I've admired David Fincher since visiting the Aerosmith 'Janie's Got a Gun' set in the early 90s. From all the MTV bred video directors, Fincher has evolved into the most conscious and accomplished filmmaker of the lot. Michael Bay cannot touch his sense of left field quirk or sociocultural relevance. Pearl Harbor? Please. I'll take Fight Club. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button may be the master director's first romantic masterpiece.

The premise is so paradoxical -- to be born old and near death and grow younger each year as those around you inevitably head toward their respective ends -- presents a fascinating and frustrating scenario. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett consummate their union at each others' life mid points. The parables of time and tide are plenty. Button is short on words, long on wisdom, a glorious misfit and pure cinematic soul, like Tim Burton's fragile Edward Scissorhands or Robert Zemeckis' ubiquitous Forrest Gump. The screenplay was written by Gump author, Eric Roth, based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, one that definitely escaped me even during my literary college years.
Close to three hours, the film moves along like a soft meditation, filling our senses with precisely crafted characters and stunning visuals. It never plods mainly because the story is so completely bizarre. We cannot leave the narrative for a moment. We must know how it play out. Fincher tweaks us with a running joke, snapping our senses of humor, with a freaky old fellow who repeats his tale, 'You know, I've been hit by lightning seven times,' articulating each random near death event. In the end, Benjamin Button is about life and death and how it doesn't matter where or when one begins their journey, we all arrive at the same destination. It's the Taoist space between that matters, in other words, how did you spend those days while your heart was beating and your lungs were breathing? Did you live? And more importantly, did you love?

This is a genuine, old school epic. No modern media pandering, product placement or shameless sellout like say the last Indiana Jones travesty. I still refuse to believe that my one-time hero, Steven Spielberg, personally directed that train wreck. If a film sacrifices its heart, it does not deserve our attention or patronage. Not in this End Times day and age. The movie theater is still a sacred place. David Fincher knows that and I for one applaud his body of work, culminating with the brave and beautiful Benjamin Button. And that's all I have to say about that.