Some Know Buttons : In Praise of Pre-Judgement
Maybe I’m late to the party, but I had no idea of the utility of IMDB’s quotations page as a tool for movie night decision-making. Sure, Rotten Tomatoes can help, but given the rampant grade inflation of the American film critic, there are plenty of holes in that particular boat. Slumdog Millionaire, the Crash* of this year, gets a 97 percent rating? Gentleman, kindly get out of here with that nonsense.
Enter the ironclad evidence of the quotations page. Exhibit A: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The RT score is 70, which is barely passing. But that can often indicate a divisive movie that takes risks that more conservative observers will unfairly punish it for. It’s a tough call. That is, until we take a look at the film’s quotations page.
Benjamin Button: “Along the way you bump into people who make a dent on your life. Some people get struck by lightning. Some are born to sit by a river. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim the English Channel. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers. And some people can dance.”
Uh oh. Some know buttons?
Benjamin Button: “It’s a funny thing about comin’ home. Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. You’ll realize what’s changed is you.” I
Oh no, ‘fraid not. We won’t be paying good money to see that dialogue delivered. If I wanted to see a Hallmark Movie of the Week, I believe they have a channel for that kind of thing.
And it all works out. Money and time saved, and you can still claim genuinely earned outrage should this kind of claptrap win a Best Writing Oscar. Everyone’s happy.
*OK, so Slumdog’s not as bad as all that. It’s even exhilarating in parts. But it does bear resemblance to Crash in that glossing-over-social-issues, easy-answers, slick-and-predictable,middlebrow-liberal-pleasing, kind of way. You know what I mean.
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have not yet seen buttons or slumdog, but have heard mixed opinions on both i think you just made my movie decision-making a lot easier. not to mention a decent prep for oscar night.
and, to think brad didn’t laugh when he read that line in the script…. hunh.
This movie was an entire waste of time from the very first minute. If my step-daughter had not been with me I would have walked out. The fact that it got so many nominations is a Hollywood travesty that even I could have never imagined. Frankly, the only solid Brad Pitt performance was in “Snatch.” He was terrific.
Lewis
I think Slumdog is worth seeing. The praise just got a little overheated, I think. Let the Right One In is my film of the year, but they failed to get it in on time. Sad.
It’s the year of absolutes — Obama is regarded as a perfect human being/president and Slumdog as pure genius. More reasonable? Both have flaws. Time will tell whether Obama is a great president, but Slumdog is worth seeing. Not perfect, a bit of a brutally realistic fairy-tale (how often do you see that?) but still a good movie.
Button = Gump sans good characters and story arch
Haven’t seen Benjamin Button yet. I just can’t get past that name. I keep thinking he’s a rabbit.