Benjamin Button’s Oscar Haul

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will be the golden couple at the Academy Awards again this year. Both are nominated for their starring roles in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Changeling, respectively. Button is up for a total of 13 nominations—the second highest of all time. Pitt is competing with Milk’s Sean Penn, The Visitor’s Richard Jenkins, and Mickey Rourke of The Wrestler for Best Actor. For Best Actress, Jolie is up against Anne Hathaway for Rachel Getting Married, Melissa Leo for Frozen River, Meryl Streep for Doubt and Kate Winslet for The Reader. Best Picture nominees are Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, and Slumdog Millionaire. Marisa Tomei, Amy Adams and Penelope Cruz are up for Supporting Actress; Heath Ledger, Josh Brolin, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Robert Downey Jr. are among nominees for Supporting Actor. So who got snubbed? Veteran actor Clint Eastwood and the newcomers from Slumdog.

LATimes

Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey is elated that his pet movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” topped the Academy Award nominations Thursday with 13 nods, including best picture. But such elation could be tempered by a sobering reality.

Although Oscar honors can lead to an increase in ticket sales as moviegoers flock to theaters to see what all the hoopla is about, the boost may not be enough to help make “Button” a financial home run for Paramount.

IMDB

“I was born under unusual circumstances.” And so begins ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,’ adapted from the 1921s story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man who is born in his eighties and ages backwards: a man, like any of us, who is unable to stop time. We follow his story, set in New Orleans from the end of World War I in 1918 to the 21st century, following his journey that is as unusual as any man’s life can be. Directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett with Taraji P. Henson, Tilda Swinton, Jason Flemyng, Elias Koteas and Julia Ormond, Benjamin Button is a grand tale of a not-so-ordinary man and the people and places he discovers along the way, the loves he finds, the joys of life and the sadness of death, and what lasts beyond time.

Brad Pitt was born in Oklahoma and raised in Springfield, Missouri. His mother’s name is Jane Etta Hillhouse. His father, William (Bill) Pitt, worked in management at a trucking firm in Springfield. He has a younger brother, Douglas (Doug) Pitt and a younger sister Julie Neal Pitt. At Kickapoo High School, Pitt was involved in sports, debating, student government and school musicals. Pitt attended the University of Missouri, where he majored in journalism with a focus on advertising. He occasionally acted in fraternity shows. He left college two credits short of graduating to move to California. Before he became successful at acting, Pitt supported himself by driving strippers in limos, moving refrigerators and dressing as a giant chicken while working for “el Pollo Loco.”