Topic: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

[ScaryTooth]

Trailers

I really can't wait to see this movie. I'm going to try and catch it on Christmas day. I've heard nothing but praise so far.

[iPPi]

I too am really excited about this movie.  It should be really good.

[Quemaqua]

Why so excited?  It looked potentially interesting from the previews, but I didn't get a "I must get to the theater for this" vibe from it.

[ScaryTooth]

Went to go see it tonight. Just got back actually. Oh man, what a great movie. It was really moving, thought provoking, touching, funny, and also sad. Great acting, it was shot beautifully. Probably one of my favorite movies of the last ten years. I'm going to try to go see it again this weekend. Do yourself a favor and go see it. 

[MysterD]

This movie does look cool. I do want to see this, but I'll probably wait until DVD.

[Cobra951]

This really is good, even if the premise makes me scratch my head.  It's serious drama, not comedy or light fairy tale.  The aging backwards seems incongruous with everything else, particularly how it's taken in stride by everyone aware of it.  What's it trying to say?  I couldn't figure it out, other than a device to fuel the human drama.  But the movie is, like life, a journey, and a very worthwhile one, even if the destination isn't.

[MysterD]

Can't wait to see this, as it comes on DVD on Tuesday.

[MysterD]

This really is good, even if the premise makes me scratch my head.  It's serious drama, not comedy or light fairy tale.  The aging backwards seems incongruous with everything else, particularly how it's taken in stride by everyone aware of it.  What's it trying to say?

I loved the movie.

I think there's a whole bunch of stuff this flick is taking on, in different stages of the flick -- which is what I think we can expect from something that was taken, inspired, remade, and modernized from the mind of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
SIDE NOTE: I read The Great Gatsby in High School and did love it. I never read Ben Button short story, though.

Okay, back to the Button flick...
Here's some thoughts of mine from the movie....

Early On

(click to show/hide)

I think the whole ordeal w/ the lead-girl and Benjamin early on (when he was looking about 80, yet he was really young) was taking on OLD guys chasing after VERY young girls. Just look at the reaction of the mom, for example. LOL.

Also, one of the funniest things in the flick is when Ben goes to the brothel at his VERY young age, while still hiding from most that he's really young (despite looking like he's a 80 year old) -- and winds up having sex at a very young age! Some people do not at ALL look their age -- whether they look older or look younger than what their age actually is.

Theme

(click to show/hide)

And yes, one of the themes I think is -- not everything is what it really seems. Ben might look old, but he definitely isn't -- even though he's treated as what he looks like. Vice versa is true, as well -- Ben was really old, but he basically turned literally into a baby -- and is treated as such. The film is...quite backwards.

Late In The Film

(click to show/hide)

I think when Ben was looking young, but really was extremely old was taking on the subject of how when people become older, you really become more like a child -- and loved ones do end up having to take care of you as such.

I couldn't figure it out, other than a device to fuel the human drama.

I do think it's ALSO a device to fuel the drama -- but, I think it goes way beyond just that, as I'm explaining in this post.

But the movie is, like life, a journey, and a very worthwhile one, even if the destination isn't.

Exactly. I think that's how most people's lives end up, myself.

Ben and Daisy

(click to show/hide)

Look at how, pretty much, as much as Benjamin and Daisy do meet-up and (finally) get together in the "middle" years, when Ben and her actually look the same age. But, like most things in life, as much as these two do belong together, they never will be...

[Raisa]

it makes me wonder if the author had to care for his grandparents or parents in their old age.

[ScaryTooth]

Okay, now that some time has past, and I've seen the movie again.

I like the movie. It's good, but after watching it again, I thought..."eh, Ive seen this before..years ago..when it was called "Forest Gump"....

(click to show/hide)

Kid without a dad born with birth defects...check
A caring Mom that believes he has great potential...check
Both are unable to walk...but then one day...check
Both meet the love of their life as a child and then they part ways...check
Both end up traveling the world...check
Both of their lives intersect with key historical points of the 1900's...check
Both end up going to war...check
Both end up saving the day singlehandedly...check.
Both hang out with a drunken old sea guy...check
Both end up going home and find out that there mother is dying...check
Both end up inheriting wealth...check
Both end up reunited with the "Love of their life"...check
They bone, and she gets pregnant...check
They part ways again...check
Later they are reunited...check

Autism = Aging backwards
Feather = Humming bird

We can go on...heh. It seems as though, Eric Roth is a one trick pony.

I mean, the movie is still pretty good, and I enjoyed it. But it isn't something I can watch over and over. Maybe every couple of years or something. But I don't think it's as good as I initially thought.

[MysterD]

What was first -- Forrest Gump or F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story of Button?
Was Forrest Gump ever a book first before the flick?
If so, how old's the book?
(No sarcasm, I'm seriously asking this, y'all.)

And is Button movie much different from the book?

EDIT:
Looks like Gump was a 1986 novel.
So, Fitzgerald's short story had to be first.

Now I wonder how much different Button book was from the flick.
I'm sure the Katrina stuff wasn't there in the book...heh.

[Cobra951]

Forrest Gump is a 1994 American comedy-drama film based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom.

C'mon, D.  Get with the century. 

[MysterD]

Forrest Gump is a 1994 American comedy-drama film based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom.

C'mon, D.  Get with the century. 

You beat me on my edit, hehe.

[Cobra951]

Your edit was already there when my post came up, so not by much.

[MysterD]

Your edit was already there when my post came up, so not by much.

Seriously?
I thought you beat me to it, barely...

[Pugnate]

So I just saw it with my mother as she spent half the time on bejeweled. I liked it to a degree, but she didn't at all.

I thought the makeup and special effects work was spectacular, and the movie's gimmick was interesting, but it didn't have as great an impact on the story as it should have, to have set the movie apart in our minds at least.

Let me put it this way... is it possible that the movie could have played out very similarly had there been no reverse aging gimmick? Here is another question. Removing the gimmick, was the rest of the movie as interesting or as sharp as you'd want?

One thing is for sure. With this, Milk, and Slumdog the three nominees for best picture that year, I don't think it was a brilliant year for movies that year. They were three good movies, but I doubt they would have been serious contenders most other years.