The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 2008
Directed by David Fincher
Nominated for 13 Oscars, Won 3
Lost BP To: Slumdog Millionaire

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is loosely based on the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It tells the story of Benjamin, who was born as old man, and who ages in reverse. That is, to say, he gets younger instead of getting older. In this film version, directed by David Fincher, Benjamin was born the day the Great War ended. His mother died in child birth, and his father was horrified by the sight of him. He was born with cataracts, wrinkled skin, and arthirits. His father contemplated throwing him in the river but leaves him on the doorstep of a home (whether random or not, we're not sure). A young black woman named Queenie, who helps run a seniors home, takes him in and cares for him. Thinking he doesn't have long left anyway, Queenie keeps him. And he begins to get younger.

This story is told by the way of a young woman, reading Benjamin's diary to her dying mother, who is in the hospital during, what we think is, the beginnings of Hurricane Katrina. The old woman's name is Daisy. The love of Benjamin's life. Benjamin meets Daisy when he's very young (or still very old), and she's around 6 or 7. Her grandmother lives in the seniors home, and they are kindred spirits and become pals- in the way little girls and old men do.

The movie is Benjamin's entire life. Him getting younger, leaving home, living on a tugboat in Russia, having an affair with a married woman, working the tugboat in WWII, being attacked by submarine there, falling in love with Daisy, being apart from Daisy, being with Daisy, and getting younger.

The idea for this film had been floating around for a long time. The rights to the story was bought back in the 70s, Jack Nicholson originally slated to star. Other buyers of the rights included Steven Spielburg (in the 90's, with a Tom Cruise slated as Benjamin) but went on to direct Jurassic Park and Schindlers List. Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall were sold the rights. Several different directors and stars were slated. Ron Howard (starring John Travolta), Spike Jonze, Gary Ross, and finally David Fincher, with several, several screenplays having been written. But finally, Brad Pitt was cast as Benjamin, Cate Blanchett was Daisy, and filming began in November 2006.

The film clocks in at 2 hours, and 46 minutes. The film spans Benjamin's entire life, from birth to death. The first time I watched this movie with my family, we complained it was so long, and so boring, and who cares. But then, as I've had before, I had the urging to rewatch it. So I did, and it's become a favourite film (just missing my top 10- taking the 11th spot). Many others have shared in my initial complaints that it was long and dull, and some have even compared it to Forrest Gump, being the story of a man born with defects that he eventually overcomes. He falls in love with a young girl while their both young, are companions, and aren't together for a long time (she rejects him), and eventually come together for a short time, shorter than they would've liked, lived on a boat, went to war, and had mother's who gave them quotes about not knowing what to expect of life. Eric Roth, penned the screenplays for both films and many have compared them, though they are incredibly different, even if they sound similar.

This is one of those movies that makes me feel an enormous range of feelings. Seeing Benjamin travel the world, making the most of his life, falling in love, and then, not being able to stay with Daisy makes me feel a lot of things. Its the movie that makes me feel the most.

Brad Pitt is, in my opinion, fantastic as Benjamin. He plays the subtleties just right, and acts the old man and the young man just right, making distinctions between both, all while having this wiseness beyond his years (ironically or not). Cate Blanchett is also lovely, playing both the teenage/young adult Daisy, the ballerina, and the dying woman we see in the beginning, who is unrecognizable. Other fun apprearances include Tilda Swinton, as Benjamin's first grown up love, in Murmansk, Russia and Taraji P. Henson as Queenie.

