If you do a search for "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" these days you will run into a wild Fincher fest of praise and sky-high expectations! And, man!, can I understand the excitement.
Since there isn't too much text anyway, everyone can watch the spanish trailer:
"My name is Benjamin Button. While everyone keeps aging, I keep getting younger." -- "You're so young." -- "Only on the outside."
Understandably, now all we are waiting for is an official HD-version of this that we can drool over until christmas-day!
Man, I love this trailer!
UNBELIEVABLE!
ReplyDeleteAnd the trailer is down... here's a trailer that's still working: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqvVD6HQqyM
ReplyDeletehttp://www.joblo.com/video/media/flv/benjaminbutton.flv
ReplyDeleteDirect link to flv file. Open with Media Player Classic.
The movie looks amazing.
agreed. and watched a zillion times already. imagine when they release the hd version.
ReplyDeletei just can t wait ..
ReplyDeleteplease help me!
;)
my man david finch'
( getting better and better!)
at the beginning Brad Pitt says "My name is Benjamin Button. While everyone keeps aging, I keep getting younger." and at the end, Cate Blanchett says to him "You're so young." and Brad says "Only on the outside."
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of comments on imdb regarding the connection between this trailer and Tim Burton's world. It is not an accident.
ReplyDeleteI am a HUGE Fincher fan and that's the last thing I want to see (or hear about). Either the trailer is wrong or it is intentionally leading us astray. There is also something wrong with this music, which I think is totally inappropriate. Film buffs must be familiar with this music, which (too) often used, i.e for Cannes festival opening & closing.
But I guess this marketing will lure the average moviegoers (no prejudice here) into theaters for Christmas. And, I hope, not disappoint Fincher's early admirers, like me, like all of us here. We don't want to see a Burton's film. We expect a FINCHER one ;-)
I don't know... it looks too dark and depressing for my taste, and I'm not so fond of the music either. I'm not sure the audience won't be grossed out by an old body with Pitt's head on it.
ReplyDeleteTim Burton is not the forefather of gothic or fantasticality even though he's often had box office success either fusing the two together or using them separately. Just because something appears to incorporate either of these elements doesn't necessarily mean that it's undoubtedly going to be an ersatz ripoff of the quote unquote Burton style. Plus, of the numerous Burton films in existence, the only two that weren't entirely dependent on superficial gloss were Ed Wood and Big Fish so it's a slight to Fincher to blindly jump to this comparison connection when arguably the same number of works from his canon could be categorized as being Burton-like in their emphasis on surface value (Alien 3, Panic Room).
ReplyDeleteSo how come so many people are mentioning Burton? Look on imdb boards.
ReplyDeletePlus Panic Room is much more than superficiality. You only need to look at Whitaker's character's eyes in the final shot to sense that there was a hidden social context.
I don't agree with the comparison of Fincher/Button to Tim Burton. I think two things are leading people there; the Black and white color scheme with milky skin coupled with the music that establishes the magical realist tone. I think people associate these things with Tim Burton, but if thats all you saw in the trailer then I think those people missed out.
ReplyDeleteSadly I think most people do miss out on a lot of information when they watch films. I think that fly by night film schools and flippant/consumer guide film criticism has handicapped the publics ability to look beneath the surface not added to it.
I can not disagree more with gerald when he says that Panic Room and Alien 3 depends on surface value. This is true of Tim Burton's work. Tim Burton's work is very un-psychological, Fincher's work is always the opposite.
Alien 3 is as fucked up a story as one can tell, Alien 3 sits on something that most people in most cultures agree on as a horrifying idea. The idea of a mother and her unwanted child.
Panic Room is in large part about Dramatic irony. It's about what you know when and this game is constantly being played out between the characters and the audience, it's Finchers first film where his attention is strictly on the how and when passing on of information occurs. Dramatic Irony is in large part a function of proximity and geography. Which is why Fincher uses computerized, impossible sequence shots. Yes he could cut from place to place and pass along the same information but the long takes emphasize geography, space and time.
Panic Room also touches on distrust and suspicion of the other but in Panic Room the other isn't a stranger, he/she is your spouse, your friend, and your neighbor, your child.
I would never say any of Finchers' films are dependant on surface value. I think people see a pretty picture and their brains turn off. They see a pretty picture and they think "CANDY" then the either celebrate the film for being "Candy" or denounce it for being such.
In Tim Burton's work psychology was the production design. The sets the costumes reflected or more accurately "REPRESENTED" the characters. I think where Tim's current work falls flat is that he has a set of visual tropes that he relies on and so now he paints by numbers. He has the Tim Burton style so he relies on this and has stopped looking deeper into himself and consequently into his characters.
Ben Button looks to me to be the realistic figuring out and telling of an extraordinary/ magical/ fantastical tale. Fincher's eyes is on "if this were to happen what would it look like, what would it feel like, where would this end up?"
From the script that I've read it would be hard to make this into a Tim Burton film. It doesn't use death and time as a metaphor to or as an allusion. In Button death and time are real and have consequences.
The music indeed is a bit...undistinctive.
ReplyDeleteToo "best of: cotton-candy classics" for my taste (but that's my taste).
Since it is also used for the BB site
it will probably not just be a temp-track for the trailer.
Maybe the look and narrative pacing of the movie will justify the use of it.
Remember space ships and waltz music? That worked!
Imagine the first sight of an old face on an infant body
and hearing Saint-Saëns.
I still hope we hear a lot of period music in the movie,
since the tunes used in ZODIAC demonstrate great taste!
I am pretty sure this will rock the box-office. It is a great story,
it has Pitt in a great lead and there's no serious contender before Christmas.
Except that "rogue" comedy of course, no one expected to "rock harder".
It IS a risky business...you just never know.
By the way:
Fincher seems to finally got rid of that "From the Director of..."
marketing nonsense he always despised. I would have never imagined that
Kennedy/Marshall is willing to take risks. Very good.
does someone know the title of this music?
ReplyDelete@ jessybardy
ReplyDeleteI've heard repeatedly the music was "The Aquarium" by Camile Saint-Saens from "Carnival of the Animals".
@ kevin.
ReplyDeletei'm always amazed by how your comments are filled with inteligent and well placed information.
the "message" comes across very clearly.
i'm glad you're a fincher fan. and consider me a fan of yours.
keep it up mate.
what's the point in releasing some spanish trailer but not the english one? and why would Par leave the spanish one up on youtube, but erase every other one at insane speeds? this is crazy!
ReplyDeleteget the freaking hd trailer online someplace right now!
Kevin :
ReplyDeleteThe shots are undeniably Fincher's, but this music ruins the whole thing. Make it sound like a fairy tale. And also in the end there's a shot with a giant man & a kid : straight out of Big Fish!
Which is why most people think it is a Tim Burton's film.
Thanks Thiago. Glad that you appreciate my comments.
ReplyDeleteTarsem mentions Ben Button in his interview on Aint It Cool
ReplyDelete@matt
ReplyDeletewhere?