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$3.5 Million in Mistakes
Digital Domain's wondrous digital effects in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button -- particularly the "aging and youthing" of Brad Pitt -- "are so perfect as to be virtually invisible, free of the usual trappings of CGI -- that too-fluid, too-fake, superimposed look that makes the cattle stampede in Australia, for instance, feel so unthreatening.
"Paradoxically," writes Vanity Fair.com's Julian Sancton , "this may mean that the most impressive visual effects feat of the year may go unrecognized.
"'The thing about Benjamin Button,' says Judy Duncan, editor of the visual effects trade mag Cinefex, 'is that, obviously all the [Academy] voters in the visual effects category know what they're looking at, but the vote for the final winner goes to the entire Academy -- including actors and writers and producers -- and I don't know if most of those people are going to know what they're looking at. They're going to assume it was all makeup.
"It's stunning work -- I actually think it should win -- but I don't know if the average moviegoer is going to recognize that.'"
That would be absurd, of course. The standard of good visual effects is not to be able to identify them. And yet to think that some people out there would be oblivious of this aesthetic...God!
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on January 6, 2009 at 3:24 PM
comment #1
shepherd123456
says ...
like the monkeys in planet of the apes beating the monkeys in 2001 for the best costume design oscar because people thought kubrick used REAL FUCKING MONKEYS.
Posted by shepherd123456
at January 6, 2009 3:47 PM
comment #2
NotImpressed1Yet
says ...
I think if anything, the effects in Zodiac are even more seamless because they're used to show stuff that isn't fantastic or supernatural.
But yeah, Fincher is probably the best director in the world when it comes to incorporating CGI in believable but dramatic fashion, and TCCOBB is a lot of fun to watch for that reason alone.
Posted by NotImpressed1Yet
at January 6, 2009 3:54 PM
comment #3
crsryan
says ...
The deaging of Cate Blanchett is enough to win the effects Oscar, for sure. The way they made her look like a teenager was astounding. Expect that to become a hugely in-demand thing for actresses over the next decade -- taking off ten years, convincingly.
The Brad Pitt effects are also extremely impressive, but you can feel the weight of the process the more he is deaged. Especially that final scene, in the dance studio, where it's darkly lit and he's not moving his head in the slightest...that's a noticeable drag, but it hardly takes away from the achievement.
Posted by crsryan
at January 6, 2009 4:17 PM
comment #4
Josh Massey
says ...
The effects in Zodiac were much more seamless. In Button they were very good, but they definitely weren't perfect - especially when it came to Pitt's face.
Another quibble: was anybody thrown off by the voice of the youngest Cate Blanchett incarnation? It was a distracting, obvious loop that both my fiancee and I noticed separately.
Posted by Josh Massey
at January 6, 2009 4:19 PM
comment #5
Jesse Perry
says ...
People might not realize the visual fx of this movie? This film wears the fx on its sleeve! I spent most of the film going "Wow, look at that," in large part because the script wasn't holding my attention.
Posted by Jesse Perry
at January 6, 2009 4:53 PM
comment #6
LYT
says ...
Also, the entire train station with the backwards-clock was apparently CG. That was impressive.
The fact that the CG Coca-Cola polar bears and airships of the Golden Compass won the Oscar last year over the most believable giant robots I've ever seen would seem to bolster the notion that more obvious CG plays better for the win.
Posted by LYT
at January 6, 2009 6:18 PM
comment #7
swordandpen
says ...
I felt the same way as Jesse. If only they spent as much time on the script as the special effects.
Posted by swordandpen
at January 6, 2009 6:23 PM
comment #8
DavidF
says ...
The special effects were kinda noticeable and seamless at the same time. I think you can totally lose yourself in the film and not think about how they did X or Y since, hey, that really does look like Brad Pitt as an old man!
At the same time I kept waiting to see how Pitt would look @ 20 and it looked insanely perfect. I was a bit distracted trying to figure out how the heck they did it. Fincher really does know how to do this stuff better than anyone.
And I'm with you on the little girl, Josh. It sounded like they had Blanchett loop the dialogue, much as they had Chris Reeve do for the kid who played young Clark Kent in the first Superman. You might not have noticed it on TV but the audio mastering etc on DVD makes it a bit distracting.
Posted by DavidF
at January 7, 2009 7:47 AM
comment #9
actionman
says ...
A travesty, LYT. An f'ing travesty.
Posted by actionman
at January 7, 2009 8:12 AM
comment #10
YRG
says ...
It's a long way off from a dog in an alien suit.
Posted by YRG
at January 7, 2009 7:15 PM
comment #11
BurmaShave
says ...
That picture is more whimsical and intriguing than anything in BUTTON.
Posted by BurmaShave
at January 7, 2009 8:25 PM
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