While this movie was nominated for 13 Oscars, the leading movie of the year, it only won 3. And the ones it won were truly, truly deserved. The Visual Effects, for the things like the "old man" baby, and the old Brad Pitt. In an interview with VFX Supervisor, Eric Barbra, he explains how the first 52 minutes of the film, is a 3D head. They made 3 head casts of Brad Pitt, aged 80s, 70s and 60s, then scanned into a computer, 3D. Brad would perform the facial expressions of a scene, as it was being digitzed, filmed from 4 different angles, and were matched to a scene/moment. Body actors were used on set, and essentially, Brad every facial movement and emotion was mixed with the digitized headcast (whichever age), and then photoshopped on top of the body actor. After the first 52 minutes, Brad does a full body performance, with makeup now deaging him, until he becomes a child and then a baby, when child actors are used. In the end, this gives me so much more appreciation for Brad's work on this film. Every facial expression was thought out, recorded without doing the action, only watching the body actors performance. It's incredibly complex, and the capturing of the facial expressions was the first of it's kind. (for more info on this all, see interview and the official Benjamin Button VFX Website). And how Brad Pitt doesn't have an Oscar yet is beyond me. Especially after this and Tree of Life.

In the end, I have a lot of respect for this movie, for how well it was performed, the technical and visual aspects, as well as the directing. And while it deserved the 3 Awards it won (VFX, Makeup, Art Direction), it deserved that and more. This should've been Alexandre Desplat's year for winning Original Score, in which his themes for Benjamin and Daisy was played forward, and then backwards (a technique used frequently in the film). He was truly, truly robbed. It's one of my favourite film scores ever.

However, I love this movie, understand why not everyone does, but I love it anyway. Forgive me for this long, technical review.

8.5/10

The Social Network

The Social Network, 2010
Directed by David Fincher
Won 3 Oscars: Best Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score
Lost BP To: The King's Speech
Up Against: The King's Speech, Black Swan, The Kid's Are Alright, Winter's Bone, True Grit, 127 Hours, Toy Story 3, The Fighter, Inception


Last year, I was a huge huge fan of the King's Speech, and rooted for it all the way. After the nominees came out for Best Picture, I decided I should probably see what the big fuss was about for The Social Network, it's biggest competitor. Whether it was bias, or because it truly didn't strike my fancy, I wasn't a fan. I didn't see why it was getting attention, though it was an average, kind of dull movie, and completely dismissed it.

Now, about a year later, I've decided to give it another chance. Why? Because I've become a fan of Andrew Garfield, having watched him in Never Let Me Go and the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, both of which he was fantastic. Also, having dismissed the Original Score as well, thinking How to Train Your Dragon should've won, I also picked that up again, and while I knew it was just okay on it's own, it probably rocked with the movie. Thus, I picked it up from the library and settled down and watched it tonight.


This is the story of Facebook, and the people behind it. Mark Zuckerburg is a computer genius, even before he started Facebook. He was going to Harvard, and was able to create websites in an evening, while drunk, that would gain 22,000 hits in one night, and crash the Harvard network. That's the kind of guy he is. When he's approached by the Winklevoss twins to program a website for them, Harvard Connection. It's an exclusive facebook/social network for Harvard University students. Mark initially says he's in, but then he deems their idea lame, doesn't tell them he's out for 6 weeks, and starts up his own social networking site, TheFacebook, for Harvard students with his best friend Eduardo Saverin.

The story revolves around Mark, obviously, and just how he rolls to the beat of his own drum. Doing things with Eduardo's money before asking him for said money, teaming up with Napster-creator gone broke, Sean Parker, moving to California to set up his business, and eventually betraying Eduardo. Mark is given to us a cold-hearted college student. The only person he really cares about is himself. And that shines through in every moment we see Mark. Though we know at the heart of the matter, Mark wants acceptance. And he does this through creating Facebook. It's an interest flip-flop, seeing this in the opening scene with Erica, and then the lawsuit scenes. In the end, you can't have worldwide acceptance, and keep your best friends, it seems.

