Podcast About List - Ep. #384 - Curio #1: Backwards Clock, Backwards Walk | The Five Weeks of Benjamin Button part 10

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

Welcome everyone to the analysis, round-table discussion and debate about the first 1,000 seconds of the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). If you'd like to follow along, create and watch your own "curios", or keep track of which timestamps are being discussed on each curio go to: https://www.swagpoop.com/benjaminSubscribe to us on YouTube youtube.com/@PodcastAboutListBuy tickets to our latest live show https://www.swagpoop.com/showsGet extra premium and Gun City RPG episodes at https://www.patreon.com/podcastaboutlistFollow us https://www.swagpoop.com/links

Welcome. Welcome, one and all to the part 10. That's right. Of the five weeks of Benjamin Button. On the website, it says part one. But we, dude, why do you have to start 10? Part 10 of the five weeks of Benjamin Button. Part 10, but Curio. Number one.

Part 10 out of 10, guys. See, that makes sense to me. Yeah. My name is Benjamin Button. and I was born under unusual circumstances. While everybody else was aging, I was getting younger, all alone. And that's kind of one of the most important things.

Turn to follow the, like, because I don't want to come in one day on the wrong part. Yeah, you will. Come in with a different curio. You're going to show up dressed as a teenager. You're speaking of the website, if you would like to follow along with this five weeks, you can go to Swagpoop.com slash Benjamin.

It's going to have a schedule and timestamps for guys. Five weeks means 10 episodes. Yeah, lock that in. Lock that into your brand. That is a lowercase B, y'all. Like any website might be. And guys, today, we're covering the first curio, which takes place, as you can see on this website.

So you can see these wonderful timestamps. We're going to be covering minute zero, second, zero, to 1635 of the Curious Case of Benchurchase. Benjamin Button. And I kind of alluded to this on this website, and I texted you guys this after we decided to do this, but this is kind of a serendipitous fact that when I was going to chop up this movie for us into 10 equal pieces, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that this movie is nearly exactly 10,000 seconds long. I'll be honest, that fact is what sold me. Yeah. Until you said that, I was like, were you going to back out? No, I wasn't going

to back out. I just wasn't sure about it. Until you said that and I was like, that's tell there's magic. I think it's like 9,900 and like 65. Yeah. It's pretty it's damn near. Pretty crazy. I think that when David Fincher made this movie,

I think he was hoping that somebody would do this. I genuinely knowing what I know about his production side stuff, you know, the amount of takes that he does, I could see him being like, I'm making the first 10,000 second movie. I'm making the first 10,000 second.

movie. And guys, we're going to take this a thousand seconds at a time. One day, one day a group of people are going to watch my movie

1,000 or 10,000 seconds at a time. If he predicted that, that would be amazing because we are doing that. Yeah. We're doing what might be called an extremely close reading.

Yes. I, I, curious case of Benjamin. But it's, it's going to be a close, close reading.

And if you're not planning to watch along at pace, that's fine. I think we'll give you the tools you need. Yeah. Anyway, but I would recommend doing so because we're going to get deep. There is a tool online right now.

Somebody made one. Yeah, it's on the website. Two fans have made some useful tools. If you want to follow along, you can find that stuff on the website. And if you're a kind of genius who likes to make this kind of stuff, just send it to me, and I'll put it on the website if you want me to do so. I love my army of programmers. Yes.

We have a complete army. Bend the code to my words. An army of code warriors. It's so hard to... I would say we got the beard. So maybe do this now from now on. No. Because it's just hard to understand you.

How is it hard to understand me? I'm saying everything. I don't know why the beard is making you hold the mic closer. Yeah, you're holding it. I'm not holding it closer. As you said that, you moved it away two inches from your face. Well, I can't tell. I can't tell where it is, but I'm not taking this beard off.

Okay. All right. How should we start? That's how committed I am to this. I feel like my, I feel like my report is a good way to start. Okay. Because I'll be honest, it's less of a report. and more of a recap.

Okay. Because I kind of got to a point where I was like, I think most of the stuff that I would write a report on, it would be better to just have organic conversations about it. I can bring it up and we can talk about it as opposed to just reading out a thing. And I wrote the recap and it's honestly quite long. All right. Let's do a recap.

Because here's the thing. And this is something I want to, we're doing this, you know, curio by curio piece by piece. I've never seen this movie. I don't know what's coming next. So there are some things where I'm like, I don't know if this is going to matter or not. Yeah. Oh, but I like that. That's fun. So that's good. I think that's cool, too, because that's a good way to, like, be like, well, what do you think about this?

Yeah. But it does mean in the recap, I'm really trying to hit every, you never know. You don't know what's going to come back. And I've seen it before and I don't remember what comes next. That doesn't surprise. Yeah, it seems like a movie. I think I saw it the year it came out. Yeah. I think I saw it like DVD release. I don't think anyone has really watched this movie. Yeah. I think like maybe like when it came out was it like 08, right? Yeah. I feel like the last time. somebody put this on was in 2011 on purpose.

Yeah, it's truly, that's kind of what has also kind of allured me to this. I was like, I can't, I don't think anybody could give you a play-by-play of what happens besides the high-level premise. Yeah. I also think it's the premise,

you're right, nobody can give you the play-by-play. The premise itself is a, has a large cultural impact. Yes. For the fact that nobody, is like this, I like this movie.

People are always saying, oh, like Benjamin Button. Yeah. But nobody, yeah, it's just so, everything about it is completely puzzling to me. It's become, I really can't believe. It's a movie that has, it's so curious. It's like, it's like if nobody saw the Matrix. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like if the Matrix came out and three people watched it. Also, the fucking, David Fincher directing this is so funny. Such a curveball. It's so fucking funny. It's so clear, it's so clear that he felt like he deserved an Oscar for like Zodiac or something. And he was like, here's the cheat code. I make Forrest Gump, but he's not disabled. Yeah, you made that point earlier. And I think that's a really good point. And it, and it really

colored the first Curio to me. Yeah. It is, it's, it is exactly like Forrest Gump, except he's got oldness. Yeah, he's got old. There's this, because he is disabled. We're going to say it in, though. We're going to say, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll start out. I'll do this recap so that everybody, at least who hasn't gotten a chance to watch it yet can walk in and understand. And then I think we can just get into it. So I'm just going to read this here. We open on two production logos made entirely out of buttons. I remember that.

Paramount and Warner Brothers. I said out loud button. Benjamin Button is a co-production between these two companies. And coincidentally, I don't know if you guys have seen this news, just days ago from now, Paramount acquired Warner Brothers. and $81 billion merger. So before the narrative

of the film even begins, Benjamin Button is playing with themes of time and fate. And maybe that's where they met. And Union. Paramount and Warner Brothers together. That was probably their first movie.

Yes. They may have been their first movie each. Paramount is the shirt. Warner Brothers is the button. Wow. Because it's even shaped like a logo of a button. Okay, then our story begins. In New Orleans, in 2005,

as Hurricane Katrina gathers strength, Daisy Fuller, an elderly woman, lies on her deathbed in a hospital. Her daughter Caroline sits by her bedside. And this is the first line of the movie. Here, let's hear that again, guys. This is the first thing you hear when you turn on Benjamin Button. Imagine a script scrolling past. Yeah, when they do that at the best screenplay?

Here it is, guys. I literally started instantly crying laughing when this came on I could not believe my ears She's extremely old As soon as I saw the old lady in the deathbed I got so mad I got so mad immediately

I hate these kind of movies Because I know immediately when you see an old person In a deathbed the whole movie is like Life's too short That's the whole movie Do you not feel like Maybe you'll get to this in your report but do you not feel like there's a very large age gap between the mother and the daughter?

Yeah. The mom is like 100 years old and then the daughter's like 35. I feel like we could, that could be seen in the movie. Yeah. Like, we just don't know. We don't know yet. We have no idea. But at this point, I just thought that was strange.

