The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a beautiful picture book devoid of any conflict or character development.

Fitzgerald’s story is an odd beast. It is an exploration of mortality and the shortcomings of being human and how we deal with those. It uses an interesting narrative structure to tell its story, giving shape to a very interesting protagonist. These themes are often dealt with in literature and here, as is often the case, so much gets lost in the…

Criterion Collection Spine #476
Through the Eye of Criterion

'Did you know that I was struck by lightning seven times?"

I might sound repetitive, but Fincher films are so freaking re-watchable! every one of his film gets better every time I re-watched them, is insane!

"Did I ever tell you I was struck by lightning seven times?
Once when I was in the field, just tending to my cows."

'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' is a peculiar story, the…

Led by the ever great Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button delves into the peculiar life of the titular character and how his condition changes those around him. Fincher crafts an ambitious film that questions human nature and the world, and why life itself is a blessing. As much as one can praise Pitt and Blanchett, the technical works shouldn’t go overlooked. Films rarely use tech-work to enhance a story and its characters as Fincher…

I would do a long review, as I'm trying to do more of them now, but this movie was nearly 3 hours long, and I need to go to sleep.

The best way to sum it up is emotion by numbers, so cliched and constructed, with paper thin characters (gospel black family, drunk irish, ballet dancing girl next door type, the list goes on) shoved into a premise which ostensibly barrels towards an ineveitble tragedy, touching on the ever reliable…

Button grows younger the older he gets, and so–like dolly zoom Vertigo effect for the soul, zooming one way as it tracks the other–so does Button the film read the history of a lifetime front to back and back to front all at once, transmuting the memory of a century into something the healthy might resist but which invalids impaired by this disease called cinephilia could hardly be immune to: a lifetime turned upside down and run backwards, as melancholy…

I can see why people may take issue with this film. Compared to Fincher's other work this was a much more straight forward approach to the way he had filmed, and it is a pretty basic story. Abandoning his fancy camera trickery for more of an open concept of filming I honestly didn't miss his signature traits here. The cinematography in this film is quite beautiful, and it looks great! I especially like the flashback aesthetic he uses with the…

I can completely understand why this isn't more popular - it's a long, deliberately paced sit for a very straightforward story, and Alexandre Desplat's beautiful score (one of my favorites in recent years) also works as a lullaby. That said, I think it works beautifully if one focuses on the way Fincher tells the story through images rather than Eric Roth's structurally sturdy but admittedly conventional script. A professor of mine pointed out that, in the works of Camus (and,…