Cinema Ho digresses: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"

'tis the season when the studios unleash the floodgates, releasing their best work. Add in lazy holiday vacation time and you get...a long promiscious weekend at the Landmark Cinema.

Tuck into the Milk Duds, the industrial-strength, trough-sized soda, the comfy seat with leg room. It's time for...

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Three hours - damn! Warren Beatty gave us an intermission for "Reds" - where's the mercy here?

But I digress. This well-done and thought-provoking movie made Cinema Ho curious indeed, starting with:

- Why not more ribald humor? (We're in New Orleans, for God's sake.) In particular, I'm thinking that the final love scene before Brad Pitt passes into childhood should have been prefaced with Cate Blanchett imploring: "Take me now, Abercrombie & Fitch boy - before our love becomes a Springer episode!"

- Ms. Blanchett and Tilda Swinton look a bit alike, no?

- Why all the negative kvetching about the Hurricane Katrina tie-in? At first, yes, that plot device seemed gratuitous, but tell me that the final image of the flood waters didn't move you and tie in beautifully with the central premise of all things being fleeting.


Craving more film commentary? Check out The Reader, Doubt, The Wrestler and I've Loved You So Long.