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List Price: $34.98 | | Label: Criterion
Salesrank: 4149
Released: May 5, 2009 |
| Our Price: $11.99 |
| Used Price: $6.95 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 05/05/2009 Run time: 165 minutes Rating: Pg13
Description of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Two-Disc Special Edition):
The technical dazzle of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a truly astonishing thing to behold: this story of a man who ages backwards requires Brad Pitt to begin life as a tiny elderly man, then blossom into middle age, and finally, wisely, become young. How director David Fincher--with makeup artists, special-effects wizards, and body doubles--achieves this is one of the main sources of fascination in the early reels of the movie. The premise is loosely borrowed from an F. Scott Fitzgerald story (and bears an even stronger resemblance to Andrew Sean Greer's novel The Confessions of Max Tivoli), with young/old Benjamin growing up in New Orleans, meeting the girl of his dreams (Cate Blanchett), and sharing a few blissful years with her until their different aging agendas send them in opposite directions. The love story takes over the second half of the picture, as Eric Roth's script begins to resemble his work on Forrest Gump. This is too bad, because Benjamin's early life is a wonderfully picaresque journey, especially a set of midnight liaisons with a Russian lady (Tilda Swinton) in an atmospheric hotel. Fincher observes all this with an entomologist's eye, cool and exacting, which keeps the material from getting all gooey. Still, the Hurricane Katrina framing story feels put-on, and the movie lets Benjamin slide offscreen during its later stages--curious indeed.--Robert Horton
Also on the disc
Criterion offers a two-disc presentation of the 2008 Oscar-winner, stamped as "Director Approved." Hard to miss that, since David Fincher is all over the extras on this one: he provides a talkative commentary track for the 165-minute film, which leaves little doubt about his fabled involvement in every aspect of the results you see on screen, and he figures in the documentary sections contained on the second disc. Fincher is such an assured, skillful talker that he easily justifies the otherwise standard-issue collection of behind-the-scenes material. The documentary sections can be played as one epic (three hour) making-of feature, which actually lasts longer than the film itself; they are also carved up and can be played in handy parts: the origins of the project (tons of people considered making it, including Frank Oz, Ron Howard, and Spike Jonze), the flabbergasting technical trickery involved, shooting in post-Katrina New Orleans, and anything else you can think of. Especially illuminating is the step-by-step stuff about how Brad Pitt's face was motion-captured for the purposes of morphing it onto the work of body doubles--in case you're still puzzled about how all that really worked. The usual production stills and an essay by Kent Jones fill out the package. --Robert Horton
Stills from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Click for larger image)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Two-Disc Special Edition) Reviews:
A little long! 
2009-11-07 - Loved this movie, especially Brad Pitt's part. ran a little long with some slow scenes, i think they could have shortened it a bit. although i do not regret purchasing.
poor quality 
2009-11-07 - The item arrived in a timely fashion. The first 45 minutes played very well with good picture quality, but after the 45 minutes the DVD begin to freeze then showed video artifacts on the screen eventually the DVD just froze and would not play. I removed the DVD and cleaned it very thoroughly and played it again, but the results were the same. contacted the seller and requested a refund and they provided a full refund. Very unhappy and the DVD has no useful purpose. It is not playable.
Trying to be too much, with too little. 
2009-10-26 - Felt like a Forest Gump type of movie, without the humor or compelling storyline. The movie encapsulates every sense of the word dull, and while an interesting concept, the overdrawn length of the movie coupled with a daily regret I now have for loosing 3 hours of my life while watching this forces me to hand it a 2 star rating. There are movies made so you don't have to think, and movies made to provoke thought and discourse. This movie promotes a drab, dry in between that leaves you wondering what else might have been accomplished during the time it took to watch the movie.
Bored to tears!
2009-10-24 - I am sorry Brad Pitt, but this was wholy dissapointing. I guess if you look at the acting, I woudl say it was a good movie, but when you look at everything, it just bored. The story was interesting and worth-while, BUT there was no climax and no excitement. I guess nto every movie needs a giagntic fireworks and bombs climax, but really? I felt like I was watchign a doctor try to revive a dead patient....it just wasn't happening. All in all this movie realllllly failed to impress me.
Riveting 
2009-10-20 - This is a long, slow movie, but it is quite astonishing.
At first, there is a little smugness at the general concept: a man is born old and grows younger with time.
But the movie quickly transcends its gimmick-premise, and becomes by turns tragic, and touching, and illuminating, and funny, and amazing, and quietly wonderful.
Brad Pitt's quiet performance is a perfect counterpoint to Cate Blanchett's hyper frenzy. You can see how these two attract each other. You can also see how Button (Pitt) would be attracted to the unfulfilled, still-waiting, always-wanting-to-conquer-the-Channel character played by Tilda Swinton.
He himself is also waiting, for something neither he nor anyone else can envision.
And so the movie works subtly to give a powerful sensation of what it feels like to be alive: things happening that are profound, moving, silly, heartbreaking, wonderful, sad, ordinary, unexpected, shocking--all coming into your life, and then moving away like a ship on the horizon.
The fact that the two principal characters' life-arcs are opposite--Blanchett getting older and more sedate, Pitt getting younger and more lively--and can only meet for a touching, tragic moment, is both terribly romantic and exactly right.
This is the way things work. Nothing lasts.
But, as the lightning-victim says, every day things come along that make it wonderful to be alive.
A profound, interesting, very unusual movie.
It is also quite tricky. There are subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle, hints of reincarnation (the hummingbird). But, very satisfyingly, the whole plot is shifted forward in time and ends with the cataclysm of Hurricane Katrina slamming into New Orleans, destroying, or seeming to destroy, this entire cycle of death-and-rebirth.
Powerful, puzzling, sublime.
