Jolly Ol' England

I think I would quite enjoy living on "Butt Hole Road". I'm not so thrilled about the prospect of "Penistone", however. And "Crotch Crescent" sounds like some kind of medieval torture device.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/world/europe/23crapstone.html?em

It beggars belief

To my utter disgust I have recently discovered that "The Curious Case of Benjamin Butthole" has been nominated for not one, not two, but thirteen Oscars. I want to know what the Oscars committee is collectively smoking, because it seems to endow them with the incredible power to locate artistic excellence in a quagmire of mind- and ass-numbing mediocrity. The one saving grace of it all is that Meryl Streep and Viola Davis have been nominated for their astounding performances in Doubt. I don't know what it is about Meryl, but I would go straight for her; perhaps I just love her because she plays a great bitch. Speaking of which, if Benjamin Butthole even so much as wins "Best Catering on a Movie Set" I vow to bitch-slap myself until I'm red in the face.

Well, at least someone agrees with me

A great review from SFGate. Well, at least in my humble opinion. And no, in case you're wondering, I did not plagiarize this review, although having read it I wish I had seen it sooner.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/24/DDVS14SO29.DTL&type=movies

"The Curiously Tedious Case of Benjamin Button" or "Four Hours of My Life That I Will Never Get Back"

*** Winner of the 2009 Lifetime TV Achievement Award for Cinematic Excellence in the category "Straight to DVD" ***

It's a pity that I couldn't talk about this movie as soon as I left the theater last night, as is my custom, but I've only just overcome - with the help of strict regimen of anti-coagulants and DIY physiotherapy - the adverse effects of sitting in a confined space, motionless, for over three hours. (I'm fine now, thanks for asking).

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you were born old and became younger as time progressed? I haven't, but maybe I'm just not curious by inclination, which could explain why I'm alone with my computer and a box of tissues on a Sunday evening writing this blog. Anyhow, I digress. In case you have ever wondered, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" holds out the exciting possibility of revealing just what such a strange affliction might feel like. And in this respect, Benjamin Button does indeed deliver, and in a way that is refreshingly free from the dry metaphysical subtleties that bedevil other films with similarly plastic notions of space and time, such as "Being John Malkovich". The key insight of the film - rendered with stunning directness and intellectual economy by director David Fincher - is this: Benjamin Button is born old and becomes younger as time progresses. That's it folks, the key insight of the film.

Let me explain. Benjamin Button is born old. CGI is so good these days that he's much too repulsive and abnormal for his well-to-do father to raise, so he's unceremoniously dumped on the steps of a poor black couple. By sheer coincidence - by golly, the fates must really by looking out for Benjamin! - the black couple work at a nursing home. So Benjamin grows up there, meets a couple of nice old folks, learns to play the piano, and you know, there follows a fairly natural succession of events: he leaves the nursing home, meets a drunk Irish sailor, becomes a fisherman in the Gulf of Mexico, ends up in Russia, sinks a Nazi U-boat, has an affair with the wife of a British spy, witnesses one of the Apollo missions taking off from Cape Carnaveral, you know, the stuff of a typical, garden-variety biography. He falls in love along the way with a ballerina, but the details are inconsequential as neither Benjamin nor the audience really learn anything, so I wont dwell on it here. I'll just say that since he's growing younger and she's growing older, the relationship is doomed to a sad ending from the outset. What a shame.

As the movie rolled on and on and on with its sequence of increasingly implausible, unconnected and inconsequential episodes, it became harder to remain a polite, etiquette-bound member of the cinema-going public. My self-expression confined to vigorous eye rolling and various other gymnastic motions of my facial muscles, it was as if I was seeing the movie through Stephen Hawking's eyes, with a great deal to say about the state of things but completely lacking the expressive outlets - a popcorn tantrum, for instance - with which to do so. Needless to say, it was a relief when CGI Benjamin finally had acne and hair-where-there-was-no-hair-before. You can guess how it all ends. After a bum-numbing three hours, one would've thought they might have had just a little bit more to say about life, the universe and everything. Oh well, at least I got to look at something other than my laptop and a box of Kleenexes.

Deconstruction Complete. 4 stars out of 10.

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Welcome to my blog. I plan to use this page to opine on any matter that takes my fancy, no matter how inconsequential. Beware that those who enter this blog are at risk of being deconstructed.