This movie moves back and forth from the past (creation of Facebook/Harvard) and the present (lawsuits). It's almost as though this film is a supplement and evidence in the cases. We see the scenes as they come up in the suits, sometimes with description and narration from Mark or Eduardo. And we are taken, linearly through the process of the creation of Facebook. The "stealing" from the Winklevoss's, the creation and programming of TheFacebook, with Mark and Eduardo, the college celebrity phase, the move to LA and teaming with Sean Parker, and the Business Deal. It's well told, with not too much narration (but a sufficient amount), and not too much back and forth between the two (though, again, sufficient, that we don't forget about it, and it keeps us wondering what went wrong with Mark and Eduardo).

The screenplay, written by Aaron Sorkin, is whip-smart, witty, and just so geeky. It is said that the opening scene between Erica and Mark was 8 script pages long, and took 99 takes to get right. And I believe both those facts. Aaron Sorkin's screenplay was really great. He has such a talent for turning okay subject into really great movies (see Moneyball).

Additionally, the movie was well acted, and it garnered Jesse Eisenberg a Lead Actor nomination. Though, if anyone should've been nominated, it should've been Andrew Garfield. He's a really strong actor, and that's also true for this film. He has so much passion, and you can see it in every line he speaks in this film (with a wonderful American accent to boot). Of all the acting in this film, I'd say he was definitely the strongest, especially with his moment of confrontation, at the end, with Mark. He plays that so perfectly.

Overall, the film was good, but not Best Picture worthy. I understand the nomination, but still agree it shouldn't have won. It was a well told film, with an interesting(ish) story, but I don't think it'll stand the test of time well, since it's such a modern piece. Not that modern is bad, or that Best Picture's need to stand the test of time, but it's a very here-and-now movie, and while it was good, it wasn't amazing.

7.5/10

Winner Breakdown: Film Editing

Film Editing:
- The Artist
- The Descendants
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- Hugo
- Moneyball


This is another one of those categories where I understand it, but have a hard time noticing it when I watch the actual films. But what I do know about this category is has correlations with Best Picture. 5 our of the last 10 awards has the Best Picture winner also won editing. And those within the editing nominees are usually also Best Picture nominees. While TGWTDT was not a Best Picture nominee, I don't think you should count it out just yet. However, Hugo, having nabbed tons of nominations in the technical fields, and The Artist being the frontrunner, I'd say the race is between these two. But I wouldn't count any of these films out of the race. Yes, The Descendants and Moneyball are less likely, but I'd say they still have a shot. I'd even like to see Moneyball win, since I thought it was extremely well put together, and isn't likely to win much (or anything) this year. However, I'm officially predicting Hugo to win, but if anyone will steal it, it'll be The Artist, and equally challenging opponent.


Will Win: Hugo
Could Win: The Artist
Dark Horse: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Who I Want to Win: Moneyball

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Remake

David Fincher, 2011

The long-awaited Americanized version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo became one of the latest movies to explore the darker side of killers, as if there is a light side. If you like this movie, you should have read all three bestselling books by Stieg Larsson and watched all three movies, the Swedish-Danish versions. The English version is quite interesting once you get

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
Written by Steve Zaillian
Directed by David Fincher
Starring Rooney Mara, Daniel Craig, Christopher Plummer and Stellan Skarsgard


Armansky: I’m concerned you won’t like her. She’s different.
Frode: In what way?
Armansky: In every way.

I always say that film criticism is an inherently subjective practice and reviewing David Fincher’s remake of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO is the perfect example to prove this. It has only been a year and a half since I first saw the original Swedish version of this film. It was known even then that Fincher’s version was in development and it was obvious that the only reason it was being made was to cater to a wider American audience. To be fair, the subject nature of the film is way too dark for it to ever really play that wide but, as the first film only raked in about $10 million in North American box office receipts, and given the popularity of the late Steig Larsson’s novel of the same name, there stands to be a great number of people interested in Fincher’s version. And so, while some will find the new version exhilarating, anyone who has seen Niels Arden Oplev’s original may feel a distinct lack of purpose.

