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O Curioso Caso de Benjamin Button


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Oprah talks ‘Button’

So, Oprah tried to work her magic last week on “Australia” — today she’s turning her attention to “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett both appearing on today’s show.

I guess you can expect a lot of Brangelina talk if that floats your boat, but hopefully, they’ll find some time to talk about the movie between all that. Tune in if you’re interested.

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Depois de problemas técnicos o screening teve que ser adiado mas hoje rolou. E saiu essa crítica EMPOLGANTE:

Benjamin Button Screening and Q&A

 

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Today’s screening was held in the swanky Paramount theater.  In attendance for the Q&A was director David Fincher, screenwriter Eric Roth and most of the heads of the tech departments.  I don’t want to jinx the movie by going overboard and I don’t want to have the next few words haunt me for the next decade, nonetheless - if I had to name the film that would probably have the best shot at winning Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Costumes, Art Direction it would be this one.  There are several reasons, which I’ll go through after the cut.

The first and probably most important reason is that this is a film that works on every level.  It is an authentic bit of writing, straight from the heart of Eric Roth, who admitted during the Q&A that he’d lost his parents while writing the script.  That kind of sentiment and heartbreak cannot be faked.  That kind of inspiration is rare.  Unfortunately for him it came at a great cost.  Perhaps this is why the truth here, bare as it is, cuts as deeply.

Combine Roth’s emotional output with David Fincher’s exactitude and you have something nearly perfect. With so many limbs, emotions and ideas the film shouldn’t work at all, but somehow it does.  Much credit is due to Brad Pitt, whose Benjamin Button is a soul-shattering creation.  Cate Blanchett, who bursts forth like her own hurricane.  Taraji P. Hensen as Queenie is the heart of the film.

Funnily enough, though Eric Roth felt that the source material, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, influenced him minimally, I felt both F. Scott and Zelda throughout this, as if her spirit was haunting the film as much as his.  And again, Roth barely acknowledges Fitzgerald in his own writing process - yes, it’s all him, but seeing as how they chose to set the film in the South how can anyone not think of Zelda?  After all, wasn’t it Zelda who is said to have inspired many of Fitzgerald’s characters and in fact may have written some of his short stories, maybe even this one?  Zelda wanted to be a ballet dancer around the age of 50 and she was just too old.  Age afflicts us all but dancers especially.  That Blanchett’s Daisy is a dancer reminded me so much of Zelda.  And her name is Daisy, the same name as the heroine in The Great Gatsby.

Benjamin Button is about the beauty and privilege of aging.  We think of it, especially in our culture, as something wicked, a disease that we must fight tooth and nail and disguise.  Youth is the be all, end all.  But Benjamin Button, who ages backwards, doesn’t get the benefit of having such a disease.  Because he can’t have the same experience as everyone else he is destined to be alone.  Loneliness from death is one of the strongest themes.  If you’ve had someone die that you treasured beyond words this film will slice right through your exterior.  If you’ve ever held a baby and watched a child grow up, this movie will haunt you.

I don’t want to say much more before the film opens because too much hype can kill any movie; although it must be mentioned that Benjamin Button had a lot of hype going in and managed to withstand it so perhaps hype is beside the point.

The film is a visual delight — though it’s oddly cold in its scenery.  A warmer, cozier world wouldn’t have made it a Fincher movie.  The truth is that it works with Fincher as the director.  It is stranger than it would have been if, say, Spielberg had directed it.  Nonetheless, with Spielberg it might have tipped too far into sentiment and been mush as a result, no offense.

I did not feel a detachment to it at all and I fully expected to.   I didn’t think that Fincher could pull off something overly sentimental.  I thought it would be a few steps removed and all about the effects and the gimmick.  It turns out, though, that this film is about the human experience.  It’s about, as Roth and Fincher said, the people who make dents in you, who impact your life.  Most of those who teach Benjamin about life are women, older women who have the benefit of wisdom.   His life is shaped by them, which is probably the reason I fell so hard for the film.  Too often women get the short shrift in films.  They aren’t given the credit they’re due as whole human beings.  I was touched by the female presence in this film and quite moved by it, I must say.

