"If you think Scripture is telling you what you want to hear, take a long, hard second look."
- The Ancient Mariner
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
I admit it. I'm a Brad Pitt fan. (I feel like I'm special, because I became a fan listening to him read a Cormac McCarthy book before he was famous.) I like him so much that I enjoyed his other long epics. "Legends of the River", "Fall Runs Through It", and even "Meet Joe Black" where he plays the incarnation of death. (OK, I admit it, I liked Legends of the Fall and Meet Joe Black...)
And here he is again...playing a guy who dances with death.
The premise of a man who ages backwards intrigued me. I know that the Man-Child thing has been done before. (Big, Forrest Gump, and Robin Williams and Martin Short have done their versions.) But the execution on this one is creepy.
It's really a movie about death and death and life and death and death. (In that order.) In fact, a death seems to accompany every new stage in Benjamin's reverse life as he marches towards his own babyhood, which will be his death. It's weird knowing when he will die. Think about it. If you start your life at the end of your life, then you know where the end will be...at the beginning.
It's a love story...Benjamin is born as an old man. When he's just a few years old (7?) he meets a young girl. They become friends because mentally they are the same age.... As he grows younger physically and she grows older, they eventually "meet in the middle."
I don't know what's creepier: the fact that at the end and beginning of their lives, one is an old adult and the other is a young child, or the brothel scene.
It's been done before in movies. Some man decides that a young man needs to "become a man" and takes him to a brothel. But here the young man is mentally young, and physically old. I don't know what freaked me out more: that Benjamin was mentally a child when this was happening, or that he was physically an octogenarian. It managed to be yucky on at least two levels at the same time. Yipes.
Usually each scene skips a few years and you move with Benjamin as he grows up and grows young simultaneously. It's a pretty long slow process. On the upside, trying to figure Benjamin's chronological age versus his physical age can keep the viewer mentally occupied. At least it gives you something to do.
For me, watching people die, and progress towards death just wasn't any fun. Not that all movies have to be fun, but if it's going to be serious, it should at least be interesting. As an exploration of life and death, there really wasn't anything new here, unless you count the creepiness.
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Comments on "The Curious Case Of Watching Benjamin Button":
2. Bob Sacamento
- 09/29/2009 8:48 am CDT
You're not entirely alone here. I wouldn't call myself a Brad Pitt fan, exactly, but I have come to grudgingly admire his immense talent. I thought he was just Hollywood eye candy for chicks until I saw Twelve Monkeys. I had to admit it, the guy is probably one of the best actors working right now.
6. nhe
- 09/29/2009 12:07 pm CDT
gosh Evan, it has been a long time since I've seen Joe Black - I remember how realistic and jarring the hit-by-a-car scene was, and then it went downhill from there for me........I remember it being really long, and hating something non-redemptive about it, but I can't remember what it was.
7. Jared
- 09/29/2009 2:24 pm CDT
I remember talking about "Joe" with Phil and one of the founding Thinklings (Kenny) for a long time at work the day after we'd all seen it in the theater. I remember we didn't all have the same takes or same level of appreciation but we all decided it was significant that we were talking about it a lot. It certainly stuck with us. It gave us a lot to talk about. And that was one reason why I liked it. I couldn't forget it.
I'm kind of that way about "The Departed," which is clearly a better movie than "Meet Joe Black." But I still think about "Departed" all the time. Apart from how well acted, directed, written, whatever it was, it has stuck with me and won't let go. That's a sign of a significant movie, even if not a "good" one.
10. Michele
- 09/30/2009 8:49 am CDT
I'm watching "Button" little by little and am almost finished. It's very visual and beautiful, but pretty flat; The main characters (Daisy and Benjamin) seem to lack character--and the few that are interesting (his Mama and the Irish tug-boat captain) don't get much development.
I'm trying to figure out the "message" and it's alluding me.
Brad Pitt is one of those talented actors that just doesn't make movies that I love. Kate Winslett is the same; She's a wonderful actress, but every role I've ever seen her in, she portrays a woman I wouldn't care for in real life.
11. nhe
- 09/30/2009 9:27 am CDT
very well said Michele - I completely agree........Jared called it a beautiful meditation on valuing time (or something) - he waxed poetic on it and found some good qualities in it and almost had me convinced that I liked it.
I'm sure the good qualities are there, but sometimes the "good qualities payoff" just isn't worth the time invested in watching something with such flat characters (as you pointed out).
12. Michele
- 09/30/2009 10:44 am CDT
Yep, just finished it and I want my 2 hours back. Ha, The Thinklings are masters at finding "redemptive themes". They could discuss the phone-book and find "Christ-figures", etc. Their minds just click that way.
Strange how his dad was named "Button" and made buttons, wasn't it? Also, I keep wanting to call it "The Curious Case of Benjamin BRATT" or "Benjamin BUNNY". I've had the hardest time witht he title.
13. Shrode
- 09/30/2009 2:49 pm CDT
OK, OK, I admit it. I liked "Meet Joe Black". I liked it a lot. I was just reaching in my intro to think of slower paced Brad Pitt movies that involve death. (I liked Legends of the Fall too.) I wrote what I wrote partly on the assumption that most people didn't like "Meet Joe Black." It's been a looooooooooong time though.
Thanks for challenging me Jared. :) I think I'm going to have to watch it again.
I only remember 3 things:
1-the shocking car accident (I've used that as a sermon illustration. Whoa did that rock my world. I still remember it well.)
2- Brad Pitt as death eating peanut butter for the first time. That was awesome.
3-Brad Pitt as Death saying a really big word to Anthony Hopkins in a terrific chewing out scene at the end. I wish I could remember the word. It wasn't misanthropic, but it was like that.
Leave a Comment:
I saw it a while ago, and since I was equally bored as you were, I don't remember much. I do think I found the same things interesting that you did, and not much else.........the scenes with Tilda Swinton in the hotel were soooo boring and pointless.
I did find A River Runs Through It and Legends of the Fall far more interesting. But Meet Joe Black is probably on my bottom 5 all-time list.
After watching Pitt on Bill Maher last month (talking about how wonderful pot is and bashing Christianity) its hard for me to be a fan.