Yeah, it definitely, that's a good, that's a good observation. And I just want to make a prediction right now. Yes. As you said her last, Daisy Fuller. Daisy Fuller. I'm going to make a prediction right now. This ties into the home. own universe.

With the character whose first name is Fuller. Yes. How does that explain how that ties? I feel like it's going to be an Easter egg for the fans, but someone's going to tell her to lay off the Pepsi. Well, you know, this is actually, this

kind of, I feel like, is a little bit similar to this next part here. As Daisy drifts in and out of consciousness, Caroline asks if she wants any more medication because the doctor said she could have as much as she wants. Yeah. So that kind of reminds me of lay off the pellet. Like, hey, Fuller. Lay off the Dilaudid. Yeah.

Yeah. She can have as much medication as she wants is what the doctor said. She then asks, she also asks, if Daisy is afraid to die. And Daisy replies, I'm curious. Curious. Mm. The first. Daisy then begins to tell the story of Mr. Gatto, aka Mr. Cake.

Yeah. Who is a blind clockmaker whose son was killed in World War I. In 1918, he unveils his magnum opus, a giant train station clock in front of a huge crowd that even includes Teddy Roosevelt. A shrewd individual points out that the clock is running backwards. Mr. Cake claims he did this on purpose so that maybe the war would run in reverse and all the boys could come home. He is completely blind, so I do think it's possible. He made the clock this way by accident and came up with his speech on the spot because he was embarrassed. His little speech seems to make Teddy Roosevelt emotionally takes his hat off.

A lot of people do. And then Mr. Cake, here, I'm just going to play this. This is exactly the audio that happens. So he gives this moving speech, and then this is what he says. I'm sorry if I offended anybody I hope you enjoy my clock I'm sorry to have offended him never seen again

I'm sorry to have offended anybody I hope you enjoy my clock Mr. Cake was never seen again The other thing about Mr. Cake is that I thought it was interesting that it's 1918 and he's in an interracial marriage But then I realize he's blind and he doesn't know

He doesn't know that he is Also, the actor who plays him is Elias Codias, who I think plays Casey Jones in the Ninja Turtles movies. Wow. He looks cool. Or he looks like the guy who plays up there. Charles Bronson sort of look to him. Oh, it's probably, it might be the best Elias Codius has ever looked. Yeah.

Mr. Cake says, I hope you enjoyed my clock. And then he rose out in a rowboat into the ocean. And then he disappears forever. Never's to be seen again. Which if you're a blind person, if you're a blind person. Well, he didn't know. You're going out. Yeah.

Maybe he thought he was in the tub or something. He was rowing his tub. Actually, that's one possibility, or they say, or some people say he died of a broken heart. But they show him rowing out into the ocean. Well, he could have died of a broken heart out on the rowboat. Which, what a terrible way to go. His poor wife is, she closes up the clock shop.

Yeah, closed. Closed, dude. I hope you enjoy my clock. I hope you enjoy my clock. I'm sorry. I also really got me laughing. I mean, for that to be the, there's no way that if that's the last clock I make, I'm fucking killing myself.

Right. I'm not like, it went backwards. It goes backwards. The president. Then clocks mattered. Yeah. I was looking at that and I was like, it's a train station. Imagine how fucking pissed off you'd be if you walk in and you're like, okay, when's my train?

Going backwards. Come on. Yeah. We come back to the hospital out of the Mr. Cake story where Caroline says she hopes she hasn't disappointed her mother. Her mother says she could never disappoint her and then asks her to fetch a book from her dark suitcase. It's a diary.

Daisy said she's tried to read it a hundred different times. What does that sound? Caroline reads it to Daisy. The first entry begins thus. April 4th, 1985, New Orleans. This is my last will and testament. I don't have much to leave.

A few possessions, no money. All I have is my story and I'm writing it now while I still remember it. My name is Benjamin. Benjamin Button. So guys, check this out. Curious. Kids.

Benjamin Button. Wow. This button is broken, guys. A button. Curious. Kiss. Benjamin Button. I hope you enjoy my clock.

Curious. I hope you enjoy my clock. So they did a title drop in the first curate. Wow. Which is pretty cool. That is pretty cool. Yeah. But it's there.

You have to be a real reggie watch. You got to be a close watcher to pick this kind of thing up. Which, We are. We are. We're a very close watcher. We enter Benjamin's story. He was born on November 11th, 1918, the end of World War I.

People dance and parade through the street celebrating. Thomas Button runs through the festivities to his home where his wife has been giving birth. She looks at him and says, promise me he has a place and then she instantly dies. Thomas looks at his son and he freaks out. He grabs the baby and runs outside to the river. A policeman sees him at the river with a bundle of blankets and yells, hey, what are you doing there? What do you have there?

And then begins to chase him through the streets. Thomas shakes the police officer and then leaves the bundle on the stairs of a nursing home along with what looks like about $3 in cash, which is probably a lot of money back then. And then we meet Queenie, played by Taraji P. Henson,

and Mr. Weathers, played by Mahershala Ali. And Queenie is, I think, the caretaker of the nursing home. And I think we don't know yet in this curio what I think Mr. Weathers is just there. He just steps on. As of right now. He's a stepper.

Yeah. Also foreshadowing. in the future there's going to be weather in the hospital. Oh. I didn't even connect. So I have a whole thing to go into about names, and I didn't even pick up on that one. That's great.

There's going to be weather at the hospital. So Queenie and Mr. Weathers flirt with each other, and then Queenie gets called back inside because an old lady has messed herself, but then Mr. Weathers steps on the baby. He wants to leave it for the... In a really crazy way, too. He's like, oh, what the fuck?

He goes, pull. He wants to leave it for the police, but Queenie brings the baby inside and puts it in her dresser drawer and closes the drawer. She gets the nursing home doctor, Dr. Rose, to come downstairs and examine the baby. He explains the baby has cataracts, arthritis, its skin has lost all elasticity, and its hands and feet are ossified. It has the ailments of an 80-year-old. He asks where it came from, and Queenie lies, telling him that it's her sister's baby that came out white.

She says, I think she says, my sister had a curious, a strange adventure, the baby got the worst of it, and he came out white. Yeah, pretty funny line. It really funny line. She says the baby is a miracle, but just not the type of miracle one hopes to see. She brings it upstairs and announces to the entire nursing home that the baby will be staying there.

She says he's known as Benjamin. Listen to this. Listen closely. He's known as Benjamin. Clock noises. Whoa. A grandfather clock. Grandfather in the nursing home.

Got me thinking about the name Benjamin, Big Ben. Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah, could be. Named after a clock. That's a good point. Grandfather's aged. She had no idea.

He's grandfather aged like the grandfather clock. So she doesn't know what he's going to be named. She says he's known as poses. She listens. She hears a grandfather clock. She goes, oh, grandfather, big Ben. Benjamin. Clock baby.

The old ladies gather around to admire Benjamin. He smiles and coughs. And then the curio ends. The smiling and coughing. Perfect ending. It was great. Yeah, yeah. It was perfect at time.

That's an 80 year old's cough. Yeah, I know. It does feel wet. I hope you enjoy my clock. So that's my recap. I think that's a good recap. What does he say? I hope you enjoy my clock.

Also, I'm sorry if I offended anybody by making a clock. Maybe this is supposed to be like some kind of like, you know. Because the way that this movie is presented is very serious, right? Extremely serious. Extremely serious. Maybe it's one of the funniest movies ever and we're reading too much. do it. I mean, I was really laughing. Yeah. There was a lot of stuff that was really

getting me. The second watch was when I started laughing. The first watch, I was like, oh, this movie sucks. And the second time, I was like, this is actually an amazing curio. Truly, the first line, this, this really just set the tone for me. Like, instantly, I was like, oh my God,

what the fuck? Would you, would you, I did think at one point, because of the ending was so good, of the baby coughing, that if they had just faded, to black there and it was a short film. I would think it was a pretty good. I think it was pretty good. Oh, wow. Yeah, they probably had a couple thousand dollars. Yeah, yeah, like, that's not bad. You know, the dad is also a man going his own way. Yeah. His wife dies. He's like, all right, now it's just get rid of the baby. Here's something else I wanted to talk about. Where do you think he was? Where do you? Oh, like, where did he have to be at that was more important than he probably was celebrating the war being over.

