Culture

Benjamin Button Backlash Begins, Despite 13 Oscar Nominations

by Jarrett Martineau | January 22, 2009 at 09:06 am

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"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" has been nominated for 13 Academy Awards — sweeping almost every major Oscars category — but not everyone is happy about it.

While the Academy, many critics, and much of the movie-going public have been eagerly swept away by the film's simply-told tale of a life lived in reverse, others have been so deeply infuriated by the movie's forced emotion and uninspired melodrama that they are demanding the 3 hours of their lives back.

And some of those righteous Button-haters have gone a step further — they've established the first Official Anti-Benjamin Button Club.

The O.A.B.B.C. is a self-declared "ragtag group of the liberal elite who are all shocked and horrified that they wasted three hours of their precious time watching one of the most pretentious, hackneyed and blatant attempt to win an Oscar ever made."

Their mission is simple: to share their displeasure with Benjamin Button and to rally support from their fellow discontents and dissenters.

The club offers "proof" that Benjamin Button Is A Shameless Rip-off of Forrest Gump (an observation compiled in video form by others as well), they decry Cate Blanchett's overwrought performance and lambaste her for her infuriatingly cloying Southern drawl.

Is it also wrong…that I wanted to reach through the screen and strangle ‘old lady’ Blanchett on her death bed so she’d stop using that insipid, quavering, sickly, Southern accent to narrate?
“Aaaaahhh doooooo declaaaaarrreee, aaaaahhhh loooooved thaaaat ooooooooooold, wriiiiinkly Buuuuutttton boooooyyyy!”

Today, a post on the club's site boldly declared January 22, 2009 to be "A Day That Will Live in Infamy". The unidentified author then expressed their utter disbelief and horror at learning that Button had been nominated for 13 Academy Awards.

Worst day of my life.
Woke up to read this headline: Benjamin Button leads all movies with 13 Oscar nominations

In disbelief, went to another news source to read this: ‘Benjamin Button’ Tops Oscar Nominations

Is this some sort of cruel joke? Is there ANOTHER Benjamin Button that is in theatres - one that isn’t 3 hours, filled with hummingbirds, horrible accents, and maudlin sentimentality? Is there another Benjamin Button that isn’t a ridiculous story about someone who ages in reverse and yet never becomes a scientific marvel or covered in the media?

Best picture? Best actor? Best director? Best Adapted Screenplay? Best Art Direction? Best Cinematography? Best Art Design? Best Editing? Best Makeup? Best Score? Whaaaaaa??????

What about BEST HOODWINKING OF AN ENTIRE MOVIEGOING NATION!?!? And not a single Razzie nomination?

I feel like I have woken up in an alternate universe. A BIZARRO universe where Button is an artistic wonder. My life has turned upside down. I’m starting to question everything I once held true.