The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Cinesnob Delight (Spoiler Warning)

(I’ll have some spoilers later as I discuss some of the deeper themes of this movie, but I’ll let you know when they are coming)

So most of the reviews of this movie are coming in fairly mixed, and while it is not without fault, I can’t stop thinking about the themes and the choices made by it’s central characters. That’s when you know you’ve been captivated by a movie. David Fincher is a visual genius. I’ve been a fan ever since he broke out of the music video circuit with Alien3. His movies (Fight Club, Seven, Panic Room, Zodiac, The Game) are all considerably dark movies. They are filled with nihilism, death, fear, and a lot of trippy camera work. Fight Club still remains one of the most poignant studies of existential angst among genX males ever committed to film. In short…Fincher really knows how to speak to guys. Just like Stephanie Meyer has done with women (and my wife) with the whole Twilight series, he knows how to get at our core…what inspires us, what motivates us, and what we are afraid of. In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, he does it again. At first glance, one might not see the parallels between a high-falutin’, Oscar-baitin’, period sweepin’ epic light Button and a movie like Fight Club, with all it’s blood and subversion, but in truth, thematicaly, they are very similar. Both demand you to answer the question…what do you do with the time you’ve been given? Time is precious…and there is no sense wasting it all with propriety and duty when you should be truly living.

In Button, Brad Pitt plays a man who is aging in reverse, and, setting aside the dramatic aspect of that conceit for a moment, it is a process that I was very skeptical about how Fincher would be pull it off technically. Would they put kids in wrinkled latex makeup? Would they CGI Pitt’s face to someone? In fact, they do a mashup of the two…and it worked sublimely. Standing on the shoulders of Gollum, Bob Zemekis, and Speilberg, Fincher adds a new delicacy to the possibility of CGI to help tell a story. And while I’m speaking about the aging process, let me also say that what was done with Brad Pitt’s love interest Daisy was amazing as well. we see Daisy, played by Cate Blanchett, age from 8 to her 80’s. While various children handle her younger years, Blanchett inhabits her from the slender, porcelin faced ballerina of 23 to the pale, cancer striken ghost of 89 with complete believability. Her face at times digitally morphed onto the bodies of young women and brushed free of wrinkles, while other times, it is enhanced with the translucence that comes with age and a few rounds of chemo. The special effects work on this production is dripping from every shot, but it became seamlessly woven into the fabric of the narrative. While I am gushing about Fincher’s meticulous dedication to detail, let me also geek out for a moment on his method of using film treatment and digital coloring to match his shots to their time periods. While it was usually saved for montage type shots, notice when you watch how the film is processed to look old and scratchy when it’s narrative is in the early 1900’s and into the 20’s. Then later, in the 50’s, the film takes on that golden, warm saturation we see in the color movies from the 50’s. As the film moves into describing what Benjamin was up to throughout the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s…the footage looks almost like it was captured at that point in history with equipment available at that time. It’s a miniscule detail that I bring your attention to so that you can geek about it with me.

Beyond the technical prowess of the film is the overall theme of time.  Time is precious…so don’t waste it, but there is always time to make up for your mistakes, for your broken relationships.  (Here is where this might get a little spoiler-ish)  In using the device of aging backwards, there is always a sense of urgency within the love story of the two leads.  Benjamin and Daisy are technically the same age, and upon reaching adulthood, are close enough in their outward age to have a relationship.  Although I won’t explain how, they do end up spending the majority of their life together, so saying that it has a happy ending is really up to the viewer.  As Benajmin ages, and the his youth begins to wind him down, he makes a tough parental decision.  His decision made me more uncomfortable than any in the movie.  Jess hated his decision.  Me, I would not have had the strength to go through with his decision as it is as selfless and self-sacrificing as anyone could ever make.  I’ve been telling friends that if they are a husband and a father, they should take a box of kleenex.  Just as 10 years ago, Fincher knew how to speak to a generation of 20 somethings, he now knows just how to pull at the hearts of dudes in their 30’s.  Guys who are trying to be good providers, good dads, sometimes wondering if their life is what they had hoped, or if they have the energy to sustain it, or the strength to do what is right.  I was a wreck, dude.  I felt like the lights came up all too quickly as the credits rolled…wiping the puffy eyes and supressing the pain in my throat.  I know I sound like a wuss, but the story gripped me.

Also, from a purely historical standpoint, the movie is a love letter to the 20th Century.  I wonder how history will paint the 1900s.  It is an era apart from anything before it, and I believe we won’t see anything like it for sometime.  The world changed so much in the years between Benjamin’s birth and Daisy’s death…the movie is bookended by the end of World War I and Hurricane Katrina.  I found myself captivated that so many events and technolgical leaps brought the world into an age of flight, computers, information, communication, and medicine in such a short amount of time.

I am glad to have seen Benajmin’s journey and while his story is a ludicrous conceit, it is a rich study of human interraction and what it means to live.  Go see it.

Why no love for “Speed Racer?”

So, I went to see Speed Racer today with my five year old daughter. I didn’t go late at night with Jonny-Ri, I went on a date with my princess.  Before I went I read some reviews by simply typing the title into Google News and here is what you see: entry after entry about how much the movie sucked. It’s too bad really, because I had a great time. Sure, Cinesnob would think this movie is trifle, but he is asleep until September anyway (He might stretch his legs a little for The Happening) This movie IS creative, it IS groundbreaking, and it IS entertaining. If you don’t think that’s the case, then you probably have a point. I took my kid, and we had a blast. This is a kid’s movie, hence the PG rating, so don’t expect much more. Personally, I loved that the storyline was fairly straightforward and that it was so family affirming.

