I hope I don’t get penalized for veering off topic from evaluating intercultural behavior. After reading Mr Blackstone’s post on the 2 films and the hype about Slumdog Millionaire sweeping the Oscar awards, I felt compelled to speak up for the other best picture nominee The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which I felt was another great movie. Bizarre it may sound but The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is about a man who grew younger, he was born wrinkled in a body of an 80 year old man. He was considered a freak and abandoned. He was raised in an old folk’s home and finally died in the same place as a baby.
This movie was not a feel-good film, it wouldn’t be nominated if it was, but it was soothing. It discussed about birth and death in a subtle manner. Life (elderly admitted into the old folk's home) and death came regularly to Benjamin Button as he grew up in the old folk’s home. He proceeded to be a sailor, had an interesting affair with an English lady and then married his childhood sweetheart. The English lady and Benjamin only met in the hotel lobby every night, never looked at each other in the day if they met and never said “I love you” to each other, it was their pact. She was never happy with her “day” life, very much like us, I felt.
His childhood sweetheart, whom Benjamin eventually abandoned, he really loved her. Since Benjamin was growing younger whilst she was naturally growing older, they figured out that they were at the “middle” of their lives and enjoyed each other's company. I never understood this statement until a few days later when I read a newspaper article, a critic on this movie discussing about parents and their children meeting also “at a phrase of their lives”. The author elaborated about spending this precious phrase with her parents. Maybe, I thought to myself, this was what the director had intended to mean. That’s my interpretation.
Overall, I felt the acting was not Oscar-worthy, probably the reason why Brad Pitt didn’t win. However, I felt the story and the movie as a whole deserved the same amount of hype as Slumdog Millionaire.
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Elvin,
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen the film, but look forward to doing so. The story sounds interesting and makes me "curious." I must admit though that whenever I see Brad Pitt in a film I think to myself, oh, there's Brad Pitt acting again. Among the many reasons I liked Slumdog Millionaire was the fact that every person seemed real, not like an actor doing a part.
As for veering off topic, well, you can veer all you like, and adding a novel post to your blog is always welcome. At the same time, an assignment is an assignment. If everyone veers to such a great extent, the very idea of an assignment becomes rather meaningless, doesn't it?
In communicating, it could be considered basic to realize that we have certain responsibilities in certain contexts, and that we need to recognize and respond to what is asked of us as we assume such responsibility. I don't mean to sound like too much of a "hard ass," Elvin. However, I do have to expect the same from you that I expect of everyone else in class.
Again though, like I said, making additional posts to your blog is always fine.