Podcast About List - Ep. #386 - Curio #5: I enjoyed vodka, caviar and Mike Clark | The Five Weeks of Benjamin Button part 6

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

Most of the crew has come down with a trendy new virus but we stay true to our mission to talk about Benjamin.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/shows Get extra premium and Gun City RPG episodes at https://www.patreon.com/podcastaboutlistFollow us https://www.swagpoop.com/links

Um, watch this shit. You gotta look at this world alive. Yeah. What's your first guess here? Well, you guys said, you guys were talking about it in the sense of it's having something to do with today. So I was thinking, well, it's definitely not Ebja. It's not enough letters. I would not use a guess on Ebja.

It's close, though. Well, it's close. It's five letters. BINJA, that's close. It's, but it's not a word. word and it still doesn't that's not how you spell button it's actually on it's on it's on it's on your video feed right now you can't see my video feed i'm just me but i think you know how to spell button god well i mean what i'm trying to think of of

tilda that's a good yes that's a good guess think more in the in the uh far think about things that you see in the movie rusey Russia is things I see things that like think about an object in the movie

an object an object that's very important the name the last name button and and a button are spelled the same way

so when you were wrong the first sentence well it's just not fitting so I'm just do you want to hit Bhutan is out on

word out on oh like out on a boat he does go out on a boat in this curio case okay close close with the same if that was the name

if that was the cookie that is that is not okay well you got C O and K here yes think about it no Kikos is not a word what is going on

with me today I don't know man It's because we're sick. I'm not sick. I'm fucking sick. I'm probably the one that gave it. Well, I mean, I should probably try and just knock out some more letters. So I'll just do something like, I haven't used any of these letters yet.

Peace is not. Where in the movie would peace happen? Well, I'm just trying to knock out letters to get. I mean, it's wordal strategy. You know how you're supposed to play wordal, right? I feel like with the three letters that you know are in the word, you should be able to get it. Yeah. and Mita, Mietis.

Meath. Meath is not a, Meath is a word, I guess. What is this? What does meath mean? What is me? What the fuck is meh? I don't know what cookie or meh are.

Oh, it's one of, Mith is the 14th largest of Ireland's 32 counties. That doesn't, that shouldn't be a word. It doesn't usually, I don't think, usually, I'm just going to try and knock out a few other letters here. Here, wait, let me try me's definition. what is the meaning of meath okay well province province that they have for him when he's on the boat or something i mean i'm

i'm drawing a blank guys okay so to meath meath is like uh sloon is not no sloon is not a word meath you already did meet this awesome meat again all right you have two guesses left I didn't know you guessed the same word twice. You have two guesses. I really want to see. Well, there's not too many letters.

So. Yeah, exactly. As options. So we'll let's see. We lock in here. Jay, you're off to a pretty bad start because you know there to see in the beginning. That's with the green meat. Oh, shit. I didn't even notice that.

Yeah. So C, blank. O. Okay. So I'm going to tell you right now. Cookie. You already did cookie also. Shit.

Cookie's not going to hold. C-O-O-K-Y. You've done twice. See, O-K-Y? No, you already did that. Don't do that one. Don't do that one. Switch it around.

Switch just try to, no. No, not meath. No, cookie meath. Cookie meath sounds like a name of a character, Benjamin would be counter. Not meath, not cookie. It's not,

those are the only hints you're getting. Not doocy. Do not put do C. Try, no, not plowy. The L is good. You know there's a C at the beginning. Bazaq? Okay, you have the right, yes, you're going in the right direction.

Yeah, okay. I like this start. I really, no, clued. No, clued. The backspace two times. Okay. Now use the C. No.

Long is not a word. Think about it. Don't try clova or clove or any kind of clove. I mean, I don't understand. I'm already used C, so I can't use C again. Remember K is there. You can use it more. It's not clock.

It was clock. They can use the C twice. I thought, well, it's gone. I tried my best. Okay, so. I hope you enjoy my clunk. I didn't know any of the news were worse. The people listening, or Cam just guessed, Curio, Cookie, C-O-O-K-Y, which I didn't know

was a word, meath, then meet again, then cookie again, and then clock. And the word, of course, was clock, leaves. It was the wordal today, day, today of all days. Right? Yeah. As we embark on Curio. We enter week three. Week three.

Day two. My name is Benjamin Bartner And I was born under unusual circumstances While everybody else was aging I was getting younger All alone Can I tell you guys how fucked up I am Over missing one of the

I know I just could only imagine how distraught you must have been You know it's funny I will say I think if there was one you had to miss I think you missed a good one That was the worst cure This one was even better than the last one. This one, because the last one, the last one was so boring. This one, holy crap.

This one was great. I mean, I don't want to spoil my rating. Okay. But I'll say that my rating will come at the end. Okay. I'm excited to hear it. So, yeah, Caleb and I both have been stricken ill. I think the forces of the universe are,

are working against. I'm trying to silence the curious system because they realize that movies film will never be the same. Yes. Because why would you do theatrical, full-length, 130-minute releases of films at this point? There's no release movies at 16 minutes at a time,

every time so that people can analyze every 16 minutes. Exactly. The show must go on. Yes. And I've got my, I've got my, you can see it clearly here. I've got my cough drops.

I've got my box of tissues. You can see both of these. items. I already polish off my Camamel tea, man. I have nothing. We're powering through much like a certain tugboat.