That was my guess. My more important question to me is when he walks out and he sort of like tries to blend back in, where does he go? The bar probably. Yeah, because I imagine the doctor knows how to get in contact with him. Yeah. So he's got to call him and be like, where's the baby? Yeah. Do they have phones back then?

Because it's quite illegal. Even then he can walk over and be like, hey, like what the fuck? Yeah. It was illegal to get rid of a baby. Well, and it was even illegal to throw blankets into the river. It seems like, yes, yes. Yeah. A bundle of blankets.

A bundle of coughing. Hey, what are you doing? I think the police officer was just, was curious. I think he wasn't in trouble. He was just like, hey, what do you have? I'm curious. I like, I don't know. There was just something so amazing to me about this guy having,

being a real psychopath. His wife's last words to him are make sure that there's a place for him. It's within, he's within 10 seconds too. He walks in, he sees the priest. And he doesn't like, he doesn't put two or two together. He just goes, why are you here? And then the wife has a big blood stain on her sheet. And he goes over and she says, promise me he has a place.

And then she dies. He also, I guess you know what? He was fulfilling the promise. Yeah, yeah. He was like a place. Oh, fuck. I got to do this right now. River.

River. It's not going to work. The river. The river. This is an old man baby. Fragile bones. He broke both the baby's arms when he ripped him out of the. Oh,

Not to mention this step. Yeah. This stepping situation. This kid had a tough first hour. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Getting stomped on immediately. Your dad is running with you.

He almost throws you in a river. Then he gets stomped on. Yeah, the stomp really, it was a thing where I was like, oh, the stomp sound is wet. The stomp sound is like. It was something where I was like, don't do it. Don't, don't, don't. And they set it up like that where it's like,

yeah, he's on the bottom of the stairs. It sounds like he steps on a tomato. It's like wet bandage with marbles. It's like, Here's something else I wanted to throw in about Mr. Weathers. So because of this line, I have to go back and turn on, watch a version with subtitles.

And in the subtitles, Mr. Weathers is referred to as Tizzy. Tizzy, colon, you look awful handsome tonight, Queenie. So we'll maybe learn that at someday that his name is Tizzy, but just a little Easter egg to throw in. That's kind of part of the curio, but not really. Another Easter egg is calling a woman handsome.

Yeah. Yeah. He says your dress is about as brown as your eyes. Yes. Yeah. And she goes, oh, stop. Which I don't. Yeah. It's amazing. To me, that's like in, you know, in the witch when they did like really accurate, like, talking.

I'm like, oh, that's something that I don't understand because I'm not from 19. I know. I did. Can we try and puzzle this out right now? Because I also. Your dress is as brown as your eyes. Because here, and she goes, here, the teet to me is she goes like, oh, stop. Yeah.

Which could be that that means that she's getting, he's teasing her. Or she's getting two fucking holes. Or it's like a really good compliment. I think it's a really good compliment. But it's not a compliment of her eyes. Her eyes are the thing that are being, he's complimenting the dress and the dress. Unless they already had had a conversation indoors off screen where they were saying this is the most,

the brownness of this dress is so gorgeous. Like I've never seen a more gorgeous brown. All the old ladies sitting in the, this is the brownish dress. Oh, how nice. Look out brown your dresses. Seems like something that they would say at that time period. Yeah, they probably would.

She lives in a house of white old ladies that crap themselves and have dementia. Yeah, and the only one who doesn't have a crazy reaction to Benjamin is the old lady who's like, he looks like my ex-husband. She cracks a joke. Yeah, so that was something else I wanted. So, yeah, she comes over. She says, I've had 10 children. Yeah. Let me, I can take care of him.

She looks and she says he looks like my ex-husband. Now, the baby has. old person ailments. And I'm curious if you guys agree with me on this. It doesn't look that old? Cheers. The baby doesn't look like an old person.

No, I agree. No, it looks like a mummy baby. It looks like a baby. Sometimes a baby looks like an old man. It did just come out. If I saw that baby. It actually, I would just assume it was a preemie. Probably 20 minutes ago.

But it doesn't look old. Give us some time to settle. Give us some milk. So is this woman? Could you think we could see a future curio reveal that this woman was once married to a baby. Yes. It was what I was thinking. Oh, that's a good point. That's probably a prequel movie that we have to write. This is, this was, some of the

nursing home stuff was stuff where I was like, I don't know if this is going to come back or not. For example, there's Mrs. Hollister. Yeah. Owner of the clothing store. She comes in Knox. She comes and knocks names. Names are very important in this movie. They're probably going to go to the mall. She comes and knocks on the door. She says, somebody stole my pearl necklace. Yes. Someone's been stealing my jewelry. she doesn't realize she's actually wearing it.

She's a moron. She does it. She's not too smart. She doesn't know. But we could see either her stupidity come back. Yeah. Or we could see an actual jewelry thief. Oh.

And then it's like, Mrs. Hollister, you're crazy. Yeah, yeah. You probably just misplaced it. It's like, no, somebody's in here and he's stealing all the jewelry and he's making fucking bank. Honestly, at this point in the movie, he's a baby. I don't know if Benjamin Button is the hero or the villain of this story. You think this is like little man? I don't know.

Can I use it? this to jump into my big, this is my big analysis here. And it's about, it starts out with Mr. Cake and then I just kind of kept seeing. So Mr. Cake, I was struck sometime in the second watch of seeing Mr. Cake. He wears

these dark glasses. He's blind. So he wears these dark glasses you can't see through. And he's unveiling this big clock in front of this big group of people. And I was like, oh my God, that's Dr. Octopus. That's Dr. Octopus and Spider-Man too.

Yeah. He's unveiling his invention in front of everybody. And then I was like, oh my God. Dr. Octavius into Dr. Octopus is like the same thing as Mr. Gatto into Mr. Cake. Wow. It's like it's a word that's kind of translates a little bit into it. Gatto literally does.

But then I was like, wait a second. Benjamin Button, Peter Parker. Oh my God. Born with a power. This is an analogy for the whole movie is an analogy. I'm thinking that Mr. Cake, because Mr. Cake, also, he has the tragic backstory. He has the villain backstory. He lost his son in the war and he tried to create a mad invention. Yeah. A backwards clock that goes backwards. Yeah. Holy crap.

He didn't just try. He succeeded. He created that. He created that. He got it even onto the eyes of the president at the time. And also, how fucking, the people complain about fucking Obama and Trump playing golf. How annoying is it for the president to go see a clock? Yeah. Unveiled. Okay. So, he wasn't the president at this time, by the way. I looked this up because I was curious. The president was Woodrow Wilson. He would have already been... Curious.

He would have already been present, Teddy Roosevelt. He actually, one year after, here's another kind of piece of evidence for Mr. Cake being a possible villain that we could see return in the movie. Teddy Roosevelt died in 1919. So he died soon after this was the case. Wow. The curious case. Curious case.

Curious case. Do it. I feel it. But it... And then I was thinking, here's what's interesting. So I think there's a clear Spider-Man allegory here. Spider-Man 2 came out in 2004. They came out in 2008.

