The Curious Case of Benja - Katrina? Say huh?
Over the weekend we went and saw the Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Which I'm sure you've heard of if you're watching what gets nominated for what. It made the news because it got nominated for 13 academy awards. Including best picture.
At just over 3 hours long, the movie is boring, cliche and oh so long. Way too long. And this is from a person that actually enjoyed it!
And I did enjoy it. It was beautiful to look at. The sunsets, the actors, the make-up, the clothes. All beautiful. Like Marie Antoinette, it was heavy on the beauty and light on substance. And by the way I still loved Marie Antoinette. even more so now that I've been to Versaille. I could watch that movie endlessly. In a loop.
Anyway, I'm not going into a full review here of Benjamin Button (from now on BB), but I wanted to comment on the gratuitous, blatant, out of placeness of something ...
In the first scene we find a really old Cate Blanchett in a hospital room where there's some sort of storm going on. Cut to a shot of a television screen there's a hurricane in the golf. It looked, REALLY familiar. And in my brain I thought ... nooo, it can't be Katrina.
Oh but it is. And we are in a hospital room where they keep saying things like, "We aren't going to evacuate."
It's the wierdest backdrop for a story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, possibly ever. I'm not the only one who thought so.
In the end we are left to assume that Blanchett ... what? Dies as a result of not evacuating? Does her daughter? What's the deal here? What was the point of having that in the story?
Other than to throw it on our face that Katrina happened, hospital's weren't evacuated, and people died? I don't get it. Maybe I'm not deep enough to understand it. It just seemed like it fit a statement that producers (Brad Pitt chief among them) wanted to convey.
The reviews for this movie have been luke warm. Everyone agrees it was beautiful, that the acting is flat, and that it's a copy cat of Forest Gump. Which is the first thing that me and my friends said when we got out of it. "That was a poor man's Forest Gump," we said.
Unfortunately, it took very rich men to make it. It was an expensive movie that's been a flop at the box office.
But for me, I feel 100% that the movie is getting honors in so many categories because of it's inclusion of Katrina footage and because it was shot in New Orleans. I have no beef with the shooting location. I love supporting communities through things like that. It's not a government hand out! It's commerce. Who would have thought we could help areas in such a way. (Someone send Pelosi and Reid the memo.)
But they could have filmed in New Orleans and left out the gratuitous pull on our collective conscious with the grandiose and out place Katrina angle.
At just over 3 hours long, the movie is boring, cliche and oh so long. Way too long. And this is from a person that actually enjoyed it!
And I did enjoy it. It was beautiful to look at. The sunsets, the actors, the make-up, the clothes. All beautiful. Like Marie Antoinette, it was heavy on the beauty and light on substance. And by the way I still loved Marie Antoinette. even more so now that I've been to Versaille. I could watch that movie endlessly. In a loop.
Anyway, I'm not going into a full review here of Benjamin Button (from now on BB), but I wanted to comment on the gratuitous, blatant, out of placeness of something ...
In the first scene we find a really old Cate Blanchett in a hospital room where there's some sort of storm going on. Cut to a shot of a television screen there's a hurricane in the golf. It looked, REALLY familiar. And in my brain I thought ... nooo, it can't be Katrina.
Oh but it is. And we are in a hospital room where they keep saying things like, "We aren't going to evacuate."
It's the wierdest backdrop for a story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, possibly ever. I'm not the only one who thought so.
In the end we are left to assume that Blanchett ... what? Dies as a result of not evacuating? Does her daughter? What's the deal here? What was the point of having that in the story?
Other than to throw it on our face that Katrina happened, hospital's weren't evacuated, and people died? I don't get it. Maybe I'm not deep enough to understand it. It just seemed like it fit a statement that producers (Brad Pitt chief among them) wanted to convey.
The reviews for this movie have been luke warm. Everyone agrees it was beautiful, that the acting is flat, and that it's a copy cat of Forest Gump. Which is the first thing that me and my friends said when we got out of it. "That was a poor man's Forest Gump," we said.
Unfortunately, it took very rich men to make it. It was an expensive movie that's been a flop at the box office.
But for me, I feel 100% that the movie is getting honors in so many categories because of it's inclusion of Katrina footage and because it was shot in New Orleans. I have no beef with the shooting location. I love supporting communities through things like that. It's not a government hand out! It's commerce. Who would have thought we could help areas in such a way. (Someone send Pelosi and Reid the memo.)
But they could have filmed in New Orleans and left out the gratuitous pull on our collective conscious with the grandiose and out place Katrina angle.
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