I have not read any of the popular novels but as both film versions are more or less identical in plot execution, I can only assume that the structure of the novel is my first issue with THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Without the shock value to cover it up, the introduction to Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) comes across as a character punishment and misguided distraction more so than anything else. While Mickael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) embarks on the film’s actual plot - deciphering a family murder mystery dating back 40 years - for the first hour or so of the film, Lisbeth is being presented separately as a dark, dangerous girl. Her gothic look is seen to all who encounter her as a sign of weakness that allows them to use and abuse her. Lisbeth can take care of herself just fine but she has been through a ton of horrifying experiences that have made her into this clearly disturbed creature. She is a fascinating character, and the fantastic Mara is incredibly devoted to the part, but the painful effort to portray her as “other” makes it feel as though Fincher also sees her the same way. It makes me wonder if Larsson ever liked her even.

Fincher’s THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO is certainly stylish but it never rose to a level that justified its need to exist for me. In fact, the more polished look seemed at times less authentic in comparison with the more rough aesthetic of the original. That being said, the mystery at the root of the film is a good one and if you’re coming to the film blind, it will certainly shock you. I commend Fincher for making every effort possible, even shooting the film in Sweden and casting a number of Swedish actors in smaller roles, but in his attempt to honour the original, he finished by recreating instead of actually creating something all his own.

490. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

490. (08 Dec) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011, David Fincher)* 74

Top Ranked Films of David Fincher

David Fincher
4 titles, 64th in pts w 12,755

Fincher should be rising in the polls over time as he's just hitting his stride. I predict he'll end up in the top 20 eventually, as will Christopher Nolan.

These are all the films of American director David Fincher’s that made the top 1000 in our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls.



1. Fight Club (1999) #201
2. The

Black Sheep presents The 2011 Fall Film Preview

This past weekend, I stepped out of the house in shorts and a T-shirt and immediately walked right back in, when I realized how cold it actually was outside. It felt different; it felt like fall. While some people hate the fall, I love it! It’s all sweaters and soup and a welcome farewell to the mind numbing fare of the summer movie season. And with those changing autumn leaves comes the long awaited return of the prestige picture.

Speaking of anticipation, fans of the family drama, YOU CAN COUNT ON ME, from writer/director, Kenneth Lonergan, will finally get to see his sophomore project, MARGARET this fall, some eight years after it was originally shot. Anna Paquin plays a 17-year-old girl (she was 21 at the time of filming) who witnesses an accident and begins believing she may have caused it somehow. She proceeds to slowly destroy everything in her life. In 2009, Fox Searchlight deemed the project, which also stars Matt Damon, unreleasable, but somehow, both parties have now found the path to understanding. A small mystery remains as to who had final cut.

What lies ahead isn’t entirely bleak though. Justin Timberlake continues his transition from pop star to leading man with the sci-fi thriller, IN TIME. Andrew Niccol, the writer of THE TRUMAN SHOW and the writer/director of GATTACA, returns with his first film since 2006. At this indeterminate time in our future, people are genetically designed to die at the age of 25. (I for one am glad to live in a world where I have so far had nine years past that.) People who reach this golden age are given one year to either find more time, be that legitimately or otherwise. Timberlake’s character comes into a century’s worth of time and not surprisingly, that makes him a guy a lot of people want to find. The wide-eyed Amanda Seyfried and Olivia Wilde are along for the trip.

The title, TINKER, TAILER, SOLDIER, SPY, rolls off the tongue with ease and might and, from the looks of the incredibly taut trailer, the film itself might unspool with a similar readiness. Tomas Alfredson, the Swedish director behind the 2008 international cult hit, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, marks his first English-language film with an adaptation of the John Le Carre bestselling spy novel of the same name. Gary Oldman stars as George Smiley, a character who has not been tackled since the late Alec Guiness played him in 1982. Smiley must put his retirement plans on hold in order to ascertain the identity of a mole within the deep folds on the British intelligence agency, MI6. And when that mole just might be Tom Hardy or Colin Firth, in his first post-Oscar role, you know Oldman has his work cut out for him.

