"If you see only one version of Forrest Gump this year..."

Truly amazing criticism. Don't you just love the Internet?

...yeah, that's pretty accurate.

I did like "CCBB." I'm still not entirely sure how much--I want to revisit it on DVD. I enjoyed it in the theatre, but some time after I left I found myself wishing it were more. I noticed the Gumpian elements right away (although not all of them); I wonder if some of the gee-whiz adventure (and some of the comedy surrounding the slow man-child) goes against the dark meditations on death and dying, rather than enhancing it. But if you're going to steal from "Gump," I think it's wise that the film ditched the "our hero changes the course of history accidentally" angle, and opted for a more subdued approach to BB's position in the grander schemes of things. (And after all, we can't stop what's coming, whether it's WW2, or Katrina, or death.)

That is, without a doubt, one of the best videos I have ever seen on the internets.

Absolutely hilarious.

But Forrest Gump is from Alabama!

The real problem with Benjamin Button is that if you removed the backwards-aging element from the story, it wouldn't be that different of a movie...

That's what was missing! AIDS!

I can't help but wonder what Jim thought of the movie (besides the FG similarities), and how (or even if) it fits into David Fincher's oeuvre.

At the very least, we can be pretty sure he likes it better than Slumdog Millionaire....

To jump from a point William addressed above:

I was completely writing off CCBB as a mediocre Gump remake until the Katrina angle really kicks in at the end... at which point the movie becomes outright offensive. I don't have any objection to using current events in fiction; but ... I don't know if Fincher/Roth remember much about Katrina, but the hospitals were ground zero for some of the nastiest, cruelest, most shocking events in the days that followed - a world that simply doesn't exist in the movie's more benign universe. Dead patients stacked in hallways, nurses having to give each other IVs to fend off fatigue and dehydration, outsiders trying to break in violently to access drugs, and that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Maybe Boyle's guilty of giving a plastic sheen to the horrors faced by poverty-stricken children in Mumbai, but at least he acknowledges that these horrors exist. Fincher sends us off with a f'n hummingbird, as if the people in that scene aren't going to be trapped at that hospital under harrowing conditions. I wanted to punch the screen, I was so angry.

Brad: I hadn't really thought about that. My initial take was that things were definitely going to get worse after the film's end, and that to some extent the horrors that BB went through (on the boat, for example, and dying itself) were still not going to help Daisy's daughter. I didn't really see the movie's universe as all that benign: it started with a man mourning the loss of his son, and ends with a person fading into nothingness. But it also contains the damn Gumpian optimism and aw, shucks sentimentality that does not fit at all with my theory. And while CCBB obviously didn't make me angry, I can see how it did you.

This movie makes the Oscars out to be a joke in disguise. Can any serious movie lover take the Oscars seriously, when they were so fooled into thinking that this film deserves any awards. Fincher's worst movie, by far. It should be competing with Love Guru, instead of with the other quality films the Oscars have nominated.

Benjamin Button may have been a Forrest Gump ripoff, but I enjoyed it more than Forrest Gump, and to boot it was way more beautifully shot.

Also I like this trend of Jim Emerson only talking about movies he hates, I really wish he'd stop dwelling on poorly put together pretentious arguments and actually write a worthwhile article once in a while because for the last week every time I come here I only meet with disappointment.

It's like he's the incarnation of the stereotypical movie critic, gives heavy analysis where none is warranted, makes an effort to hate everything that's popular, and most importantly, spends more time talking about what he hates than what he likes.

Lighten up Jim, movies aren't as serious business as you'd like to think. ;D

I agree Valon. Jim really needs to lighten up. Ben Button may have similarities to Forrest Gump, but it is a terrific technical achievement with some fine performances, and as for the Slumdog article, well, I'm not sure how anyone could seriously HATE the movie. Not like it sure, but despise it? Not every single movie has to be a realistic, devestating depiction of life that makes you want to slit your wrists after you watch it. I'm not saying that everyone has to like Slumdog Millionaire or Benjamin Button just because I did, and certainly you are allowed to like and dislike whatever you want, that's the great thing about opinions. It just seems that you thrive on trashing movies that people like to give yourself some kind of importance in comparison to everyone else.