Plenty of time for the production. When it's Spider-Man 3 come out. To add this stuff in. I don't know. I think a year before, right? Maybe. That sounds right to me. But so Benjamin Button, born in 1918,

and Mr. Cake, I almost said Dr. Cake, in 1918, they wouldn't know about Spider-Man or Dr. Octopus. But we know that Benjamin Button lives, we can assume, until 1985 at least, because that's when the diary entry is dated that's written by him. And Spider-Man, the first appearance of Spider-Man, is in 1962. So I think that we could see him maybe halfway through. We could see maybe halfway through this movie, a few curios down the line. We could see Benjamin Button finding out about Spider-Man and being like,

that's, oh my God, that's like my story. And not only that, they rip me off. He's going to be, I know for a fact he's going to find out about Spider-Man, because by the time Spider-Man exists, he will be at the prime age to enjoy comic books. Yeah, age 44. Yeah. The perfect age. And 2005, when Daisy's dying in the hospital, Spider-Man 2 would have just come out the year before.

So even they probably went and saw Spider-Man too. They wheeled her out. And that's what reminded her of the diary. Put her in the handicapped seat. Yeah. Had her watching Spider-Man in there. Matt, I'm very,

I think if you watch this movie with all 10 curios, just straight, I don't even know what you would call that. But if you watched all 10, if you somehow had the time to watch all 10 in a row, I think the, Mr. Cake would kind of barely, or the clock got,

I think that would barely register. And then, and then I, so I really feel like it's coming back at some point. I think we're going to see that guy come back. Mr. Cake really dominates this curio. Yeah. Like he is basically the star of the movie.

He still the show. Right now, from what I know about this movie, Mr. Cake is the star of the movie. Benjamin Button is basically just a side character that has something to do with him a little bit. And obviously, you know, I don't mean to be lewd. But when you see a baby like that,

the first thing you imagine is how was his baby conceived? Yeah. And so I'm thinking it's going to have something to do it. Probably in a nursing home. Yeah, I have a few theories that I wanted to put forward. Okay. So one was that it was, yeah, like, a kind of a Spider-Man situation where he's born with mutant powers.

I guess Spider-Man wasn't born with mutant powers, but it's a superhero situation. Here's another read on the Mr. Cake situation. Mr. Cake's wish. Blow out the candles on your cake. Oh, okay. Mr. Cake made a wish for time to run backwards. For one baby. And Benjamin Button was born on our missed to stay when the war was over.

So that's, if the war were to run backwards, that's where it would start to run backwards. from. And check this out. The armistice was called at 11 a.m. on November 11th, 1111, 11, 11. Whoa. Wishing time. Wow. So I think that Benjamin Button could have been created by a birthday wish for Mr. Birthday, like Palpatine. He could have wished him into existence. It's like Palpatine and Anakin. That's not a bad idea. Born from the force. He's born from old age. Is this the, or his parents had sex on that clock? This might be too early to call. this. Is this the most backwards movie ever? Yes.

Unless you count primer. Is it more backwards than Memento? Yes, probably. Is it more backwards than the backwards man? So far. It seems forward. Yeah. He is a backwards man. He is the backwards man. Predicted by Tom Green. He can't walk backwards fast as we can. Yeah. No. Right now he can't well he might be he can't even crawl backwards. No. I mean from what I know from the trailer he does. Well, let's not let's not let's not. Let's not. Let's not. I'm not skip ahead to other curios.

I mean, that's... We're talking about the first... We're talking about Curio one. We can't even talk about it. Yeah. Don't be ridiculous. Can I put forward another theory that I was thinking about? You may. This is, if you watch this, if you watch this, okay, so let's start from there.

All right. I have. You notably, I realized, you do not see, you do not see the baby at all. You see, you see Thomas Button's reaction to the baby. Yeah. You see him bundle up. You don't see the baby at all. until after Mahershala Ali steps on the baby.

Do you think it's possible that the stepping on caused this? Oh, like caught some of his skin and pulled it. When the baby was born, it wasn't ugly or old. It was just white. Thomas Button was just like, oh, this baby killed my wife. Fuck this. I'm going to take it away. It was the stepping on.

Or he stopped. He literally caught some of it and stretched out on the baby's button. and it made it the old button, old age button. Did the baby have a button? We don't know. We don't know yet. We don't know yet. We don't know yet.

For a last name. I guess he has a belly button. They show kind of his whole body at one point. And maybe if you step on a baby's belly button, I don't know genetics or anything. Maybe if you step on a baby's belly button, it makes it old. We also know that his first name is Benjamin. Yeah. And we know why.

He doesn't know he's a button yet. I noticed that as well. And also, yeah. I'm curious how he's going to find out. Catch that. Are we sure? His parents's name. Thomas Button.

Okay. So at some point. he will find out that his dad he will find out he's a button. Yeah, because he says I am Benjamin Button. So he must know at some point. He learns at some point. We can, we can who his father is. I wonder if he'll meet his father. Who knows? I mean, that's for next episode. I'm so, I need to know.

I feel like we're going to meet his father and he's going to be drunk somewhere. Yeah. Or completely normal and has wants nothing to do with his son. I bet his father is going to be like crying and going to be like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I did. I did what I didn't know what I was doing. I was trying to throw you away. I was trying to do right by you. And then I put you on a step, which is made for feet to get put there.

And I knew that you got stepped on. And you got stepped and turned ugly. Yeah. Maybe the father will turn up and be like, what the hell? You were normal when I left you on that step. What happened to you? You're old as a bat. I actually have a feeling.

It must have been a magic shoe. You know what? I feel like they're going to be, they're going to walk by each other sort of strangers in the night. And, because he's not going to, the last thing he's thinking is this baby, this ugly baby grew up to be an old man. Because again, it doesn't look like an old man. It looks like a wax mummy. Yeah.

So he's going to walk by this old man and maybe look at him and be like, that guy's really old and small. But he's never going to know. Hey, oldie. Yeah. Oh, maybe he's, he joins like a tunnel snakes, basically. And they try to beat him up. Oh, yeah, he goes up to him like young guys rule. Yeah.

Yeah, man. Young guys rule. And he's like, I'm young. I'm too. I know you don't understand. I'm young. Me too. Imagine you're bullying some fucking old fart and he's telling you.

I'm so young. Yeah, exactly. I wrote down a few little specific details that again, I'm not sure if they'll come. Oh, kind of another superhero thing here. The doctor Rose, the doctor of the nursing home, when they're talking about taking in the baby, he said they should get rid of it because they can't have another mouth to feed because the Nolan Foundation thinks that the nursing home is a waste of money. Oh, that's good.

Nolan, waste of money. It's kind of a shot from Fincher. Fincher and Nolan both kind of like. Nolan is wasting money on interstellar. Exactly. Well, I'm saving money making this three-hour movie. It's the first 10,000 second movie. I'm getting excited, not even really from a movie, from a perspective of the plot,

but I'm getting excited from a history perspective. The 20th century is such a rich. Yes. Oh, he's going to have to go through the Depression. Depression, World War II, JFK, I mean, all the... Invention of TV. Invention of TV.

And again, hitting when he's... Invention of TV, he's going to be like really into TV. Yeah. And when he goes through the JFK assassination, he's going to only have had

one year with Spider-Man at that point. Yeah. That's going to be tough. So it's going to... Well, that could kind of be the thing. That could be like his Uncle Ben moment where he's like, JFK got killed.

That late into his life. I'm going to... Well, again, I mean, Spider-Man. wasn't around. Well, he's not, he's 44, but he's physically, physically he's going to be in his prime. Or 23, whatever.

Yeah. Remember, he gets younger. That's what I was saying earlier is that, like, but he starts at 80? Spider-Man is only going to get. Say he has the ailments of an 80-year-old. He starts at 80s. And let's see, 1918 to

1985. What's that? 1918 to 1985? Don't ask me. That's, that's 67 years. So he, oh shit. But do you think that he died?

Do you think he died? Do you think he wrote that? entry and drop dead immediately. Yes. Well, no, I don't think so. No, because he must have become a baby after that. And also, what I'm thinking is like, is this, does this baby look like he's 67? The baby doesn't look old.

I really have, but it just looks like a regular baby. If he were to be old, it doesn't look regular to me. It looks like a premium at least. Looks like a premium baby. Is that if he were, if it was like, okay, yeah, he's aging backwards. Do you realize how old you'd have to be to get to be that big? Yeah. You'd have to be like 250 years old.

