The Curious Case of a Best Picture Nominee

Curious is how I describe how I even went to see "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Having seen the CGI-laden trailer and knowing full well that the movie was about four days long, I had little interest. But, the other night, I had gone over to the neighborhood mall's food court for some Chinese food. Walking off the chicken and mushrooms, I sauntered past the movie multiplex and noticed that this film was playing in ten minutes. Okay, I thought, it did get a dozen or so Oscar nominations. Maybe I should.

And I did. Rationalization as provided by the Century City Westfield shopping center.

Looking back, I might have been better off with "Paul Blart, Mall Cop."

There are certain movies that I wish I was able to bring a laptop into the theater, so I could write down all the comments that start to ping pong around my head while the film unspools. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is just one of those cinematic events that sends you reeling in such a fashion.

All the way to Celluloid Hell.

Don't get me wrong. This is a well-made movie. All the money is on the screen. Wonderful locations. Special effects. Make-up designed to really showcase the aging process. And I'm sure Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett cost a few greenbackerinos to boot.

It's a shame nobody bothered to spend more 73 cents on the story. I've already posted how this movie dovetails the plot elements of "Forrest Gump," but simply does so backwards. Indeed, screenwriter Eric Roth has his name on both movies, so, obviously, Roth hasn't come up with another original thought since 1994. This is the same movie except it's incredibly more confusing. And it reminds me of the old Joan Rivers joke about her husband filming her while she was in labor. "Okay, let's run it backwards so we can make the baby go back in." Probably those home movies would have produced a more compelling tale than this sewer back-up.

You know the tale. Button is born as an old man and goes in reverse until, as a newborn, he dies. Meanwhile, the love of his life, Daisy, goes the more conventional route and the two of them get hot and heavy somewhere in the middle. Yawn. I realized that I spent a lot of my time in the theater doing math in my head. Okay, if Benjamin is fifty, how old is Daisy? If Daisy is thirty-five, how old is Benjamin? This is not a movie. It's a third grade word problem. I shouldn't have to come to a theater with an Excel spreadsheet.

Some people must think a lot happens along this journey, but they also must be the same folks who like to watch how much lint accumulates in the dryer catch-all. Brad Pitt doesn't really show up for the first forty-five minutes. Instead, as an old man, I think they photoshop his made-up-to-be-shriveled head onto some old footage of midget actor Billy Barty cruising on his yacht. Meanwhile, this life story is being read from Button's diary (and Brad's lifeless voiceover narration) to Daisy, who is obviously an eighty-year-old woman ravaged by cancer. Except as I watched this swill, I was the one looking for the buzzer to signal my nurse to up the morphine, please. At the same time, while Daisy is slipping away, you are made aware that, outside of this New Orleans hospital, Hurricane Katrina is about to hit. What the hell this has to do with a short story that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote eighty years ago is totally beyond my salary level.

All the while, you know these two knuckleheads are going to die, so you start wishing for it to happen. In the movie finale I was constructing in my head, I wanted Daisy to live long enough so that Hurricane Katrina could float her hospital bed all the way to Biloxi. Now that would have gotten my interest. And perhaps the attention of the people who were all snoring around me.

Having seen several of Brad Pitt's performances, I can tell you that he's not a bad comedic actor. But, when confronted with drama, he has all the presence of the lector reading this week's Psalm at the Baptist church Pitt used to go to back in Missouri. When he strains to be poignant with a line, he comes off sounding like, "Hi, this is Burger King, may I take your order?"

Director David Fincher also should be thrashed for his unwieldy attempts to end this movie. A good dramatic film usually has one or two moments that are designed to put your heart in your throat. Fincher is not content with that. Over the last hour of the movie, he tries to do this over and over with one melodramatic scene after another. The movie seemingly concludes about twenty different times and you are numb by the end. It's sort of like going to a memorial service where there are 50 people scheduled to speak. After a while, you run out of things to say about the dearly departed. By the last speaker, you're liable to hear something like "Well, I'm just happy to say that Uncle Phil never threw up on my shoes."

I'm thinking that all the attention and fervor for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is coming from the younger audiences. Finally, their CGI and video game worlds are combined with some seemingly important life lessons. But, in what they perceive as a deep film, I can tell you that the impact it makes is no more than my footprint on a newly shampooed rug. If there are enough Oscar voters under 30, Button will probably win Best Picture. But, I'm hoping there's another voting bloc of the oldtimers. You know, some old studio production guy named Sol Schwartz, who'll chomp on his pastrami sandwich at Nate N'Al's and say, "They think this is a good movie, those goddamn stupid pishers?"

As I staggered out to my car, another film formed in my head. Benjamin goes overseas and hooks up with a sultry Italian prostitute.

"The Curious Case of Benjamin's Battona."

Epilogue: there is a happy end to this grim tale. And you will read all about it tomorrow.

Dinner last night: Salami on sourdough roll.