Anyone want to hazard a guess of what happened “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” here? 12 nominations and only three technical wins?
A lot of people predicted this from the outset, but with that many nominations – which lead the pack – clearly many people did appreciate ‘Ben Button.’
Was it
– too cold?
– too longwinded?
– too slow?
– too much of a bummer?
– too “Forrest Gump”-y?
– David Fincher’s well-known, “I won’t suffer fools gladly” attitude?
– People appreciated the artistry behind the making of the film, but didn’t love the film itself?
– “Slumdog Millionaire”s populist appeal was too much of a juggernaut?
We won’t kick a dog while it’s down, while we didn’t care for ‘Ben Button’ at all, we do appreciate Fincher’s work in general and the technical elements of the film were pretty great. As we Twitter’ed, even if the effects were iffy, inconsistent and not 100% on all the time (even Fincher said as much), their breakthrough achievements were worth honoring. However our gut tells us all those pieces that revealed “the magic,” “the science” behind the movie in the New York Times and various other publications (including Paramount) only hurt the movie in the non-tech categories. Much of these behind-the-scene pieces revealed that Brad Pitt wasn’t even there onset next to Cate Blanchett all the time and that might’ve put some people off. The technical achievements made here are impressive, but ‘Button’ was a film about the human heart that lacked soul and revealing the process wasn’t necessarily the best of ideas in our opinion.
Or as Playlist contrib Gabe Toro very sagely says in our comments section, “A script about the joy of life. A movie about the sadness of death. All parties weren’t on the same page here.” Indeed.