You'd have to get really fucking old. So somewhere in there. there's he's not aging like a normal guy he's gonna, we're gonna see him, he's gonna be 81 day and then he's gonna be 50 the next day. Yeah. That's my worry about the pacing that they've set themselves up for. Yeah, it's really wanted

to do it. He should have been five foot two and had a full head of hair when he came out. I know, because here's the thing. And that explains killing her. When we originally talked about this and you said that he was like a baby sized old person, I was like, well, I guess that makes sense because the mechanics of him

coming out of his mom His mom's what? His mom's... Come on, just say it. Her Benjamin. Oh, okay. Benjamin. Her button.

Her button and her Benjamin. When he comes out, when he comes out, if he was old man sized it, it just wouldn't work. But you don't see him coming out. And he kills her and it's covered in blood. So it's so... It would have worked. If he came out and he was like,

And also, we don't see him until he gets stepped on. So, like, they can, you know, they save the reveal until he gets stepped on. And it's like, oh, shit, this guy's, you know, five, six. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, hey, buddy, what are you doing? And then he goes, eh, it's a baby. It's an old baby.

It's a full grown baby. Like, that seems like such a missed opportunity to make. That they set up, it's almost like, I feel like, you know, and I want to go behind the scenes and confirm this because I'm almost 99. point nine percent almost that this is true that they set up all the scaffolding for it to be a full-sized old man that came out and the last second David Fincher went, uh, let's make him into a small baby. I just don't. Or maybe studio interference from Paramount and, uh, and Warner Brothers.

And then we should have had a picture like an old timey, like that big exploding flashbulb photography photo of her pregnant with like the biggest fatest. Just a submarine. Yeah, the fattest belly ever. Just like she has like six watermelons just in her stomach. full size, just poking out. I just think that would have been cooler.

Yeah. He should have come out as a fully grown, really old man. That is a big critique from me as well. I think that so far the baby is lacking.

Yeah. The baby is not getting... Horrible baby. I'm so much more invested in Mr. Cake. Yes, yeah, me too. Unfortunately, he was never seen again. Yeah.

Oh, can I... Another Mr. Cake. Here's another Mr. Cake detail. Okay. So Teddy Roosevelt was there. And some people may know, Teddy Roosevelt was a prolific,

big game hunter. He was always, he would go to Africa and he would kill like five trillion elephants. And he would hunt and he would search for the most dangerous game.

And he was even known to sometimes he would hunt down cryptids. This is true. Really? He wrote about a big foot like creature in the wilderness in one of his books.

He, in Maryland, he went hunting, he went on a hunting trip trying to catch a dragon-style cryptid called the snallygaster and he before he died he was

investigating a pleasaur like monster in Patagonia that he was planning to go hunt before he died so you're thinking I'm thinking that's not chance that he was there that day he got he knew that something unnatural was going to happen he was investigating he was just in the right he was invested my word he was probably looking for Benjamin Button

there's no there's no universe which a blind man can make a clock I must hunt him down I must kill us this must be a cryptid This must be encrypted. How the hell is he making clocks with no ice? I imagine you're at the dock and you're just like fishing and you're having a couple beers. And then the most obviously blind guy ever gets on a robot.

It just rose away. Like, oh, fuck, we got to do something about that guy. Yeah. No, that's Mr. Cake. He's got a broken heart. He'll never be seen again. He'll never be seen him again. So just let him go.

I also have to say when he was introduced as Mr. Gato, I was like, Mr. Cake. And then she went, also known as Mr. Cake. I was like, God, they really went with that. I think, Mr. Cake, the blind clockmaker, taking up the first eight minutes of my movie to tell the story of Mr. Cake, whose son died. I think the key line to me there is he was never seen again, which kind of made me worried that we won't see him again. That's what I was afraid of as well.

I want to see him again so bad. Me too. I really am so invested. It can't just be that he made a backwards clock. What if he shows up on the beach, like just dead, like E.T. You know, that scene in E.T. where E.T. is white on the ground. What if he just shows up in the middle of the movie, just white, white as a ghost, bloated,

quote tells me it won't happen. Are we supposed, here's another question. Are we supposed, when Mr. Cake unveils his clock, are we supposed to assume that the war has already ended or that it is the day that the war ended or that the war is still going? I think the word's still going there. Do we know how far? All that she says is 1918.

I don't know if anyone picked up any clues on what it could be. Because I would really like to know how long passed between the backwards clock being unveiled and the wish being made to Benjamin being born. I think it may be a day. Do you feel like his parents fucked in the bathroom at the train station? I was thinking that they fucked on the clock. I was the only, I was like, they have to have had sex around this clock. That's true. You know, November.

Yeah, this, the clock could have been unveiled. in January or February. They were having sex there. That kind of energy, the cake wish. The backwardsness. The backwardsness of it all and the blindosity. Yeah. And he was born blind.

Well, he was born blind because he was a cataract. Yeah. Oh my God. Wait, what if he's the, he is the second coming of Mr. Cake. Yeah, what if he's Mr. Cake's son? Yes. Oh, really. That's probably, yeah.

Because Mr. Cake wanted his son to come back so that his son could farm. That's what he said. He said, the guy goes, hey, that clock's running backwards, which also, that guy, just being that guy. Hey, you fucking, you blind idiot. You blind bat. Actually, I did this on purpose. I'm sorry if that offended you. And he says, yeah, I'm offended.

He said, yeah, I made this clock run backwards so that maybe the war could run backwards. Yeah, idiot. So that all the boys could come home and fall. and get married and live full lives. Sorry if that offends you. But that's what you lead with, bro. I'm a forwarder. You're a clockmaker.

Why do you want your son to form? Yeah, it doesn't make sense. Well, you want to fucking... You have a cushy job. Yeah, you're like an artisan. Right. You're like, you made this... The president...

The president... ...just came and saw your stupid backwards clock. And you want your son to come on... That's how big you are. Or honestly, it could be like a sarcastic jab at everybody else. You're like, Yeah, we could bring all your sons back and they could, like, farm or whatever.

I just don't understand how ruining somebody's commute is that good of a way to bring your sons. All your sons, yeah, hopefully all your sons can come back and farm me. My son, he's going to be in a ragtime band, bitch. It's just not... He's going to play the clarinet. It's just not even a good metaphor. Yeah. A backwards clock.

This is based on a book written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, yeah? Yes. Which we will not be reading. We will not be reading. We're avoiding that. As badly as a bad. badly as I want to crack that open. No books at all.

I've been curious about it, but I think I'm going to avoid it. Books? No. Movie? Yes. Here's another throwaway line that I wanted to highlight because this could very well be something we see come back in the future. I mean, like I was kind of grasping at straws here. But Tizzy, Tizzy Weathers, he says to Queenie. He says, Hambert's back in town. He's legless, but he's back.

So. Right, because his legs are gone. It's completely unclear to me at this present moment if this is like a throwaway line or this is like seating a zombie apocalypse style thing where it's like, it's our two, we're going to see Hamburg with no legs. Something is telling me that Fincher doesn't do anything on accident.

And because of the force of gubern. This could be the inventor of the hamburger. Yeah. I thought that too, a guy who was turned into hamberter. Yes, he could be. He could invent the hamburger. so he's all back. Lord of the Rings, legless.

He's legless, so his back is basically his body part. And, and, uh, unless he's got no arms. Queenie was actually sweet on Hamburg, she says, maybe a little too sweet. On a guy with no legs? Well, I think at the time he had legs and maybe she's kind of, I kind of read that as, yeah, like she, back when he had legs, she was like, oh, hey, he's got no legs. And then right in that moment, Mr. Weathers is like, he has no legs. And she's like, hey, I actually didn't like that at all ever. Like you.

I like you. Hey, how about you use your legs on that baby on the stairs? Whoa, that is. Before he mentioned, it's right, he says, Hambert's legless, but he's home. Now, watch this. He steps on the baby. Oh, I hit a baby.

