’s quite the ride through the life of this alluring old man. The film draws the inevitable comparisons with the similar style of Forrest Gump andBenjamin Button does have that Forrest Gump feel to it.Gump could arguably be the crowning glory of Tom Hanks‘ career. Benjamin Button has the potential, especially now with the Oscar nominations and other awards, to have the same effect on Brad Pitt and his career path. Benjamin Button is certainly one of the best movies of the year and definitely a nice feather in the cap for Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, director David Fincher, and even Shiloh Jolie-Pitt. Yep, the baby near the end of the movie, not the Benjamin Button baby, is Shiloh. I’m not really sure what that means.

* As for the movie poster, I think they are well done. I am especially drawn to the one that has Pitt as the single face and the lettering on the poster is reversed. All of the versions of the posters I have seen so far are headshot oriented.

UPDATE – February 12, 2009:
During the week of February 12, 2009 the productions company launched BenjaminButtonFX.com, a website that reveals some of the secrets behind the visual effects magic that was used to create The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. From a man aging backwards, to a city’s development over decades, the website features a bunch of different interactive displays of how the visual effects magic was created. The website is fun to play around on but really only if you like the movie a little, or Brad Pitt. Who knows why the site took so long to get running. They would have done much better with a more timely release of the website.

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The Smith family is a typical bored married couple. They lead their lives fairly separately but scheduled and regimented. Their respective phones ring and we find out that they are agents hunting leads and they are leading a secret life. Their next mission – kill each other.

There are some great fight scenes in the film but the best are between Angolini and Pitt.In the later parts of the film they are forced to team up to stay  alive. We find out what kind of agents they are. Funny scenes abound. And more explosions happen.

In the end this is a good movie. I like it, not because it is such a shooting film, but because their chemistry is so good it is very easy to buy into the characters that Jolie and Pitt worked so hard for us to watch. The actors are so comfortable that their acting is natural. ***/****.

I like the poster plan here. There are about 14 different versions that I like. There are loads of posters where one is there and the other one not, or the simulation that one is there and the other is not. My favorites are the ones where they are together since that is what I’m spending my movie money on. 

There are movie posters coming out all the time by studios and design shops hired out by from all over Hollywood. From kinopoisk come international posters for The Horsemen, Easy Virtue, Seven Pounds and Marley & Me. International never cease to amaze me with their twist on the U.S. versions. Wil Smith’s is really a well lit photo poster that we won’t be able to see in the States. And the dog! More important than the people stars! Wow, I really want to see this one, NOT.

 The American version of Seven Pounds just bores me. But when you stack it next to the new Russian design above it looks like a movie that might actually get my seven bucks. Of course where would we be without the new Valkyrie film offering from Tom Cruise. Usually just mentioning his name makes me queezy but since the film messes with history I’m bound to go and see it. So far all the posters for the movie have been decent.   Stacking up with Wil Smith’s headshot poster is Brad Pitt’s Benjamin Button.  I know, let’s turn the letters around backward and that will suddenly make it different from any other headshot of a poster. It’s sort of like – who is the better looking guy. If Brad was made up a tad more I might think this shot came straight out of Time or People magazines.