So far, for me, this year is about three movies: The Dark Knight, Revolutionary Road and Benjamin Button.  Wall-E in animated, Captain Abu Raed in foreign.  I have yet to see many films:  Milk, Slumdog, The Reader, Defiance, Australia, Rachel Getting Married, The Wrestler, The Visitor.  So take it for what it’s worth.

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Crítica da Anne Thompson.

 

I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on Saturday (following the aborted Thursday screening), and have been trying to sort it out ever since.

David Fincher and screenwriter Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) have delivered an historic achievement, a masterful piece of cinema, and a moving treatise on death, loss, loneliness and love. As the movie proceeds, and Brad Pitt as Button ages backwards, we know where he is headed: it's where we are all going. But he feels he has to go there by himself, without his loved ones. And nobody wants to die alone. (Here is Todd McCarthy's review.)

So when the movie reaches its climax, it is extraordinarily moving (although some find the movie cold and dispassionate). It may pack a more powerful punch the older you are and the more people you have lost. In that case it will score with the Academy, who will also recognize the skillful filmmaking on display.

The movie marks a seismic shift in terms of what is possible in moviemaking. What Fincher and his team have done is no small technological feat. Button starts off as a CG-aged baby, moves through CG-altered older Pitt faces superimposed on small bodies, and then proceeds to the "real" Pitt wearing makeup and then getting younger and younger. Thus the film's central performance is in great part a visual effect. (Blanchett is also made younger digitally, but aged with makeup.) That accounts in part for the movie's high cost (well above $150 million) but is also its primary limitation.

Thus, while I admire the film's amazing accomplishment--it's hard to imagine that anyone but the digitally sophisticated Fincher, who has become adept at "painting" his digital canvases, could have pulled this off--the movie is not entirely satisfying. But given what it is, it's hard to imagine it being done done any better. The actors are superb, especially Pitt and Cate Blanchett, who should earn Oscar noms. What's missing has partly to do with the limitations of the technology. Button reminds me of Peter Sellers as Chauncey Gardner in Being There. He's oddly passive and restrained, zen-like as he floats through all the decades, watching, listening, learning. He narrates the tale via his diary, along with his dying love Blanchett. We see him engaging with people, but he never says much. We see him from the outside; we never get under his skin, and we never learn the fruits of his wisdom. He stays the much same.

Still, the movie is sadly beautiful, of a piece, as impeccably wrought as its ornate clock that runs counterclockwise. Do Paramount and Warner Bros. have a prayer of making their money back? This movie needs all the help it can get, from anyone who loves movies and wants the studios to take more risky bets like this one.

 

E do Todd McCarthy.
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" represents a richly satisfying serving of deep-dish Hollywood storytelling. This odd, epic tale of a man who ages backwards is presented in an impeccable classical manner, every detail tended to with fastidious devotion. An example of the most advanced technology placed entirely at the service of story and character, this significant change-of-pace from director David Fincher poses some daunting marketing challenges, even with Brad Pitt atop the cast. Strong critical support will be needed to swell interest in this absorbing, even moving, but emotionally cool film, which is simultaneously accessible and distinctive enough to catch on with a large public if luck and the zeitgeist are with it.

Due to its history-spanning structure, blank-page title character and technical sleight of hand, the film "Benjamin Button" most recalls is "Forrest Gump," but in a good way; it is entirely possible to dislike the 1994 smash and embrace this one, which resists every opportunity for mawkish and sentimental displays. Still, it is no coincidence that Eric Roth wrote both of them, and Roth -- who followed many other writers, including credited co-story author Robin Swicord, in trying to crack the long-gestating project -- has veered far from the specifics of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1921 short story.