Oh, my God. First time bragging about using your legs, you would never think to do that. And you're bragging in front of your crush. Well, you can go down the stairs backwards. You have legs. Well, yeah, because he's going down the stairs backwards, too. Why would you do that?

Look, I can walk backwards as you can. It is a show off. It is a show off. Walking, he goes backwards down the stairs. Yeah. That's why when he steps on the baby, the baby ages. Backwards clock, backwards clock, backwards walk.

Name of the first curio. The thing is that, I like that. Backwards clock. Backwards clock. Backwards clock. Backward. I do like that because that also, that's not any stupider than the clock moving backwards to make him to make him reverse.

A lot of the stuff in this movie is very stupid. It might as well be that. Pretty much everything about this movie is pretty stupid. No, we're not, we can't say that yet. Yeah. So far, I'm drawing the line in the sand. The thing is, dude. Curio 1, stupidest of the curios, I'll say it.

I love, I love Curio 1. I would not say that. I would not, yeah, I think you're going to feel so mad if you say that. If you say that it's the stupidest one. This has to be in the top three most interesting. Yeah, I agree. I don't say the beginning and the end are going to be the two most interesting. I don't think the end is going to be very interesting.

Yeah. Well, they're not interested in see if he becomes sperm. I mean, I'm the ultimate question. That's the whole point of the movie to me. I'm on board. I'm ready. The whole point of the movie is to see if he's, if, if, if, you're not interested. shrinking. Literally, I am, because Katrina has been presented, I am prepared for a scene where the hospital window breaks open and the sheesh and the grandma just shoots in the wall.

It just turns into a red spot. Like in the pink panther. Yeah. Here's a, uh, I want to go back to the sperm thing in a second, but the storm, I just, this just reminded me of this. Uh, okay, I'll pause. You want to go back to the sperm thing? I want to go back. You do realize what the sperm thing could insinuate. You really want to. I want to. I want to. I want to pause. I want to go back. You Throw it back on the sperm thing. You want to throw it back on the sperm thing. Cheers. This is a movie about storytelling.

Yes. Daisy is telling the story. And when you think of a story being told on a, on a stormy, a dark and stormy night. Story. You usually think of a, of a, what? Stormy rhymes a story, by the way. I guess. Kind of.

Thanks. usually a dark and stormy night you tell a scary story this is a bright and stormy day so you tell a curious story oh a curious case Benjamin Button I hope you enjoy my clock so I just kind of

I wonder if as the day goes on and it turns into night and it begins to be dark and stormy if we will start to see some horror elements kind of merged into the story I think there will be, there's going to be times when maybe he gets hit on when he's eight years old by an old lady. Yeah. Who thinks that she's, it's an age-appropriate relationship. That happened in my school.

There was a teacher that looked young enough. Like, she was like a teacher's assistant. She looked young enough that this kid Alex walked up to her and asked her out. Did it work? No. Well, that's good. Yeah. But she's probably got Benjamin buttons for kids.

It could be the lady who was previously married to a baby that prays on him. Yeah, yeah. That could be foreshadowing for him being horribly horribly molested. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because old people at the nursing home. Right? Because they're not going to remember. They have no memory.

Because what they say after that, they say, they say, he's not long for this world. And then he's, there guys like, yeah, who is around here? Yes. This is a sinister. This is a scary. Yeah. I think you're right. This is a scary.

And then he's going to be walking around 10 years old looking like one of them. And they're like, who's this hot new guy on the scene? Because the doctor is checking the guy's heart when they walk in, this old guy's heart. And he's like, now he needs to avoid, he needs to not be too, get too excited. I thought that he was going to see the baby and immediately die. When they said that lie, I was like, oh, he's going to fucking see the baby and just die. But he's, yeah, he's checking the guy and he says, now you need to avoid excitement. Then he turns to the ladies and says, I hope you can help with that, implying that they were fucking on this guy.

Hella. And they need to stop. So that could be for, that along with the ex-husband. You take those together. That could be foreshadowing an impropriety to come. Also, I don't know if you know this in real life, nursing homes, some of the highest rates

of STD transmission. Yes, they're because they are in their fucking like rabbits. You think they're going to give child Benjamin Button chlamydia? Something like that, yes. He might already have it. He might be born with it. It's an old folks thing. Yeah. His mother could have had it. And that's

how he became old. Oh, is that he is an SDD? I also like I wrote this line down. I don't even remember who says this, but I think it might be one of the old people. They say, look, he's prematurely old. Yeah, no, that's... Prematurely. That's...

Queenie says that. There's nothing wrong with him. He's just prematurely old. Prematerally old. I did like that line a lot. Yeah, that's how it ends. That's how the Curio ends on the Google Drive. It ends with...

Yeah, true. That's not, you know, the more you press that. Do a for-l-four count. Let's hear it. So basically what this is is, is... you can hear the old ladies going, and then you can hear him. Can we get a filter on it so we can just hear the cough?

A low-pass filter or high-pass filter or something? How did they foley that sound? How would you make that sound if you were a folio? I don't think you'd make it with your mouth. I think you'd have to do something. Do you think they got a real baby? Or a real 80-year-old? I think it's an animal.

It's probably an 80-year-old's cough spit up. Oh, this is when they'd stick that carrot into the puffer fish's mouth. Yes, it is like that. How do you think they made, uh, this sound. I hope you enjoy my clock. Probably like real clock. I hope you enjoy my clock.

This is my favorite line in a movie ever. I hope you enjoy my clock. I hope you enjoy my cock. Sorry if I offended anyone. I hope you enjoy my clock. I'm sorry if I offended anybody. I hope you enjoy my clock. It's so stupid.

It's so stupid. Okay, should I dig, should I dig in? Yeah, I mean, I think we got some good, good discussion. That was a great. discussion section of the episode. Guys, I have returned to, as people know, for the all the weeks, the five weeks I've been doing, I've been doing. Yeah, so I'll get into this. So for the five weeks, I've been doing digital paintings.

Yeah. So digital paintings, if you don't know, it's like paintings, but it's done on some sort of digital device. Yes. It's better than normal art. I just went to the Met and I was walking around. Everything's paper. It's easily burned and it's pointless. And this is forever.

It's susceptible to age. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So this is out of time. This is out of time. Timeless digital paintings. So I thought, because we're doing 10 curios, 10 episodes, I thought I could do every

episode is one of the 10 styles of art. Wow. And so I have put the styles here. Number one is realism, digital sculpture. And it's all, you can add digital to all these. Digital abstract. Digital tunification. Digital surrealism.

Digital pop art, digital pointillism, digital cubism, digital art deco, and digital illusion like MCS. Oh my God. Wow. I'm very excited. So that's why I save that one for the end. Yeah. Because I think that that's the yeah. It's the fireworks of art. So guys, I would now, I would now like to present to you if you go to the next slide, Curio 1. This is my work. And it's all the titles of these are all the, the, the, uh, what we have with the, the, what the Curio's title. So I didn't know what this is going to be called. Backwards Clock. Are we, are we good with that? I like backwards clock, backwards walk. Okay. So this is, I would like to present Curio number one, digital piece, realism, backwards clock, backwards walk. Go ahead.

It's very real. It's very realistic. I'd like you to zoom in a little bit to show the extreme realism that I went into that I did here. If you can zoom out, I don't know if it's possible. Laser pointer, you could laser him. Yeah. Well, don't worry about it. But essentially, here, I'll get up and show you guys just so that you can see. He's laser pointing. So he has varicose veins kind of. coming because he is an old baby. Plenty of wrinkles. You know, I drew his penis and then I had to Google how to pixelate something

in Microsoft paint because it did, it was a little bit crass. I'm not going to, I'm not going to lie. He's blind. I made his eyes gray because he has cataracts. He can't see his eyes.

