Friday, January 30, 2009

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

This is a guest review by my dear friend Crispy Whiskers. He's been going through a rough patch in his life, but that's netiher here nor there. What's important is that he's out there reviewing movies in the great movie theatre of life, as we all do. I hope you give him a warm welcome.
-Tom Thayer, Guy Who Reviews Movies.


The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Dir: David Fincher
Starring: Brad Pitt, Julia Ormond
Runtime: 2 hrs 46 mins

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is about a really old man-baby who eventually grows into Brad Pitt. A lot of people think that CCOBB is based on a short story or something. Actually, the curious case of Benjamin Button is the curious case of real life actor, Brad Pitt. Pitt was born an old man-baby and continues to grow younger with each movie’s he in. Some people were surprised to hear about this Hollywood secret. But is it really that surprising? A close examination of the facts will make this point quite obvious.

Remember Meet Joe Black? Pitt plays a blond haired hunky embodiment of Death. And what does Death do? He quits the killing business for a while so he can go around town eating peanut butter by the spoonful and talking with a Jamaican accent to old black ladies. Then Death threatens a crazy old man, played by Anthony Hopkins, and the old man, in exchange for his pathetically feeble life, let’s Death sleep with his super hot doctor-daughter, played by the super hot Claire Forlani. Sound familiar? Wrong! Hopkins is actually the one who plays Death and Pitt is the dementia-crazed loon. The doctor daughter is still played by Claire Forlani. Moreover, Pitt wasn’t acting. He was scarcely aware of the cameras.

Then there was Ocean’s 11. In this one Pitt plays a really old con artist who decides to rob ten casinos, and for no particular reason, pretends to be a millionaire and speak with a German accent and has a heart attack while he’s stealing all the money from the safe. George Clooney has to save his life by carrying him out of the casino in a black duffel bag. The casino’s owner, played by Andy Garcia, sees Pitt’s face as he escapes and swears vengeance. But by the end of the movie, Pitt already looks like ten years younger and in the last scene he passes Garcia on the street and Garcia doesn’t even know it and then Pitt does the coolest thing anyone could possibly do, which is wink at the camera. Enough plot summary, I’m assuming most of you have already seen the movie. What I wanted to say was, in truth, Pitt actually was ten years younger and really did have a heart attack. After the paramedics resuscitated him, Pitt said “Get your hands off of me. It’s called improvisation, bitches.”

Which leads us up to CCOBB. What can I really say about CCOBB? It’s great to finally see Pitt play a character so much like himself. But as time goes on and Pitt grows younger, it’s going to be harder for him to play the type of characters we expect from him. Sure, there is makeup and CG effects, but we all know that stuff can only make a person look younger not older. Pitt has already started to make the difficult transition from old to young roles. He has just accepted Shia Labeouf’s role in Transformers 2 and there are rumors that he will star as Fred Savage’s character in the made-for-TV movie Wonder Years: The Reunion due out by 2020. But one thing is certain, as Pitt grows smaller, so do his career options.

2 comments:

Tom Thayer said...

The best part about growing younger is that when you make that baby-fetus transition, they let you climb up a woman's vagina. That woman becomes your mom, but I bet it's still pretty awesome at first.

Sean Catlett said...

He was in Spy Game.