Film Junk Podcast Episode #200: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button / Year In Review

Posted by on December 29th, 2008   Filed under: Featured, Film Junk Podcast

0:00 – Intro
4:00 – Greg’s First Appearance on Film Junk
7:25 – Headlines: Man Shoots People for Talking During Movie
10:35 – What We Watched: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Man on Wire, Frost/Nixon, Wallace and Gromit in A Matter of Loaf and Death, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Gran Torino, Iron Man, Taken, Snow Angels, This American Life: Season 1
31:58 – Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
49:30 – Top Headlines of 2008
1:02:10 – Film Junk Reader’s Choice Award Winners
1:13:52 – Film Junk’s Top 10 Movies of 2008
1:41:50 – Listener Q&A
1:58:15 – Outro

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  • joe

    ‘grats on 200… 4 Months, Man on Wire, and The Wrestler are on the top of my list to see now.

  • Mason

    Great lists guys. I’ll definitely be adding some of these titles that I haven’t heard of to my Netflix list. And I would recommend seeing “The Visitor” and “In Bruges” both of which I loved and would think are going to appear on many year-end lists. Also missing was “Doubt”, which I haven’t seen yet, but I want to soon.

  • I was hoping to see both The Visitor and Doubt before the end of the year, but no dice. I hope to catch Doubt sometime this week though.

  • dirtypop

    The “download MP3″ link is broken.

  • Works for me. Try it again, it might have just timed out or something.

  • dirtypop

    I’ve tried a bunch of times now. It still gives me a 189kb file that says it’s 19 seconds long.

  • Weird, did you try through iTunes at all? Is anyone else having problems?

  • Jay L

    Yeah man episode 200 is busted, I can only download 5 min of the show and it the same when I try to listen to it from the sidebar.

  • I think you guys were a bit generous with your ratings for benjamin button. haha.

    Wow! I can’t believe your at 200. Good job guys!

  • rus

    the fact “The Happening” was even forgotten during your “biggest disappointments” section is even more evidence of how bad it was – everyone wants to forget it.

  • Rus….totally agree.

  • Reed isn’t becoming a Film Junk regular…is he?

    Also a review of The Spirit would be cool for next time because I love hearing you guys rag on a flick (according to Rotten Tomatoes its pretty terrible).

  • Mason

    Were the year end top 10 lists posted on here somewhere? If they were I can’t find them.

  • Great episode. Couldn´t stop laughing when you guys were invertedly praising Reed´s pronunciation of “Aj-rooon Man” :D

    More Reed please!

    That guy is seriously funny!

  • Jay is right on with Benjamin Button – the novelty of him aging backwards does not matter. It means nothing to the story. That was my biggest complaint. If he were normal, this movie would be the exact same. I said the same thing last night with Kurt.

    Still, I felt the same way as Sean. I walked out of the movie feeling good and kind of liking it for intangible reasons. “Emotionally invested” is a good term Sean. For me, that’s it exactly.

  • Without even having seen the films, I bet Waltz with Bashir and Sky Crawlers are both better films than anything in the best animated category.

  • Falsk

    Sean, if it turns out one or all of you check out “Doubt”, l’d like to hear your opinions on it. I was pretty unsatisfied with its presentation altogether, but I’m not sure if I’m the only one…

  • Benjamin Button was very Fincher-esque… almost as good as his other stuff if not for some nagging plot holes

  • Bas

    Congratulations on the 200th episode!

    I’m a Fincher-fan, but after hearing your review I think I will not like that movie at all. I’ll check it out, but not in theaters.

  • Goon

    just rented Snow Angels on your recommendation. In return I recommend you rent The Visitor, which is also criminally unseen. Same guy who made the Station Agent.

    If Greg’s mom is a trekkie, and Reed is so much older, I don’t see why he doesn’t counter every threat of violence with a threat to boink Greg’s mom.

    With that in mind, I think Jay needs to make a short film about Gerry becoming Greg’s father-in-law.

  • Mason

    Don’t you mean step-father? That sounds a little bit like the plot of “Mr. Woodcock”.

  • Goon

    Sorry, step-father, yes.

    “That sounds a little bit like the plot of “Mr. Woodcock”.”

    Except this time, between the two of them the nephew is the bully of the relationship.

  • Ha ha. I actually had to think about the implications of being Greg’s father-in-law rather than his step-father seeing as I don’t currently have any kids…

    This Benjamin Button talk has me thinking about making a movie where an Occidental transforms into an Asian as he gets older. Sort of like Woody Allen’s Zelig, but we’d see the transformation occur much slower. And I would avoid what The Twilight Zone did where the person is a racist who gets transformed into a member of a race he despises. I’d make it into a sweet fantasy. Perhaps I would have an interracial marriage where the husband transforms into a member of his wife’s race. And have no one in the movie make a note of it. Ha ha.