I just saw that depressing movie this morning. I can't remember if they picked up any Oscars out of all the nominations, but all those rich Hollywood moguls must have been laughing their asses off at how it punched all the wrong buttons on the have-nots in our society.
Benjamin is born with his geriatrics in reverse gear, born as a withered old man and eventually maturing into Brad Pitt. All of his relations in life flow accordingly, people going in the opposite direction of his personal evolution. Eventually the love of his life grows old and dies while he is experiencing the peaks of his self-awareness. Alternately, the world around him continues to repeat its own cycles as he stands by, unable to lend his experience to those dooming themselves to predictable failure.
Hell's bells, tell me about it. I'm sitting here experiencing an intellectual renaissance, expecting to reap the biggest harvests of my life (or die trying), and my contemporaries are dropping like flies. Guys my age don't go out at night, women my age may dislocate a hip joint by jogging a half mile, and most of the hockey players and wrestlers from my generation are in wheelchairs. I try and make connections on the field, and most people withdraw from me as a dangerous old man. I promised myself I would not become a computer nerd, a social invalid locked into the Internet environment. Well, shit, when I go outside, there's no place to go but right back here.
I felt the same way about "Interview With The Vampire" as I did with this flick. What'll happen in a hundred years (God forbid) with all this accumulated knowledge, trying to communicate with a generation as far removed intellectually from me as my cat? Will I keep writing for a society as remote from my traditions and values as a pig from Sunday?
I am Benjamin's Button.
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