The Curious Case of Benjamin Button rocked my socks off

Seriously you need to go see this movie.
Brad Pitt is stellar, but his performance isn't even close to the best in the movie. I'm not sure if this has been discussed much on the running movie board, but I figured it deserved a thread of its own.

It made me laugh, cry, and then some...and there were no explosions and/or nudity. Great flick!

 

Judging from the running movie thread, this is one of those hate it or love it movies.

 

Not for me, bb. I didn't love it or hate it. I was very meh on it. I enjoyed it enough, but as I posted on the movies thread, it was Forrest Gump redux.

 

Gump is my least favorite Best Picture of all time... By miles.

I'm not a Pitt fan AT ALL.

But I make it a point to try to see all the Oscar stuff...

Ugh.

Do I have to?

 

Lugs: I enjoyed it fine. I cried a little bit. It was fine for a mindless movie.

But it's not the greatest thing I've ever seen. I wouldn't pay to see it again.

 

Speaking of Pitt, I watched the end of Se7en yesterday. Could his acting have sucked any worse in the climactic scene?

"Tell me what's in the box!" The way he said those words he should have been stomping his feet on the ground like a 4-year-old.

 

I liked it a lot, but I can see why lots of people wouldn't. It overtly plays on sentiments, which to me says the moviemakers view the audience as mindless sheep. Which I guess I was, at least Friday night.

Did you know I was struck seven times by lightning? Once while I was wiping dingleberries off my ass! Did anyone count those interludes? I wonder if they accounted for all seven. Not sure I'd sit through another 165 minutes to find out, though.

 

That was the best part of the movie, for whatever that says.

 

Well, look. From the perspective that it is a life-affirming movie, yes, it's good. Not a lot of movies are. One big, big problem with Revolutionary Road - even critics will tend to avoid it - is that you strain to discern the point of it, beyond recognizing that gender roles kinda sucked in the 50s. Once you acknowledge that, though, the movie pretty much goes about showing just how cloaked, stifled and miserable people were. I'm not sure that's very enlightening.

Ben Button has a point, and it's generally a good one, I suppose. It's the execution, script and secondary themes I rejected almost a half-hour into the movie.

It seems to have struck a chord with younger audiences (under 30) as much as it does the Baby Boomer set that it was obviously written for.

 

All I could think the final half-hour was what it would be like if my spouse had Alzheimer's.

 

Oh, the final half hour ticked me off. First, it has no logic, really. Second...well, my second argument would spoil details of the ending.

And by no logic I don't mean I was confused. I mean that how Ben exits the world is inconsistent, physically, with how he enters it. The more compelling - and troubling - visual is very different from the one we get. I thought Fincher would for sure try for it, but no.

 

THANK YOU!

That pissed me off too.