Fitzgerald's original was inspired by a Mark Twain observation to the effect that it's a pity the best part of life comes at the beginning and the worst part at the end. Yarn began in 1860 Baltimore, had Benjamin, born looking like a 70-year-old man, raised by his father, marrying and having a son, starring for Harvard in football and ending his life by attending kindergarten with his own grandson.

Using precious little of the story save the central aging conceit, Roth's version ranges from World War I into the 21st century and creatively uses New Orleans as its base, with sojourns to distant corners of the globe. Scripter could have chosen to make the central figure a more exceptional, active character -- a doer of great things, or an intellectual with an acute awareness of his unique condition. Instead, Benjamin is a passive sort to whom things happen, a trait by no means an impediment to audience involvement. Gump was like that, as were Dr. Zhivago and others.

Fincher spends 13 minutes short of three hours telling this unique man's life story, and the time goes by easily, with no sense of dawdling, waste or indulgence. The film evinces a sure hand that maintains narrative confidence, steadiness of tone and a mature awareness of the temporal nature of life's opportunities and the fleeting quality of happiness.

Death pervades the film and Benjamin's life, but in a matter-of-fact, rather than depressing way; if you're raised among oldsters in a retirement home, death is never a stranger. Framing story is set in a modern hospital room, where the fading Daisy (a recognizable Cate Blanchett under heavy makeup) has her 40ish daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond) read to her from the diary of her late dear friend Benjamin.

Benjamin is born of the armistice and is lovingly raised by a black attendant, Queenie (Taraji P. Henson), at the rest home. An establishment awash in the gentility of the Old South, the place is ideal for a child who, with his bald pate, cataracts, deficient hearing and need for a wheelchair, fits right in with the other occupants.

When he's 12 and looks about 70, Benjamin meets a resident's lovely red-haired granddaughter, Daisy. No doubt named in homage to the immortal heroine of Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," Daisy will zig-zag in and out of his life from then on and eventually embody his emotional touchstone.

With a solicitous stranger he doesn't know is actually his father (Jason Flemyng), as well as with an African pygmy bon vivant (Rampai Mohadi), Benjamin gets a taste of the outside world, including the pleasures of the flesh at a bordello. He also befriends hard-drinking tugboat captain Mike (Jared Harris) and, in time-honored tradition for a young man, goes to sea. In one of the film's most bewitching interludes, Benjamin, who has begun to realize he's looking younger, has an affair in Murmansk with the sophisticated Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), from whom he learns what it is to be loved and desired. Pic's action highlight is a startling nocturnal encounter between the tug and a Nazi U-boat that has just sunk a troop transport.

Safely back in New Orleans after the war, Benjamin becomes reacquainted with Daisy, now a rising dancer and unashamed sensualist who comes on a little strong for her old friend. But after his father dies, leaving him his button factory and entire estate, Benjamin follows Daisy to New York, where he sees her dancing the ballet in "Carousel," then to Paris, only to continue being rejected by the headstrong young woman even after she suffers a terrible tragedy detailed in a suspense montage that by itself reps a dazzling display of directorial savoir faire.

Much of the film's romantic and philosophical posture hinges on Benjamin and Daisy getting together at the right time, and they do so in an entirely satisfying way; by the time of consummation, with Brad Pitt now in full physical glory and Blanchett at her womanly peak, they -- and the audience -- are more than ready for it. But their passion is all the more pointedly ephemeral due to the consciousness of being headed in opposite physical directions. The necessary acceptance of this fact produces a sincerely and genuinely earned sense of melancholy about the transitive nature of love and life.

The extent to which Fincher and his vast team of collaborators have succeeded in their storytelling can be seen by the fact that one comes out of the film thinking about the characters and narrative intent, not the admittedly amazing aging effects and other technical achievements. Truly, the visions of Benjamin and other central characters at different ages are sights to behold; baby Ben resembling a little E.T., Blanchett appearing a convincing 23. But truly the most unnerving image is Pitt looking more or less the way he did in "Thelma and Louise," or at least half the age of the man now playing the character. Clearly anything is possible.

