New ‘Benjamin Button’ Stills!

OK…another oldie but a goodie…me likes this one a lot :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USbiYQr1vtw&feature=related

I can’t wait to see this film!!!!

variety review of ccBB @ 11/24/2008 at 2:01 pm

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” represents a richly satisfying serving of deep-dish Hollywood storytelling. This odd, epic tale of a man who ages backwards is presented in an impeccable classical manner, every detail tended to with fastidious devotion. An example of the most advanced technology placed entirely at the service of story and character, this significant change-of-pace from director David Fincher poses some daunting marketing challenges, even with Brad Pitt atop the cast. Strong critical support will be needed to swell interest in this absorbing, even moving, but emotionally cool film, which is simultaneously accessible and distinctive enough to catch on with a large public if luck and the zeitgeist are with it.

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117939098.html?categoryid=2880&cs=1

cr. jjb
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film/reviews/article_display.jsp?&rid=11986

Film Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
By Kirk Honeycutt
Nov 24, 2008

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

The fantasy element in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 short story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” in which a man ages backward, does not begin to suggest the urgent drama and romantic fatalism that director David Fincher and writers Eric Roth and Robin Swicord have so strikingly brought to the screen in the movie version.
Fitzgerald’s story is little more than a plot gimmick. Yet the film transforms this gimmick into an epic tale that contemplates the wonders of life — of birth and death and, most of all, love.
Superbly made and winningly acted by Brad Pitt in his most impressive outing to date, the audience for this Paramount/Warner Bros. co-production is large. Strong boxoffice should ensue.
Although hard to pigeonhole, “Benjamin Button” comes closest to Latin American magic realism, which juxtaposes the fantastic with the realistic. The film shares elements with another Roth-written film, “Forrest Gump,” wherein a most unusual man sets out on an odyssey through 20th century American history. But Fincher, an unusual but winning choice as director, makes certain that “Benjamin Button” has none of the whimsy or coy historical revisionism of “Gump.”

Even the framework for the story underscores that there are forces within nature that man can’t control. Daisy (Cate Blanchett), a dying woman in a New Orleans hospital, gives her daughter (Julia Ormond) a memoir to read as Hurricane Katrina bears down on the city. The memoirist is none other than Benjamin (Pitt), born on the day of victory in Europe in 1918.

He was, he writes, “born under unusual circumstances.” He’s a baby that looks like a failing man in his 80s with poor eyesight, brittle bones and wrinkled flesh. His mother dies giving birth and his father (Jason Flemyng) abandons him, fittingly, at an old-age home. A maternal black woman, Queenie (Taraji P. Henson), who runs the place, takes him in and raises him in the one environment where he can pass unnoticed.

He truly fits in among blacks and people old and forgotten by time. Everyone is an outsider here. As a somewhat younger old man, he meets Daisy as a small girl (Elle Fanning) visiting an ancient relative. Their friendship will last both of their lifetimes — though ones moving in opposite directions — and will evolve into romance and passionate love.

Much keeps them apart though as Daisy pursues a career in ballet while Benjamin, once he gets a handle on what’s happening to him, is a man who will never feel comfortable in his own skin. The job on a tug boat with its hard-drinking pilot (Jared Harris) takes him to Russia and an affair with a British spy’s wife (Tilda Swinton) and then into naval action in World War II.

After the war, Daisy’s career takes off. She also can’t quite make up her mind about involvement with a man growing younger each year. But when commitment comes, contentment, brief though it might be, ensues.

Benjamin’s story is preceded by Daisy’s recollection of a watch maker (Elias Koteas) who, having lost his beloved son in World War I, made a clock for the New Orleans train station that ran backward so that time might move the same way and his boy would come back to him. Thus, narratively and thematically, the film positions time running backward as part of man’s eternal desire to cheat death and to cling to those closest to us.

Pitt’s Benjamin is a touching and poignant figure, a person often lost within his own life but with a comic spirit that allows him to accept his backward fate. Blanchett illuminates the screen with a beauty and intelligence that makes Benjamin’s pursuit of Daisy as much a quest for life as for love. As the adoptive mother, Henson embodies the essence of a good woman who derives her strength from God and her instincts from common sense.

Fincher’s direction is sure-handed during the entire 166 minutes, which never feels long or pretentious. The film takes Donald Graham Burt’s brilliant period design in stride, never overemphasizing it or lingering on an artifact. Claudio Miranda’s cinematography wonderfully marries a palette of subdued earthy colors with the necessary CGI and other visual effects that place one in a magical past.