Now, when I first looked at it this, I thought it was a drawing of an old Asian man. It kind of looks to me like ET. We kind of talked about ET. talked about ET, but I think if you watch the movie, this is very accurate to what he looks like. This is realistic.

I totally, I totally agree with you. I mean, this is great work. Those is pubes. Gray, gray pubs. No hair on the head, but pubes on the well, because he's old, I figured he's born with it looks like he has one sliver of hair. That's true, that could be skin-colored hair.

If he's born, if he's born as an old man, I toiled about this, obviously. I'm an artist, I think about stuff. I toyled over the idea that a baby does not have but an old man does. Yeah, it's an interesting question. So he does he have pubes? I think you're right to speculate like this because the one time, the time that we get

closest to this view of Benjamin, he's lying on the bed and he's got like a sheet or a blanket that's obscuring his button and his one leg. So we don't know. He could very well not only have pubes, but have one leg that's extremely hairy. We don't know. We don't know. And that could be the one in the middle. His leg, his other leg could, you know, it could be a wheel. It could be anything. We just don't know.

Speaking of the legs, amazing detail on these feet. I know. Thank you. Incredible feet. It's almost like you started with the feet. I did, I'm a big fan of the one line technique where you outline the entire thing with one line. It's pretty common among artists, visual artists. So that's why it's so realistic. Yes. And I'm really excited to. see more of these in the coming weeks. Me too. I'm excited to do them. Digital sculpture is not something I have much experience with. Yeah. But I'm going to do I don't know exactly how I'm going to do it. I might

be blender or something. And also I have to watch the curio to find out what exactly I'm going to be sculpting. I kind of realized this first one it felt like we had a good run up for it. But some of these other ones it's like, oh, it's like going to, we're going to be in it. I'm going to watch the curio first time tomorrow. I know. Me too. Me as well. Yeah.

Tonight I'm going home and watching it three times because I have to make all this music. I think three times is the perfect amount. And I'll say this too for anyone who wants to follow along with our process and just kind of, you know, I'm doing three times. I'm doing one time. Okay. Just take it one time, sit, nothing. Second time, watch it, take notes, pause if I need to.

Then let it be for a day. Then watch it again to get it to refresh it in the mind before we record. Very well, yes. Should we do a, should, if you can leave comments. comments or something about the next curio or you could send us an email or something. I don't want to get, I don't want anyone to send us spoilers, but I would love to if anyone has questions or things they want us to touch on. Yeah, yeah.

Email is a pot about list at Gmail? Podcasts about list at gmail.com. You can email us, but I'm serious and we're going to have somebody screen these. Yeah, if here's what I'm going to say right now, I'm going to put this this into action is that if the email comes in and it contains a spoiler for, for a curio that's not being covered, a joke that is not in the spirit

of the five weeks of Benjamin Button. Or a joke that is just a joke about, look, I'm emailing you something to be annoying. You will be blocked and your email will be signed up for at least three spam newsletters. Yes, yeah, we will be doing that. And we're going to do really embarrassing spam ones too.

Yeah, we're going to figure out just horrible things to send you on email. Extends human rights campaign. We're just going to send. all that out. Yeah. Anything in between that. Yeah.

But we'd love to hear from you. Yes. About. As long as you're normal. And, uh, well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think it would be good to have, to have people to hear people opinion. Because I feel like I feel like there, you hit a point where it's like, you know, there's a lot of stuff I wrote down here where I'm like, I wrote this down. And I was like, oh, we're going to talk about this. And I look at it and it's like what. Do you have an, I wrote down.

I wrote down. Mr. Cake has power to corrupt Benjamin's birth. I guess we talked about that a little bit. Yeah, we talked about that a lot. No, that makes sense. I think, but I also think there's something, the reason to do. Mr. Cake and Mr. Mr. Mr. Cake and Mrs. Cake prayed God and asked their son out of harm's way, but it didn't work, so he built a clock instead.

You want to know something that this journey that we're embarking on makes me think of? What? You know those videos where somebody will, you see a picture, a digital painting of like the earth or something? Yes. And they zoom in and they've done. drawn the people and then they zoom in and they've drawn people on those people and another universe within that. That's what I think we're doing right now. Is we're zooming in close enough on this work that a universe reveals itself?

Yeah. Oh, here's another thing. So this is just, yeah, this is, so this is a good example of something that I just don't think you would pick up on or you would think to think about if you were allowed to keep watching the movie instead of just forced to watch the same thing over and over again. So the other lady in the hospital room, it's Daisy, it's Caroline, and then there's someone who I assume is the nurse, but she's not wearing scrubs or anything. Yeah. She's kind of just in street clothes. And she, and I assume she's the nurse because when, well, Caroline is the one who says you can have as much medicine as you want, which I don't know if she should be saying that. Yeah, that's not your call lady. But then the nurse is like, we don't want anyone to be

suffering. It's like, yeah, okay. But the nurse, so after the story of Mr. Cake, right after that, when we come back to the hospital. The nurse says, hey, do you mind if I leave the room? I have to make a call. Someone's watching my son. And she leaves the room. So she sat there and she listened to Mr. Cake's story

and then she left. And only then is it that Daisy gets Caroline to get the diary and begins to read the story of Benjamin Bunn. And it's like, why is that in the movie, right? So I have to conclude that this matters in some way that it's either that we could be

looking at a situation where it's like there's going to be some detail about the nurse in the diary that like something Benjamin's like I'm at the ugliest fucking nurse today something like that or kind of an even bigger thing we could be looking at a scenario where one or more of the characters are imaginary

and it's one of those things where like this person has to get out of the room so they don't interact with this scene that's going on. So Benjamin could not be real at all. That it's a thing where it's like actually nothing is written in the diary and the Carolina is just saying some bullshit

and Daisy is hallucinating the story of Benjamin Button. Yes, this is all the dream of a homeless person being swept away by a Katrina wave. I'm so glad, by the way, that when she pulls out the diary that the old lady, I really thought the old lady was going to be reading it. And I was imagining, like, imagine your 90-year-old grandmother is about to die, mother or whatever. A 90-year-old is about to die.

And then you ask them to read. read you a two-hour movie script and they can barely talk. Yeah. I was like, that's going to be really bad. There's also literally the line when she hands her the diary to read, the old lady says, I tried to read this about a hundred times. Yeah. It's like you couldn't read it.

It seems very simple. It's not her diary. That's another thing is why is she? And you have, you mentioned that she starts April 4th. Uh-huh. It's not the beginning of the diary. It's not the beginning of the diary. She goes to like halfway through the diary.

I'll tell you, I paused on all the pages and I looked through and they are not even diary pages. What are they? They're just like pictures. Yeah, there's like schematics. There's like a lot of pictures. It's like a work journal of some kind. They're like, it's like had to go and go and do this. Here, I'll pull up the friend.

If it's his last will and testament, it's not really a diary, first of all. And second of all, like, is there going to be one date in it, April 4th? Right. Yeah. You know? April 4th. 1985. Here's my entire life. Here's everything.

Why do you even date it? I'm trying to get to the frame. Oh, yeah, here. Well, this is the actual Benjamin for it. So he, oh, I also wanted to call it his handwriting. He writes in all capitals. Yeah. So kind of a childlike. Well, by the time he writes this, he's a child.

I know. That's what I'm saying. Oh, yeah. Okay. So this is, so he's, okay, so he's, okay, so he doesn't die right after this. There's no way. No, he's got to be, it's got to have a couple years. Yeah, because he has to be able to still write, read and write. by this point. So he's not so young that those, those, his faculties have left out of them. February 16th.

Something, something Camp Street will allow people to sleep indoors. They do not provide cots. You must bring your own sleeping bag. That's on a previous page. That's, yeah, that's on February 16th. So he becomes a homeless baby. Yeah.

February. Which this homeless wave theory. So, yeah. So homeless weight theory is starting to seem real. But so then why does he start his life story on April 4th? He was already on February being like, I'm homeless. Yeah, wait, is she going to read? Is that chapter going to make it into the movie, I wonder?