In all his physical manifestations, Benjamin is a reactor, not a perpetrator, and Pitt inhabits the role genially, gently and sympathetically. Blanchett's Daisy is the more volatile and moody one and, after bluntly revealing the selfish impetuousness of Daisy's youthful self, the thesp fully registers both the passion and insecurity of the mature woman.

Henson, as Benjamin's surrogate mother, and Swinton as the calculating adulteress, are wonderful, and Harris and Mohadi etch particularly colorful supporting turns as two of Benjamin's rowdier cohorts.

Every scene is crammed with detail, from the nooks and crannies of the settings created by production designer Donald Graham Burt and the century-bridging costumes by Jacqueline West to the faces of the main cast and countless extras. Alexandre Desplat's score provides lovely and unobtrusive dramatic support. Fincher and lenser Claudio Miranda shoot mostly in deep focus images to maximize the information in every frame, and the depth of the blacks they achieve shooting on digital is extraordinary.

Still, for what is designed as a rich tapestry, the picture maintains a slightly remote feel. No matter the power of the image of an old but young-looking Benjamin, slumped over a piano and depressed about his fading memory and life; it is possible that the picture might have been warmer and more emotionally accessible had it been shot on film. It has been argued that digital is a cold medium and celluloid a hot one and a case, however speculative, could be made that a story such as "Benjamin Button," with its desired cumulative emotional impact, should be shot and screened on film to be fully realized. These are intangibles, but nor are they imaginary factors; what technology gives, it can also take away.

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O.O''''''''''''''''''''''''.VO BAIXAR AGORA!

Ouvindo, e gostando. O trabalho dele é muito pessoal, e como sou fã e conheço várias trilhas, identifico outras músicas nesse novo, mas o tom de "fantasia" continua, e muito bem. Lembra a excelente trilha de "Birth" e tem uma música, acho que uma das melhores dele "A New Life", de "Moça", que aparece aqui, mas apenas com o mesmo título, interessante.

 

Bruno, se achar o link para baixar a trilha coloca aqui, não encontro.

 

 

Crítica da "Variety".
pantalaimon2008-11-24 16:29:56
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Veja novos fotos de Brad Pitt em seu próximo filme

O ator contracena com Cate Blanchett em 'O Curioso Caso de Benjamin Button'

Estas são as novas fotos de Brad Pitt e Cate Blanchett em seu novo filme, 'O Curioso Caso de Benjamin Button', divulgadas pelo site "Just Jared". Nele, o ator vive um homem de mais de 80 anos que começa a rejuvenescer misteriosamente.

O longa tem estréia prevista para dezembro nos Estados Unidos.

 

 

Reprodução%20/Reprodução

O ator Brad Pitt e a atriz Cate Blanchett contracenam no filme do diretor David Fincher

  

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Brad Pitt como um idoso de mais de 80 anos e já depois de rejuvenescer misteriosamente.

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Nele' date=' o ator vive um homem de mais de 80 anos que começa a rejuvenescer misteriosamente.

[/quote']

 

Com esse resumo da história o site mostra que não sabe praticamente nada a respeito do filme...07

 

Mas, o mais engraçado é q esse é o resumo encontrado em tudo q é lugar, só q o trailer mostra na verdade outra coisa... Estranho isso...09

sunderhus2008-11-25 19:23:02

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Cate Blanchett arrasa de vestido pratedo em pré-estréia

A atriz foi a première de seu novo filme 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', na Austrália

Reprodução/Reprodução

Cate Blanchett arrasou na pré-estréia do filme "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, na Austrália, nesta quarta-feira, 10. A atriz usava um vestido prateado e sandálias douradas.Literalmente brilhou na pré-estréia.

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