The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I loved it and I thought the message was you can be anything/anybody you want to be :). One of the best of 2008 for sure.
 
i was reading up on the workflow cuz i'm a tech geek as i'm sure a lot of ppl on this forum are.

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/action/button/


i found it pretty insightful workflow wise and i found the comments on the editing absolutely true about the film. it was a VERY long film but everything moved along so smoothly. nothing dragged, and every cut was as tight as it could have possibly been. i'm very impressed with this film.

and as for the story, it's a fantasy, and i felt like it kept the fantasy mood very well. the story was just a person's life under unique circumstances. lots of philosophical messages can be talked about, but to me in essence it was something simple. and i'm the type that likes simple.
 
I too have to agree, that while it was a great story, great cinematography, great production design, I did not feel emotionally engaged in the film. My mind kept wandering and thinking about filmmaking, and the fakeness of the CG Brad Pitt face, and Cate Blanchett's photoshopped-perfect-makeup face. The score was also good, but it lacked a clearly defined theme. I love Alexandre Desplat's style; very classical, very complex, very beautiful. I tend to like scores with very clearly defined themes, where I can hear them once and immediately know what film they're from.
 
TheMacB said:
a beautiful movie with a lot of nice moments but no story. its like forrest gump without a message.
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Bingo.

This is the best way I can describe this film. I liked it, I liked alot, definitely not Fincher's best work, that title would go to (Se7en). But what made Fincher great in this, is the fact that he wasn't Fincher. He basically let the story tell its self without being the great master that he is as a director, which I wonder if he had added a litle Fincher-ish to it would it be that much greater... who knows, but knowing when to just let a story tells itself as a director, was the best thing he could of done for this film.

I absolutely love the cimatography, especially all the sequences in the Hotel in NY with Brad Pit and Tilda Swinton.

Yeah, there's plenty of things that could be picked out why this wasn't a great film, but why bother.... I'll stick with the things I thought made it good.

Can't wait for Fincher's next film, and I hope whatever it is, he brings the Fincher-ish back...lol
 
A great movie. I was astonished on what they did to Pitt.

Director did his job in this it seems, should he win an oscar I wouldn't be surprised. Let me re-phrase that- If he doesn't, I'd be very surprised.

Brad did an amazing job, and the rest of the cast did an amazing job to.

This is NOT my kind of movie, and I went in knowing that as well- But having given a chance to watch it, I'm very satisfied and glad that I did.

Very touching,

Robbie
 
Easily the best film of the year. Watching it reminded me that they don't make movies like this anymore.

Would have to disagree strongly with Mac about the message. The message was very clear and actually one of my favorite parts of the film. Go out and live your life to the fullest, no matter who you are, no matter the cards you've been dealt, no matter how late in life it is.

Now as far as the "story", true, there's no story to speak of here. Then again, this plays out like a biopic, in which you're experiencing someone's life, and therefore a traditional "story" isn't called for.
 
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TheMacB said:
a beautiful movie with a lot of nice moments but no story. its like forrest gump without a message.
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This is very encouraging to me... because the only "weakness" I felt in Forrest Gump... was the whole Jenny plot-line... and the even worse, final statement on AIDS... otherwise that would be one of my favorite movies of all time.

I like a good story... but I'd rather have no story, then a sermon injected into an otherwise enjoyable film. My .02
 
i think the aids/jenny thing in gump is the B-story. the point, to me, was about tolerance and acceptance.

button had a B-Story just like Gump. The Blanchet love story. For me, that's not enough to hold together all these episodes. I'm not looking for a sermon, and i think message was the wrong word. it just seemed like there was nothing driving this movie forward. certainly you can make a good movie without a plot. but in this one i wasn't given enough opportunities to predict what would happen next, and so the movie wasn't given enough opportunities to prove me wrong.

it also bugs me to see a movie about a man who ages backwards, which is nearly 3 hours long, and never even hints at an explanation of why he ages backwards.
 
The Jenny plot line in Forest Gump was the best the movie had to offer IMO, every great film deserves a love story and without that love for Jenny in Forest Gump, the movie would of just been good. but it was great. Back to Button, yeah it did feel like there was no point to the story, like you're just watching this guy live his life. It could of been much, much deeper.

Still worth seeing, if not for the story, then for the great direction and cinametography.
 
capitalP said:
The Jenny plot line in Forest Gump was the best the movie had to offer IMO, every great film deserves a love story and without that love for Jenny in Forest Gump, the movie would of just been good. but it was great. Back to Button, yeah it did feel like there was no point to the story, like you're just watching this guy live his life. It could of been much, much deeper.

Still worth seeing, if not for the story, then for the great direction and cinametography.
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Yup. And acting.
 
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TheMacB said:
it also bugs me to see a movie about a man who ages backwards, which is nearly 3 hours long, and never even hints at an explanation of why he ages backwards.
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How is that relevant to the theme, though? I don't think it is, and I'm actually glad they left it out.
 
just something i was curious about throughout the movie. why does he age backwards? i've never heard of anybody aging backwards before. in the world of this movie, are there other people who age backwards? or is he the only one? why do all the characters accept it so easily? i was expecting some kind of payoff. so when we got to the end and i didn't even get a hint i was a little disappointed.

btw, i didn't even realize it was the same writer as Gump!
 
yeah that's not enough for me. the character needs to want something and he has to actively try to get it. for me, benjamin didn't do enough, he wasn't proactive enough, everything just happened to him. he didn't need to do anything to get Cate. It just happened. the job on the boat just fell into his lap. if benjamin wanted anything enough that he actually had to work hard to get it, i think i would've liked it a lot more. i don't remember where i heard these questions but i think they have something to do with my issues with this movie:

-who wants what from whom?
-what happens if they don't get it?
-why now?

i liked this movie. but i thought it had a lot of weaknesses.
 
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i like how this the opposite from forrest gump.

both were simple men with extraordinary stories one with his age the other the man could do everything but still be a mental challenged. But Button stood back and watched those things happen to those around them, the lives they had, while forrest gump was the one that everyone one watched. I thought it was interesting that the same writer could be in both sets of shoes and tell us both different and interesting stories.
 
based on your posts, we can defenetly see that this is not your kind of movie but the argument on why did he age backwards, did you pay atention to the first part of the movie when the man builds the clock that goes backward, no spoilers but it has to do somewhat with that, remember that this is a fantasy with a hint of reality, I too wondered why nobody questioned what caused his condition and why did no one ever say " hey lets take you to the doctor and to the media because what you have is amazing" but at the end of the day I let go and just absorbed the film as a fantasy, amazing story :) just my .0002

TheMacB said:
yeah that's not enough for me. the character needs to want something and he has to actively try to get it. for me, benjamin didn't do enough, he wasn't proactive enough, everything just happened to him. he didn't need to do anything to get Cate. It just happened. the job on the boat just fell into his lap. if benjamin wanted anything enough that he actually had to work hard to get it, i think i would've liked it a lot more. i don't remember where i heard these questions but i think they have something to do with my issues with this movie:

-who wants what from whom?
-what happens if they don't get it?
-why now?

i liked this movie. but i thought it had a lot of weaknesses.
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I think the conflict was Benjamin vs. Himself (his condition) and his motivation was to find a place in a world despite his obvious difference.

And as aalleexx said, the movie did provide some explanation about why he aged backwards, and that was the clock thing in the beginning. I also really loved the last shot with the water flooding in on the old clock.
 
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