Come November, it’s time for some very important things to be done. It’s time to put on makeup; it’s time to light the lights. Yes folks, it’s time to get things started with the first Muppets movie in over 20 years. Entitled simply, THE MUPPETS, this caper finds Kermit et al. banding together to save their old theatre from being destroyed by a greedy oil tycoon type. They have enlisted the likes of Amy Adams and Jason Segel to get the job done and there are plenty more cameos crammed into this welcome return to the big screen, from Neil Patrick Harris to Mila Kunis to Zach Galifianakis. Segel offers his aid in more ways than one as well. He essentially spearheaded this entire Muppets renaissance, even going so far as to co-write the screenplay.

One could argue that December is not really the fall still but while looking ahead, I see nothing wrong with looking even a little further past that at the same time. While there are many December releases to get excited about, there is one above them all that I am most drawn to. I’ve never read the THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO but I have seen all three of the Swedish films that were adapted from the Steig Larsson series. Ordinarily, I am not a fan of foreign language films being redone in English for mass market appeal but those films are not usually directed by the man behind THE SOCIAL NETWORK, David Fincher. And from the looks of the trailers, it seems to me that Fincher isn’t the least bit concerned about mass appeal. Rather, he seems intent on keeping it dark and authentic. Just in time for the holidays, no less ...

There are oodles of other movies coming, 100+ between now and the close of the year. A great deal of them will be covered in my upcoming TIFF coverage but here is a rundown of the rest for you: Director Steven Soderbergh kills off several Oscar nominees in CONTAGION; one of the most loved animated films of all time, THE LION KING, returns to theatres for a limited 3D run; Taylor Lautner tries really hard to be a big boy in the thriller, ABDUCTION; Daniel Craig plays creepy house with now wife, Rachel Weisz, in Jim Sheridan's DREAM HOUSE; Anna Faris recycles old boyfriends in WHAT'S YOUR NUMBER?; Hugh Jackman takes on robot boxing in REAL STEAL; the world gets a FOOTLOOSE remake it never wanted; Johnny Depp goes back to the world of Hunter S. Thompson in THE RUM DIARY; Michelle Williams gets her Monroe on in MY WEEK WITH MARILYN; Harold & Kumar return for a third trip in A VERY HAROLD & KUMAR 3D CHRISTMAS; Clint Eastwood takes on Hoover in J. EDGAR, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and potential love interest, Armie Hammer; Martin Scorsese goes family and 3D with HUGO; oh, and I think there should be another TWILIGHT mess in there somewhere.

Stay tuned for Black Sheep's TIFF preview next weekend and the holiday movie preview will bow near the end of November. In the meantime, bon cinema!

Addicted To: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Or, rather I should say, Lisbeth Salander.  I stormed through Stieg Larsson's Swedish novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in about a week, unable to put it down.  Now, I'm 100 pages into the follow-up The Girl Who Played with Fire.  Don't love it as much as the first one yet, but it's certainly still good.  More focus on Lisbeth and less on Mikeal.  In the first one, I was actually screaming.  Like, seriously shouting out loud.  If you've been underneath a rock as much as I have the last two years in regards to these books, pick them up and read them now.  You won't regret it!

In preparation for David Fincher's "The Feel Bad Movie of Christmas," I wanted to read the books before I saw his vision and adaptation.  The trailer is magnificent, (seen here) and, having now read the novel, looks to capture the sense of it pretty well.

I also watched the Swedish version, and though I'm not usually a stickler for film adaptations that change details from the book, this one did so so foolishly that it was distracting, and in many ways made the film less entertaining.  The pacing left something to be desired, and the film's final act dragged painfully.  Made me all the more nervous and excited for Fincher's adaptation (with newly-married Daniel Craig and The Social Network's Rooney Mara).

Above, you can already tell the stylistic differences between the Swedish version (left) and Fincher's version in terms of their depiction of Lisbeth.

