So I'm back in LA and I caught a mid-day screening of Benjamin Button at the Dome. I've been all bent up lately, knowing awards time is soon approaching. And the source of my bend has been this notion that all we'd have to root for come time to hand out golden statues would be a handful of misconnecting, quasi-disappointments. So far, that's been the field. No one's really excited about anything. Slumdog was good. Everything else has kinda gone limp - and I've yet to run across someone who would argue otherwise.
So back to the subject at hand, Ben Button. I guess there's not a lot I can say...or maybe I'm choosing not to say much. Movies come along every weekend, hopefuls that span the globe, pieced by our great living storytellers. If you see enough, you learn to spot the flags -- you notice familiarities where so many tread or share similar gravel. Everything is somewhat derivative...somewhat, and that's fine. Today, I had this nagging and welcome thought...new roads, new feelings. Something different about this one. Something settling about this one - taking my bend away - a worthy best pic.
And it felt like a weight was lifted. Really. And I floated on my walk back to the parking garage. And I kept on thinking, because it's what I do...ceaselessly -- I don't mind so much where the rest of the nominations go, so long as the Academy grows up -- or down, allows a sidestep, spends two of their noms on the most deserved but usually all too ignorable big money faction. Now if that happens, maybe then we'll be alright...