I asked my daughter while I was tucking her in tonight to give me some words to describe her experience. She said that she loved it because it was “really super exciting when they were racing, and the fighting was funny. Chim-chim was funny too!” (Chim-Chim is the family chimpanzee.) We talked about rating movies with thumbs up or down, and she gives it a thumbs up.

I give it a thumbs up too. I have no idea how they created the crazy saturation of color that permeated every frame. Along with a new focus technique that allows certain areas of the frame to be in our out of focus, the color gave the whole film the feeling of a kinetic comic book. The silly fight scenes, the sublime vaudeville score from composer It-man Michael Giacchino, and Roger Allam in the Tim Curry role of the big, rich, evil, baddie all contribute to a movie that is vastly watchable and entertaining.

Trust me. Go see it. Just don’t go with high expectations.

Fanboy Squeals while Cinsnob Scoffs

Will it suck? Probably
Will I go? Does the pope poop in the woods?

I am 11 again watching faces melt from Nazi’s

Remember this?  Yeah, me too, I can still hear the scream.  Especially the part where he gurgles on is own melting flesh.  The screaming baddie from Raider’s of The Lost Ark is so vivid in my mind because the first time I saw the movie, my mom wouldn’t let me watch this part.  “You can open your eyes when Indy does.”  So I heard the whole scene from Indy’s perspective.  He shouts “Whatever you do don’t open your eyes!”  Man I really wanted to open my eyes.  Of course when I saw it later I was mesmerized.

Earlier this year, when the new trailer for Indy 4 (I’m not linking dude, I’m lazy and you know how to use Google) hit the net, the hairs on my neck stood on end when the rousing John Williams trumpets began to play the familiar fanfare.  A fanfare that the Fanboy has sung from the top of his lungs many times while snapping his brother’s whip over the garage rafters and swinging with one hand on my fedora.

I am stoked about the new Indy on many levels.  There is plenty for both Fanboy and Cinesnob to want to rip his beating heart right out of his chest and feed it to the crocs.  On one hand, this is a conventional, popcorn, thrill a minute, action movie.  It is a formula that has been in place since the first film and in a way is a formula that some cinesnobs would point to as the very reason for the boring blockbuster summers we find ourselves in.  Fanboy eats that crap up though.

On the other hand, this is a movie made by three of the heaviest hitting, most creative guys on earth.  Harrison Ford may be a pain in the arse, but he loves and cares for his craft.  It is what makes him such a pain in the first place.  As for the other two guys, Speilberg and Lucas, are responsible for the way moviemaking of the last 30 years has been done.  They have led every frontier and have created images and stories that are as much a part of our cultural lexicon and identity as Shakespeare or Picasso.

Entertainment Weekly recently published a Q&A with these two and it is a sublime read.  They banter, argue, and get into pissing matches about who is more innovative.  Here is a snippet:

How much did George nag you to shoot film-free, with digital cameras, the way he did on the Star Wars prequels?
SPIELBERG: All through three years of preparation. It’s like he was sending these huge 88 [millimeter artillery] shells to soften the beach, y’know? He never swears at me. He never uses profanity. But he calls me a lot of names. And in his creative name-calling, he topped himself on this one, trying to get me to do this digitally.

What did he call you?
SPIELBERG: I guess the worst thing he ever called me was old-fashioned. But I celebrate that. He knows me like a brother. It’s true, I am old-fashioned.
LUCAS: I think the word ”Luddite” came into it. In a very heated discussion.
SPIELBERG: I said I wasn’t, I was Jewish! [Laughter]
LUCAS: The end of it is, I said, ”Look, Steve, this is your movie. You get to do it your way.” And in the end, I didn’t force Steven to do it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t pester him, and tease him, and get on him all the time.
SPIELBERG: It was all 35-millimeter, chemically processed film…. I like cutting the images on film. I’m the only person left cutting on film.
LUCAS: And I’m the guy that invented digital editing. But we coexist. I mean, I also like widescreen and color. Steven and Marty [Scorsese] have gone back and shot in black-and-white [on Schindler’s List and Raging Bull, respectively]. I don’t get on their case and say, ”Oh my God, this is a terrible thing, why are you going backwards?” I say, ”That’s your choice, and I can appreciate it.”
SPIELBERG: Eventually I’ll have to shoot [and edit] movies digitally, when there is no more film — and I’m willing to accept that. But I will be the last person to shoot and cut on film, y’know?

Read the rest here

I am stoked for this film.  Here’s for hoping for an experience worthy of the first facemelting.

10 things I learned from watching “No Country For Old Men”

10. Never laugh at someone’s bowl cut.

9. The bags under Tommy Lee Jones’ eyes could hold a pound of rice each.

8. Telling a border agent you are a Vietnam Veteran will get you back across the border, even if you are wearing nothing but a hospital gown and some boots.

7. Texans transport bodies from a crime scene on a flatbed truck by dudes that are dumber than a bag of hammers.

6. Boots are cool. The pointier, the sexier.

5. Woody Harrellson used to be a top-billed actor. Now he pops up in the strangest places.

4. Josh Brolin has come a long way for a Goonie.

3. In Coen world, (the quirky dimension cooked up by the Coen Brothers in movies like Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and O Brother) interesting old men pop up with interesting things to say at every turn. Then they are usually dispatched in a clever wide-shot.

2. If someone is walking towards you with an odd looking air tank with a thingamabob on the end. You no longer have to ask, “What’s that thing there?” You run.

1. Never, under any circumstances, work as a motel clerk at a cheap Texas motel. You’re dead for sure. It is especially hazardous if someone tips you a bloody Benjamin. Unless you are an annoying, overweight, old woman, then you’re safe.