JE: Alex, I honestly don't believe having one response or another to "Slumdog Millionaire" or any other movie gives me, or anybody, "some kind of importance in comparison to everyone else." How would that work? Meanwhile, I haven't written much about "Benjamin Button" yet -- except to comment on the technology and showcase somebody else's satire of its similarities to "Forrest Gump" (which would be hard NOT to notice). I didn't have strong feelings about that one -- though I felt lots of things, from moved to bored, while watching it. (I'll tell you this: Though I found the last shot quite beautiful and resonant, I could have done without most of the over-emphasized framing device that was used to set it up. Every time we went back to that hospital room, time ground to a halt for me.)

I hated TCCOBB more than any other movie I saw this past year; I loved Slumdog Millionaire more than any other (fiction) movie this past year. (Body Of War was my favorite film of 2008). I hated the special effects, the idiotic living life backwards premise, the schmaltz, the Katrina ending - it's a cold film. Slumdog, on the other hand, does everything a movie needs to do: sweeps you up in its narrative, entertains, gives us a glimpse of a different world than our own, great music, Dev Patel's amazing performance, superb camerawork, romantic filmmaking - it's an A+! I don't usually like violent movies (I hated No Country for Old Men and The Departed, just to name two), but the violence in Slumdog was there for real reasons. ANY film romanticizes its subject, even gritty ones that are critics darling movies that nobody in their right mind would want to see. I give TCCOBB a D.

Oh gawd. I'd forgotten all about the hummingbird. BARF. I guess I did a good job wiping that movie out of my mind as fast as possible.

The worst part about Benjamin Button was that I saw it right after Across the Universe. Nothing like a 1-2 punch of bad movies to ruin a perfectly good weekend.

yeah, wtf jim what's your problem? =P

First of all, that clip is hilarious, particularly the final line.

"Every time we went back to that hospital room, time ground to a halt for me."

Secondly, I completely agree with the above statement.

As for the film itself, I thought it had its moments, but that the 3 hour running time was in no way justified, particularly given the amount of time devoted to "regular" Brad Pitt, where the central (somewhat clever) conceit of the film took a back seat to a conventional romance story, lacking any truly compelling conflict. I kept waiting for the film to pay off its lingering on the "middle ground", and was quite disappointed that the third act breezed through Pitt aging into childhood. Basically, I don't regret seeing the film, but I'll never watch it again.

Jim, when I saw the headline, I thought this article would be another tirade against "Slumdog Millionaire." I haven't seen "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," but I have seen "Slumdog" which I fairly enjoyed for about the first two-thirds, but personally I felt that the movie went downhill rapidly (similar to a previous Danny Boyle film, "Sunshine," which was horribly betrayed after a good first 70 minutes or so). After I saw "Slumdog," I realised that the film was too much like "Forrest Gump" for my liking. Consider the following:

* the majority of the movie is made up of flashbacks, from youth to adulthood, comprising a series of events that assume a historical resonance later on, before the rest of the film carries on in the "present" with the listener being won over and telling the protagonist to go and reach his goal.
* the naive protagonist idealises and is devoted to a girl who falls in with a bad crowd, and this schmaltzy, fairy-tale obsession becomes the dramatic pay-off of the entire story.
* Jamal's brother Salim is almost Lt. Dan-like in that he's portrayed as wilder, more coarse, and more susceptible to vice in order to make Jamal look nobler and more pure by comparison (of course, Salim/Dan both find redemption later on).

The way people are gushing and weeping over "Slumdog" (OK movie, no masterpiece) does remind me of the fawning reception "Gump" received 15 years ago.

...as for "Benjamin Button," well, I was amused by Stephen Colbert's opening non-sequitur on "The Colbert Report" the other night:

"Congratulations to "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" on its 13 Oscar nominations. See? Americans DO support torture!"

I liked "Forrest Gump" fifteen years earlier when it was called "Zelig."

Yay "Zelig"!

Like you with "Slumdog Millionaire", I feel I need to see this movie, but keep finding reasons not to. I love the actors, I love the director...but...eh.

Jim,

How could any of us trust your critiques if you hate Wall*E, Slumdog Millionaire, and the Dark Knight? I could hardly believe that you are Roger Ebert's Editor. He makes a lot more sense than you do.

Nevertheless, I like your revelation of the video on Gump vis-a-vis Button.

JE: Let me set the record straight: The only one of those movies I "hate" would be "Slumdog." I like "Wall-E" quite a lot, and I just think "The Dark Knight" has been wildly overpraised for a fair-to-middling action picture.

I do find Ged's comment funny--when has Jim ever said a single thing against "Wall-E"? Maybe not putting "Wall-E" in a top ten now amounts to hating....