The Girl with the Nipple Ring

It seems that director David Fincher, MGM, and super-producer Scott Rudin aren't relying on the worldwide and critical popularity of Stieg Larsson's book series or the original Swedish trilogy to sell The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to American audiences.  First, the leaked Red Band trailer (below) was speckled with teasing nudity and blood, and now the first glimpse of the poster (Tweeted this morning by @GuyLodge and seen larger here) has a very deliberate nipple ring to distract you.

I haven't read these books, but I plan to at least get through the first one before Christmas and this film in released.  The trailer looks utterly awesome.  Fincher brings back his entire team from the Oscar-winning The Social Network, including the editing duo of Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth who, judging by the beauty of the trailer, could be a serious contender at the end of the year.  Beyond the technical aspects, which I expect to be happily represented by the respective branches, I'm uncertain as to the Oscar prospects of this film.  Some people are waving the flag of back-to-back nomination for Fincher and even a Lead nomination for Rooney Mara.  Until we get a better sense of the quality (and even if they'll embrace this type of film) I'll remain undecided, but hopeful.

I need to get one my early predictions, too.


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THE SOCIAL NETWORK

Written by Aaron Sorkin
Directed by David Fincher
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake

Mark Zuckerberg: There is a difference between being obsessive and being motivated.

With over 500 million members worldwide, Facebook has come a long way since it was just a little social networking site kicking around a few prestigious colleges in the United States. In fact, I remember quite vividly when I first heard about it. It came out of nowhere and suddenly everyone I knew was asking why I wasn’t on Facebook yet. I actually held out. I had done Friendster and Myspace. Why did I need this new network to come into my life so I could feign the idea of closeness with people I had neither seen nor thought of for years? For days, I cursed it to anyone who would listen. This made it particularly difficult when I actually joined Facebook a few weeks later and started inviting all the people I had complained about it to, to be my friend.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK, or what is affectionately known as “The Facebook Movie”, is not about a bunch of bored office workers or late night loners wasting hours of their lives on Facebook. That’s about all it isn’t about though. Screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, has taken the real life story of how Facebook came into existence and turned it into something so much more revealing about human nature. By walking us through the two lawsuits that Facebook co-creator, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), was served as a result of how he went about co-creating Facebook, Sorkin is able to comment on everything Facebook touches on, directly or indirectly. Suddenly, a factual account of a civil law suit is able to expose America’s class system as still going strong, our universal fascination with gossip and popularity and the increasingly blurred difference between public and private statement. Even the inclusion of the lawsuits themselves denounce an American fascination with suing to get even, even when that means suing your best friend.

Fortunately for Sorkin’s ambitious script, David Fincher helms THE SOCIAL NETWORK and I really want to add him as my friend again after THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON made me hide him from my news feed. (Kidding, David Fincher is not my friend in any capacity). Fincher has this one though. He has an incredible awareness of the implications being made by the actions and accents the perfect moments to prove the points subtly and effectively. He also drives brave, brazen performances from his three young stars. Justin Timberlake shows dramatic depth as Sean Parker, the creator of Napster. Andrew Garfield finally shows me why I should give him any notice as Facebook co-creator, Eduardo Saverin. And Eisenberg, an actor that is oft criticized for being one note, takes what is now his signature whip of a tongue and infuses it with a strong sense of character and understanding. He plays Zuckerberg as an unstoppable force, driven by a deep-rooted self-hatred. You want to hate the guy yourself but Eisenberg makes it so you think twice before you do.

One of my original arguments for not joining Facebook was that I thought it enforced a horrible falsehood. People could remain close virtually and keep up with loved ones without making any actual effort to be a real part of their lives. It would drive us further apart while making us feel like we were getting closer. THE SOCIAL NETWORK proves me wrong though. This fantastic and fascinating piece of filmmaking will unite us all through the one thing all 500 million of us can relate to, our love/hate relationships with Facebook. And by breaking it all down, he manages to find the heart behind the screen.