Fresh Loaf

The bar at the Fork & Screen

I wasn’t sure I was cut out for spending a Saturday watching all five best picture nominees back-to-back in a Buckhead dinner theater. This was the kind of activity reserved for trekkies or Star Wars and Lord  of the Rings fanatics. But work demands sacrifices, and since I’m in charge of CL’s Oscar live-blog tonight, I figured I owed it to y’all to have seen more than Pineapple Express and Slumdog Millionaire. As it turns out, I’m pretty good at sitting, watching and eating for hours on end. Allison Keene, aka the Televangelist, who came along too, ain’t too bad either. The AMC Buckhead Fork & Screen proved a decent venue, if a bit cold and noisy. But once I got my coffee and we figured out how to adjust our seats, things went fairly smoothly. When I sat down today to do my recap, Allison had already turned one out. So rather than tell you the same things twice, I’ll leave you with Allison’s tales of German indiscretions, fanny fatigue, and four out of five recommendations (with which I concur)…:

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1) Holiday in Lights continues at Centennial Olympic Park.

2) Gentleman Jesse & His Men play the Earl.

3) Doubt opens in area theaters.

4) Lenny’s Bar hosts a Christmas Dance Party.

5) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button opens in area theaters.

(Photo courtesy Centennial Olympic Park)

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Max Arbes and CL’s Curt Holman continue their discussion about Oscar-worthy films opening during the holiday season, including Gran Torino and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Air Loaf is broadcast weekdays on 1690 WMLB-AM at approximately 8:10 a.m., 12:20 p.m. and 6:20 p.m.

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GRAY AREA: Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button (Photo by Merrick Morton/Copyright © 2008 Paramount Pictures Corporation)

Two of the holiday season’s most prestigious, Oscar-baiting movies seem informed by the resentment of aging and mortality summed up in Dylan Thomas’ poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.”

In Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood plays a Korean War vet who rages against the dying of the light with bigotry and the occasional firearm. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button turns our expectations for youth and senescence upside down through Brad Pitt’s age-regressing hero. But will he go gentle into that good, uh, morning?

The discrepancy between Benjamin Button’s outward age and his real maturity offers an intriguing if limited metaphor for the way people’s failing bodies don’t match their ageless spirits. Benjamin Button director David Fincher also proves that state-of-the-art special effects can apparently do anything. Button offers astonishing images of Pitt as a child-sized senior citizen who gets taller and healthier every year. Gran Torino, on the other hand, proves thoroughly old fashioned in ways both good and ill, and only succeeds thanks to Eastwood’s undimmed star power. The film, like Eastwood’s character, resembles the kind of crotchety old timer with so much piss and vinegar, you make excuses for his bad manners.

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