David Fincher's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is so aware that it's very very good that it loses all respect for the capacity of your bladder. That said, it has the world-building attention to detail one demands from David Fincher, and the dedicated acting we expect from Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt, so by all means pee right into your Dockers, discard, buy new ones. That's why the good Lord invented Wal-Mart.
It's curious how little interest I had in this movie during its initial, acclaimed theatrical run. Having read the F. Scott Fitzgerald story it's based on, (not to mention "Back to the Seed", the MUCH BETTER, similarly themed story by the great Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier) all I felt was: "All right, so he ages backward and ends up as a kid. The make-up and FX people go home loaded with shiny statues of naked men." The story seemed explicit, unspoilable: indeed, Eric Roth's script, (which is naggingly reminiscent of his own work in "Forrest Gump"), may be masterful, but you don't go home quoting its assertions about life, time, and miracles; you go home thinking that he could have told the story much better with some 40 minutes excised from it.
What I forgot, (thankfully Fincher reminded me), is that there's a lot more to a great movie than WHAT happens in it, or even HOW it happens. A movie isn't a seven page story- a movie is GREAT HATS, and awesome furniture, and city views worth pausing and making screensavers out of, and storms at sea, and rain that swells musically and falls at convenient moments so that nature is at sync with the emotions plastered on the flawless face of a star in close-up. And "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" has all that, not to mention an impressive supporting cast that includes Tilda Swinton, Taraji P. Henson and the long-missing Julia Ormond. So yes, you should go watch it right now, if you haven't yet. But pee right before.

Or, you know, use the pause button.