Benjamin Button nominated for best picture? Curious....

We saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button last night. (Jason and I are slightly interested in the Oscars, and if the movie seems like it might meet our standards, we will watch it so that we know what to root for when the Oscars happen. I won't be rooting for this one!) It was proof to me that Eric Roth should never again write a screenplay for an epic movie. He's already written this script, and it was called Forrest Gump. Of course, Forrest Gump was actually written well.

This movie was based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's a shame they besmirched his story this way.

Some problems in the writing: It was Forrest Gump rehashed. You know how sometimes authors hit a point in their careers where they can't come up with anything original, so they dress up old characters in new costumes, so to speak? That's what this movie was--Forrest Gump in dirty-old-man clothes. I'd heard people make the comparison between the two movies before, but I still had hopes that I would care about the characters enough to be swept away and not care about the similarities. Not so. In fact, there were many times when I leaned to Jason or he leaned to me and quoted Forrest Gump at a serious point in the movie and we both had to stifle our laughter. It was that bad. Almost a parody.

I didn't care about these characters AT ALL! They were immoral curiosities who messed up on every turn in an effort to experience life. I didn't care if the characters got together or not. And once they did get together, Benjamin left because he was worried about Daisy having to raise two children (him and the daughter they illegitimately had together.) She ended up "raising" Benjamin anyway, but didn't tell her daughter anything at all about him.

The movie had the cliche set up of the daughter reading a journal to her dying mother, and finding out things about her mother that she never understood before. Keep in mind that Daisy had this journal (which had once belonged to Benjamin) for years, and she never read it!? She had to wait until she was dying and her daughter could read it to her. Another thing the daughter discovered on her mother's death bed was pictures of the mother's dance career. She says, "mother, you never told me about your dancing!" Hard to believe since Daisy ran a dance studio and practically raised her daughter there.

As Benjamin was "growing up", he ran into a guy named Button at a brothel. Yes, a brothel. It didn't occur to him that this man who wanted to spend so much time with him and had the same name as him might have some connection to Benjamin's family. You know, cause Button is a common name, like Smith. Years later, when Mr. Button confesses that Benjamin is his son, Benjamin has mercy on the dying man and takes his inheritance, then sells it all, even the pictures of the mother who died giving birth to him.

Benjamin comes home from one of his excursions to find that his adoptive mother has died and he's just in time for the funeral.

Careful when you see a film by Eric Roth. You never know what's comin/you never know what you're gonna get. Okay, that's SO not true. You know exactly what you're going to get, and that chocolate tasted better the first time.

Oh, it was bad. So bad.