# 80 dina #1 @ 11/25/2008 at 7:12 pm

Has anyone seen any reviews of Marley & Me or any of the other movies opening around the time CCBB is opening? It seems strange that CCBB is the only one being reviewed so heavily. I hope some start coming out soon. Peace

+++++++++++++++++++

Dina -

I haven’t seen any reviews of the dog flick and don’t expect to until shortly before it comes out. All the movie sites are concentrating on the movies with Oscar buzz…which the dog flick don’t got! BBBWWWWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Other Oscar caliber movies coming out in the next month that are getting great reviews - The Reader, Milk, Slumdog Millionaire,Doubt and The Wrestler.

Movies getting very mixed reviews - Grand Torino, Revolutionary Road (one guy actually detested Leo in the role of the husband).

One movie coming out the week before CCOBB - Will Smith’s Seven Pounds - I haven’t seen any buzz about this movie or seen any reviews.

One movie coming out the day AFTER CCOBB - InFuggy’s homey’s “Valkyrie” - I haven’t seen any buzz about or reviews of either…just a whooooooooooole lot of snickering…

jesdanaz @ 11/25/2008 at 8:57 pm
Yessss I did , I’ve been meaning to thank you ..now that I have his name ‘Darryn Lyons’ aka Mr. Paparazzi it should be easiar to find. I did find articles talking about how they followed Brad and got lucky and was their most lucrative papz. pix..but they also got lady D’s pix. when she had the fatal accident…. which makes me sick… I need to find the video..which I haven’t really hunted for yet ..but having his name and his companies name Big Pictures, makes it much easiar…many thanks :-)

for lylian ONLY<

# 108 …..I genuinely believe what Alan Greenspan said was true - Bush should have either cut spending or raise taxes. When Bush entered the white house, he entered with a budget surplus. Over the course of his administration, the budget surplus became a huge budget deficit. As this equation changed, I believe he should have adjusted his economic policy. Say what you will of Alan Greenspan, I see him, like I see Colin Powell, as a very fine public servant and statesman. I don’t believe Greenspan lied when he wrote in his book, Age of Turbulence, that he asked Bush to cut spending.
=====================================
How do you know cut spending or raise taxes should be the course of action for Bush?

Just because Greenspan said so doesnt mean it’s a wise move.

Remember Greenspan pretty much created the sub prime mess. He let the interest rate stay too low and too long.

Also, did you know by the time Clinton left office, he gave Bush a beginning-to-go-south-economy. May be Bush should have cut EVEN deeper on taxes and increase EVEN more spending to STIMULATE the economy, pretty much like your beloved Obama is going to do.

You keep talking about the deficit. But part of the deficit is because of the 2 wars. True, Clinton had a surplus. But there was NO 9/11 during Clinton’s reign.

You post also said, “…….Bush has finished his term and time will allow all of us to better judge his administrations successes and failures more clearly in 20 to 50 years time.”. But, lylian, you waste no time in bashing him INCESSANTLY !!!! Not only that, you made fun of Palin’s passort. Apparently, you equate travel experience to grasp of foreign policy knowledge. To me, , you must be “on a roll” , writing posts to destroy the other candidate that you got sloppy in your thinking.

Momoji, one last time. I have criticised Bush policies not him personally. But the door is still open for me to wake up one day and say “I was wrong about Bush”.

Sarah Palin? LOL. Let’s not get into that or we will never end. If I did equate her lack of a passport to lack of grasp in foreign policy (which I don’t recall doing but let’s just say I did), then I was only half right. The other piece of the jigsaw was own her statements to Katie Couric about being able to see Russia from her Alaska!!!

Fini, fini, fini. We can argue till kingdom come and I don’t want to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Ucd1iohqo&feature=related

it has been a long time,just saying hello to all the regulars,miss you guys

Thank you guys for your support re my video.

Remake “you’re still the one”

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=b-rV53XSRwo&fmt=18

BB lurking.

I am pissed. Youtube pulled the Brad on Oprah videos. The only one left is the one of the tattoo fan by Aileen. Thank God, because I really like that segment.

an oldie @ 11/25/2008 at 10:42 pm

++++++++++++++++
Just wait for LLm/butterfrui. she’ll post it again . . .hopefully . . .
but you can read the transcript at Bradpittwatch.com