captainballs
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2004
- Messages
- 9,954
lol, this thread has pwned itself.
After re-thinking my initial 5/5 score for Benjamin Button, I have to admit that there was a certain element of emotion missing from this film. I'm a big crier when it comes to really, really great movies with well done sad scenes, and the fact that I didn't have a cry-gasm once while watching Benjamin Button says something. It's still an extremely entertaining film with amazing production values all around. But it does come off as somewhat bland when it should be more emotional. It's a difficult story to get exactly right on the screen with all of the right ideas in all of the right places, to be sure, and for the most part the crew succeeded but they did not create an absolute classic - just one of the year's better films.
What many of the film's greatest critics fail to realize is that the basis is meant to be just a simple story - the meat is in the little subtleties and side-plots. The little tryst with the woman at the hotel every night was very memorably done, even though it was largely irrelevant to the story. These little elements add to the experience. It is sort of like the general criticisms of a Kubrick film - a lot of people will be pissed at anything he ever did except for Barry Lyndon, Clockwork Orange, and 2001 because it seemed like a waste of their time. But a big part of experiencing a film like Benjamin Button involves enjoying the acting, aesthetics and carefully crafted moments rather than focusing on the story. Simple stories like Benjamin Button allow for a lot of artistic freedom - and a lot of risk-taking.
After re-thinking my initial 5/5 score for Benjamin Button, I have to admit that there was a certain element of emotion missing from this film. I'm a big crier when it comes to really, really great movies with well done sad scenes, and the fact that I didn't have a cry-gasm once while watching Benjamin Button says something. It's still an extremely entertaining film with amazing production values all around. But it does come off as somewhat bland when it should be more emotional. It's a difficult story to get exactly right on the screen with all of the right ideas in all of the right places, to be sure, and for the most part the crew succeeded but they did not create an absolute classic - just one of the year's better films.
What many of the film's greatest critics fail to realize is that the basis is meant to be just a simple story - the meat is in the little subtleties and side-plots. The little tryst with the woman at the hotel every night was very memorably done, even though it was largely irrelevant to the story. These little elements add to the experience. It is sort of like the general criticisms of a Kubrick film - a lot of people will be pissed at anything he ever did except for Barry Lyndon, Clockwork Orange, and 2001 because it seemed like a waste of their time. But a big part of experiencing a film like Benjamin Button involves enjoying the acting, aesthetics and carefully crafted moments rather than focusing on the story. Simple stories like Benjamin Button allow for a lot of artistic freedom - and a lot of risk-taking.