Yeah. Yeah, I'm curious about that. That entry. I mean, I have to imagine that at some point during the movie, he is going to start writing the die. He's going to, so January 1st, there's a, um, We have a map taped in of parish, something Metro and Jefferson Parish. That's where the county is. And he has some type of either drawing or handkerchief or something paperclip to the front,

which I have to imagine we're going to see again. When you just showed me that, I maybe, I just thought it was a can of sardines. Here's what's in this. January 2nd, called, spoke to Rick. Call back on Friday, 26, ask for Joe. It's a great diary. Appointment Tuesday. Corner of Shartreuse and Toulouse. Barrett Furniture Mover position.

$10 an hour. Saturdays? Part time. Call Jesse. Materia area. Interview okay. Looking for someone older because of family benefits. Oh. Dude. Older.

I'll call back on Friday for their decision. I know that you just said some Cajun word completely wrong and the Cajuns in the comments are going to destroy you. Which word, bro? It's all fric. Matri. Or whatever? you say it. I can't speak it. Metairie.

Matthew L. Finerman M.D. Oto Laryngology. So he also has an E.N.T. doctor. His card pasted in. So this is kind of, it's kind of just as like, I need a job, I need to go to the hospital. Yeah. I'm homeless. But they're not even written like diary entries. This is more like a to-do list, it seems like. Well, I hope we see him do it.

Yeah. Yeah. I have to imagine to me to we only see the entire movie's one diary entry. That would be strange. That would be strange. All right. You're going to round us out here. Yes.

I have a song that I've written. It's a five weeks. There's always music with the five weeks. There sure is. The return, dude. I'm excited. This is the Curio first song. If you can pull that up, Julio.

Did you put like a... Oh, there we go. Good low loud. Is there any way you can pull it up so they can read the lyrics? There we go. O.J. The alien is back. Oh, my God. Old woman in the hospital, it's Hurricane Katrina.

She'd think about some old dick that she used to get between her. She tells a boring story about a clock in Louisiana. Then her daughter gets a diary and starts reading it to her. Let me say I fucking hate this shit. I miss rapping about planets, you bitch. Remember wise guys? That was a good start. Everybody says that I didn't write the good part.

picture on your resume this movie is a blister I love the social network and I really like the killer. Shout out, Wendy Blu-la-B-da-da-da-da-da-da-dha-dha-dha-dha-dha-dha-dha-dha-dha-dha-dha- Yeah, that's my alien language. Already this movie causing physical anguish. Not a single alien, not even the tranglish. That's a race of aliens that speak only spanglish.

I think I need, I think I need, I think I need a feature. I think I need, I think I need a feature. I think I need, I think I need a feature. Where the aliens that? Oh, no. Every rock basking on a lily, it's a chilly dance. It's a baseball division. Everywhere I go, I see so much division.

Just to a fart. I make a loud-ass noise, and it's coming. I'm apart. I think I need. I think I need. I think I need. Couldn't get anyone else. Here's dropped out.

Boris Gump with a made a fart-ass dump. Damn. O.J. the alien signing. That's harsh words. So O.J. The alien doesn't like this movie. but we'll see how I think. Yeah.

So, oh yeah, I guess that's, I mean, first of all, incredible song. Yeah, that was great. That was it. And I like the O.J. linked up with J.O. Yeah. We should start calling him J-O. No, no, no.

This was a different guy. What? I thought that was Joe. He's a frog he wraps with. Oh, I understand what you're saying. He wraps with the frog. He wraps with a frog. You hear he's from the swamp.

He's in Louisiana, the lily pad. His dad was Tilly Dad. Tilly Dad. I mean, I heard all that, but he did say it was one take, So I figured it was just kind of stream of consciousness. I didn't know that he had this whole frog character. He said all that. He said,

I'm a frog on a lily pad. Yeah. And he sees so much division everywhere. Yeah, we need to stop the division. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think we should,

do you think we should rate the segment, the curio? Do you think we should not rate it? Do you think we should rank? I think we should be running and ranking. Yeah, let's, let's,

let's rate it and then because the ranking is kind of implicit. Do we want to each give a, I have a feeling. We want to average it and we can all rank it. Yeah, I have a feeling that we, that there's going to be some different rankings going in here.

All right. I'm going to go first. Are we going out of 10 out of 5? Let's go out of 10. Okay. I'm going to give this Curio. I'm going to give it a 6.2. Hmm.

Okay. I think I'm kind of, I'm going to go with a 7, I think. Okay. And it's, you know, it's tough because it's the first one, so it's hard to know.

We don't really have anything to compare it to, except every movie we've ever seen before. Yeah, which I'm trying to not. compared to that because the thing is, this isn't a movie. It's a curio. And I've never seen, this is literally the first curio I've ever seen. But I didn't hate, I didn't dislike it.

I just, this one I actually enjoy it. You know what? I'm going to bump mine up to an eight. Okay. Because as a curio, I think it almost couldn't be better. It has a, it begins at the beginning. It has a clear ending point. But if you're thinking of it as its own thing, as I said earlier, short film,

the only issue I would have with it is the cake stuff. Yeah. I'd be like, what's the fucking point of this? Well, no, I would be the opposite. I'd be like, I want it. to only be the cake stuff. I loved the cake stuff. That's kind of why my rating is so high.

You like cake. I don't, I like Mr. Cake, bro. As a curio, I think I'm going to give it a 7.5 because I think that's a solid average. That's not what I thought you were going to say.

Solid average as a curio as a movie so far. Don't even say it. Don't even say it. Probably going to give it two because this is the shortest movie I've ever seen. So you're saying 7.5 as a curio. I'll say six. Actually six. Yeah.

You bumped it down. Six actually makes more sense for how I feel about those. 6.5. So the average final score is going to be a 6.73. Okay, 6.73 out of 10 for backwards clock, backwards walk. Backwards clock, backwards walk. Which solid start. I mean, I think this was a great start.

It's kind of one of those things where I feel like a lot of our discussion was theorizing on what could come next. Yeah. And I assume that will continue for two or three more weeks. That'll probably be a big topic. But this really is where it all starts. And I think that pretty much wraps it up, right? That wraps it up, guys. Five weeks is 10 episodes.

And that was episode one. That was episode 10, episode 10, Curio one. But if you're not on the Patreon, you're only going to get half of these. You're going to get every other Curio, unfortunately. Because with these are going to go, the next one is going to be on the premium. and yeah, just know that. And that's that, guys. That's that.

And you can check the website. I'll keep updating it with everything. Swagbroop.com slash Benjamin. See you for. See you for Curio number two episode nine. It's week five right now. Week five. Yeah, it's week five.

Part two. See you for week five, part one on Saturday. Goodbye. So this is in the year like 20, 60 something. Klarna has replaced everything. Clarnia has replaced everything.

Everything is Clarna Polymarketing. Yeah. Okay. Let's get your futuristic set. Glooponians. Yeah. Boo.

Get off the stage. They're fucking racist. Racist. Hey. Back when I was... You can't say glooptonian. Back when I was a kid, you could say this kind of stuff

because we didn't know what glooponians were yet. Because actually those were invented right now while I was on stage. Yeah. Oh, guys, I'm excellent. exercising my 153rd Amendment rights. Just call people glooptonian. To joke about glooponians.

153rd Amendment, the first amendment is back. It's been codified that you can say glooptonian all you want. Speaking of codes. For all the, for all the bots in the audience, 101, 101. Get the fuck in there. You think just because their bots, they can speak binary. Someone smashes an eye beer on my head. Yeah, the robot comes up to you.

Oh, no. The I beer smashed in your head. The I beer started to actually work. You pig. Yeah. Slap in the face. It was a binary code joke. Damn.

It was a bot joke. Okay. Okay, fine. By the way, San Francisco's just been annihilated from the face of planet Earth by a nuclear bomb. But no. Get mad at me. Chris Titanium.