As articulated by Cate Blanchett in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. (Ugh, I'm seriously sick today. Someone read to me from happier-days diaries before I croak.)
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Monday, September 27, 2010
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25 comments:
Did she actually give a performance in this?
Gloria Stuart HAS DIED !!!
I actually appreciated Cate's performance in Benjamin Button. For me it was the perfect tonic to her post-I'm Not There criticisms (only excelling in biopics, relying on caricature, being generally "loud") and answered her detractors with a lot of grace. It's not easy as it looks for a foreigner to be convincingly Southern onscreen. Think Nicole Kidman in Cold Mountain vs. Vivien Leigh or Elizabeth Taylor in their iconic Southern roles, but Blanchett convinced me. Hers was my favorite performance in that bloated, pointless, off-putting film.
But sorry you aren't feeling so hot.
i dislike Cate Blanchet in this movie and i use "Benjamin Button" to treat my insomnia(and Fincher 's commentaries are great for it)
I love me some Fincher but Benjamin Button is hot crap on a platter. I hate almost everything about that film, and Brad Pitt keeps up his record of working with great directors and being the worst thing about a film. He just can not act. I respect him choosing challenging projects, but of all the movie stars (Cruise, Jolie, Roberts, Clooney, Hanks) he's the worst actor by far.
:(
Feel better.
Relax, drink plenty of fluids and watch plenty of "Barefoot Contessa."
Get better soon!
I love Cate in Benjamin Button, she's one of the best things in the movie (which I actually liked pretty much!).
R.I.P. Gloria.
Here are some diary stories (I figure you had this book too):
"Dear Diary, July 22, 1984
My name is Laura Palmer, and as of just three short minutes ago, I officially turned twelve years old! It is July 22, 1984, and I have had such a good day! You were the last gift I opened and I could hardly wait to come upstairs and start to tell you all about myself and my family. You shall be the one I confide in the most. I promise to tell you everything that happens, everything I feel, everything I desire. And, every single thing I think. There are some things I can't tell anyone. I promise to tell these things to you.
Anyway, when I came down for breakfast this morning, I saw that Mom had hung streamers all through the house, and even Dad put on a party hat and tooted away on a kazoo for a while. I didn't think Donna and I would ever stop laughing!
Oh, Donna is my very best friend in the whole world. Her last name is Hayward, and her father, Dr. Hayward, delivered me twelve years ago today! I can't believe I finally made it. Mom cried at the table because she said before I know it I'll be a grown-up woman. Yeah, sure. It's going to take years for me to even get my period, I just know it. She's crazy if she thinks I'll be a grown-up in no time, especially if she keeps giving me stuffed animals for my birthday!
Today was just the way I wanted it to be, with only Donna and Mom and Dad there. And Jupiter, my cat, of course. For breakfast we had apple pancakes, which are my favorite, with lots of maple syrup and sourdough toast. "
Read the rest here:
http://www.glastonberrygrove.net/texts/lpdiary.html
I like, don't love, this movie. Nothing special. Sort of like a typical Hollywood movie. Don't really hate it, don't really love it.
Hope you feel better Nathaniel! Not a big fan of Benjamin Button, it just was way overlong for me although there probably was a very good film somewhere in there.
Wanted to see it so badly, and hated it so much when I did. I would have to be seriously sick to post something from that movie anywhere. Brad's and especially Cate's characters were both incredibly unlikeable. And I don't know where I first read "I've seen that movie 15 years ago. It was called 'Forrest Gump' back then." But anyone could take credit for that, it's too obvious. (Except, I did once like Forrest Gump...)
The Benjamin Button hate is so juvenile. Oh, it’s Forest Gump 2! Forest Gump the original was garbage. I think Curious Case would’ve been a stronger film had it been pared down. Instead of attempting to address an entire life and practically every aspect of the human experience it would be stronger. There has to be a sole purpose or else you’re just going through routines with no pay off.
Nathaniel,
I do believe Blanchett will join Streep and Lange in getting her 2nd Oscar in the Lead category. I know you don’t agree but you said you wanted a good tall tale!
@/3rtfu11: I just want to make sure it is understood I said I did once like Forrest Gump, past tense.
"would've been a stronger film if", maybe, but it isn't.
But how exactly would it have been stronger if it hadn't tried to cover an entire life? I think that is what you're saying, or that I get it wrong? Doesn't the principal idea of the movie, a story about a man who ages backwards, somehow require it to tell the story of a whole life?
@JennyB:do you know "babel","snatch","seven","fight club" or "Jessie James"? Pitt was very good
Dominik,
I mean in the literal sense that I felt the movie took too much time on his day in and day out periods of his life. It should’ve moved faster – all this lets pause for wonderment doesn’t add anything and Fincher is the wrong man for the job when it comes to sentimental wonk fest.
Get well!
...Which means, don't think about TCCOBB but Grease and/or West Side Story.
Nathaniel, I just saw your review of Never Let Me Go, and I was afraid if I posted there you'd never see my comment... would you mind telling me what you thought of Keira Knightley's performance? Thanks! And I hope you feel better. :)
JennyB: So what was Burn After Reading if not great acting? Huh? Were you not completely convinced he was that beefhead? If the grading of a great actor is believability x range, than I'd argue he's a much better actor than any of those other five you mention, who are phenomenal in a very narrow range of characters, but falter outside of it. I think, by the end of his career, he'll have a solid placement in my personal top hundred male actors ever. (My Ten is full: James Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, Jeff Bridges, Bruce Campbell (why didn't Hollywood bite?), Peter Sellers, Kirk Douglas, Marlon Brando, Toshiro Mifune (Japan may not produce a subtle acting style, but it's still great), Robert DeNiro and Ralph Fiennes (his Goeth is probably one of the top ten performances, male or female, of the last century, so everything else even good is just icing on the cake.)
I don't agree that he was good in Babel. (In regards to that movie, anyone but Pitt. Kikuchi, Barraza, Bernal, Blanchett. The one time anyone could say he was OUTCLASSED. In the 40s they handed James Stewart, quite a good looking person by a reasonable standard, an Oscar. Now, acting seems to have been confused with CULT OF UGLINESS. And, even though I'm asexual, I still find it creepy.)
My favourite movie of 2008 and my favourite Cate Blanchett performance. She was absolutely gorgeous in this and she blended with the story perfectly. There was no deliberate search of a highly dramatic moment and she absolutely owned and rocked the last part of the film in a way no one else could have. Really effortless and subtle, unlike 3 of the 5 best actress nominees that year.
Films like TCCOBB are here to provide escapism and beauty. It is a movie that is supposed to make you feel not think "why" all the time.
One of the very rare cases so far in my life when I really wanted to like a film, went to the theater with high expectations and received even more.
Great chemistry between the two leads.
Slumdog Millionaire's Best Picture win already looks embarrassing.
So many people described TCCOBB to be too unrealistic, yet Slumdog Millionaire was nothing more than a soap opera with a happy ending. And as much as I wanted to again "feel" and not "think" while watching it, the movie failed in my book.
yeah, Mondays can be tough :)
RIP Gloria Stuart
Danielle -- i read all comments, even on older posts. I liked Knightley just fine but thought she was the weakest of the three leads.
awww Nathaniel, feel better.
I think there's an illness going around :(
Watch this weeks Mad Men
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj9SUJdpJS4
:D
feel better
Honey and lemon
Jazz xoxo
This film is a total plagiarism, and a disorganized mess and very long movie, and I love David Fincher. We hope that his adaptation Dragon Tattoo proves to be good.
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