This movie deserved recognition for its technical achievements, but agree with you here.
Rather thoroughly disagreeing, here. I suppose the issues should best be addressed in another review.
This, by the way, is the only place I've seen any comparison to "Forrest Gump" of any kind. The two movies have nothing to do with each other in tone, style, subject matter ... anything at all.
Dump the networks!
It was a serious role for brad pitt. They also timed the release to coinside with the oscars. Outside of that. No other reason.
I recall TV ads for the film billing it as "this generation's Forrest Gump". But I will agree that the two have nothing to do with each other. Forrest Gump was actually good /rimshot
And it skipped the part everyone was waiting for- a twenty-two year old man with the quick mind and life experience of a sixty-eight year old.
I remember reading the short story in the high school library, it was quite funny in the beginning and the Nothing After Death in the conclusion terrified me...
In an anime, I'll be the Tsundere Dark Magical Girl who likes purple MY own profile is actually HERE!
I agree as well; it was incredibly boring from start to finish for me. Also, the movie always took place during night time, and when it didn't, it was gray outside. Boring quiet movie + constant night time setting = me feeling very tired by the time this movie was over.
The conflict was supposed to be that the main char couldn't get with the love of his life because of his aging quirk—with the exception of a couple years where they were both middle-aged, they would always be the wrong age for each other. It was an interesting mental "What if?" exercise, I think.
That said, I don't think I want to watch this movie again.
I thought it was a thought procative film that actually makes you think what you'd make of life in general and the impact aging backwards could have on an individual, which actually makes a lot of sense to me, but they could have cut the film length down a bit, I agree. But I liked it because it impacts me as many people's talents are shown differently from the rest.
In an anime, I'll be the Tsundere Dark Magical Girl who likes purple MY own profile is actually HERE!
This movie was ridiculously boring.
As a matter of fact, that seems to be the case for most of the movies that get an Oscar nomination; like it's a pre-requisite.
I don't really care about the Oscar, anyway. It's just an opportunity for a bunch of pseudo-intellectuals and highbrow douchebags to get together and smell their own farts.
"There is absolutely zero conflict or tension that results from this scenario"
There's not enough to sustain an entire movie, especially one this long, but you can't seriously think there's no conflict. Or is it possible you went to the bathroom whenever Cate Blanchett was on screen? Because the whole movie was about how they loved eachother despite the ultimate impossibility of them ending up with eachother, given the divergence of their aging/anti-aging processes.
"And it skipped the part everyone was waiting for- a twenty-two year old man with the quick mind and life experience of a sixty-eight year old."
BAM! You hit the nail on the head. Everyone, and I mean everyone!, was waiting for dreamy, young Thelma and Louise-era Pitt to show up. And he did, for about two seconds, to have an awkward chat and to see his daughter (I think?). What a waste.
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Why was this nominated for an Oscar?
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button frankly bored me to tears. It established this character, who had the quirk of being old when he was born and aging backwards. And then...nothing. There is absolutely zero conflict or tension that results from this scenario, and we get the happy life's story of two wooden planks. Story is born from conflict, and there was no conflict here. Button travels to Europe and romances a beautiful woman, comes back home to New Orleans and romances another beautiful woman, gets given something that means he does not have to worry about finances for the rest of his life...and that's it. No conflict, no tension, no humor, nothing. There was no story to tell here, nothing interesting that came from this man aging backwards. Instead he got a dream life that anyone would hope for, with the minor inconvenience of having a rather odd physique when he was younger. People pushed it as the next Forrest Gump, but the character was nowhere near as endearing as Tom Hanks' Gump (and I say this with respect for Brad Pitt as an actor), nor did it have the humorous jokes and references that made Forrest Gump such a classic. The only redeeming feature of the movie was the slapstick scenes of a man getting struck by lightning seven times.