Yes. That we'll hear a little bit more about today. Also, I watched a movie today earlier, and it had the song from the Benjamin Button trailer in it, which I guess is just a classical music song, but literally the exact

segment of the song that we used for the theme song for the five weeks was in this movie. What movie was it? It was a movie called The Cottage with Andy Circus in it. Oh. Speaking of Andy Circus, the connection there, CGI characters. Very true. CGI's face on a person.

He should have played young Benjamin. Imagine? That would be cool. Old Benjamin, Andy Circus running around, doing like... I would think it would have been improved. I'll say I have some thoughts about CGI versus practical. that we'll... Ooh.

I'm sure to get into. Should I just start off the recap here? Yes. So we're in Curio 5. We made it to Curio 5, guys. And what's exciting about this one, the end of this, Curio, we're halfway.

We're at the exact halfway point. Exciting is not the word that I would use for that. Yeah. I can see that. I think I find it exciting because of, of the way that this one ended, which we'll get to, I think is a crazy halfway point. Yeah, exactly.

I would say curious because I would like to know more. Yeah, I feel the same way. I want to know more about what's going on. Here's a recap for today. We pick back up in the Winter Palace, the hotel in Murmansk, Russia, where we

learn what makes a hotel at night so magical? That was kind of the cliffhanger we ended on last time. A hotel at night can be a magical place. I theorized we might see a young boy ghost playing with the hotel bell or flying on us. It turns out the things that make a hotel magical are

a mouse running and stopping, a radiator hissing, and a curtain blowing. And sex with an older, younger lady. Yes. Benjamin's accent seems to have become much, like, I don't know if, like, I don't know if I'm just perceiving it this way, but I feel,

I feel like he's become way more occasion. He definitely has. He's because, he's, uh, I guess because he's not doing baby voice anymore. Yeah. Well, it's also, he's born as this sort of genteel old style southerner, right? And then as he starts to kind of live the Cajian lifestyle and be a guy on a boat, I think it starts to really develop at sea.

That's my guess. Yeah. I think you're right. I think that's a good read. It is really interesting that he has no consistent accent throughout the movie. Yeah. I think we brought this up in the last curio where you weren't here. Did you listen to it or no?

I listened to about half of it. I can only take so much Joe Gleason in my life. Well, we'll be happy to, here, I'm going to just throw something out there for you. Joe polluted your ratings. Yes, he did. Can I ask, actually, can I ask real quick, what would you have rated the last one? I don't want to actually be too judgmental before I hear this. The last one I probably would have.

It's too late, but what would you have? I probably would have given it like a, five, four. Interesting. We were saying something like that. We were saying like around the same rating as us,

which we gave maybe like fives and six. I don't remember my rating. I don't remember either. Kind of instantly flat. Joe gave it a three, which I think it's his prerogative, but I was just like, I feel like Caleb wouldn't have given it a three.

I didn't, I didn't hate it. It wasn't unwatchable to me. Not to go back to a previous curio. But Joe, you know, I think that we could, we can make good on we can uh fix that we can excuse i agree i think it's fine we can redo the math

i was just curious um curious curious case wish i had my little soundboard right here yeah here you want me to be the soundboard for you today whenever i whenever somebody says a relevant word if you could just sound off that would be great yes we pointed out we pointed out in the last curio that in the first uh part of the movie he is in the adr booth and everything that he says sounds like narration And now that he's actually there and no longer CGI, he's actually delivering his lines on set. So that's my theory for why his voice has suddenly changed, very drastically. Yes, that makes perfect sense to me. I also think this is one of the hardest tasks ever given to an actor in the history of Hollywood.

And like I said, I have thoughts. We'll get there, but I have thoughts. Curious. Wow. Good drop. And Elizabeth, who is, that's Tilda Switten's character's name. She has a funny last name. I think it's, is it Abbott?

Oh, not a funny last name, but she has the last name. Oh, Abbott. Oh, like Abbott and Costello, those funny, those funny guys. Those funny, funny guys. Well, she's married to Walter Abbott, which could be like, sound like, it almost sounds like watermelon. It also sounds like Walter Wabbit. Hold on. Can you do that for me?

Also, Albo. Yeah. You nailed it on the first try. That was amazing. Congratulations. Can you say some other characters' names that could sound like stuff? Elizabeth Abbott. And what would that sound like?

Elizabeth Mellon. So we go back to the hospital, and Caroline pulls out a postcard from Mermansk, which is where they are. It's a letter from Benjamin to Daisy. And I'll read out the verbatim. This is how Benjamin is writing from across the world to Daisy. He has a big-ass postcard. He's putting three sentences on each of them in his big-ass fucking block letters.

Dear Daisy, I am working in the Russian port of Mermansk. It's very cold here. I've met somebody and I've fallen in love, Benjamin. Yeah. And this breaks her heart when she sees this. Well, we don't know that. This kind of makes sense with his like small, or what's the word, his poor education.

Yeah. He's not going to write. He's not writing a lot. I have something to bring up later too that, but I do. I'm glad you brought that up and it's related to that. I think, and I don't mean this with in a disrespectful way, and I don't mean this rudely, but Benjamin Button is an idiot. I think he's kind of a moron.

and back then he would be legally or yeah legally classified as that because that's what they called them he'd be a legal idiot yeah on his passport it would say idiot uh yeah class owner class idiot

legal idiot um oh and on this postcard here's just a fun little tidbit I can't really figure out how to tie this into anything but it has daisy's address on the postcard where she was living in New York at the time and it's 560 West 52nd Street. I looked it up and it's a paint store called Epstein's Paint Center. It's apparently a very old paint store.

That made Caleb leave. Yeah, that scared Caleb. That scared Caleb. It's going crazy, but I'm listening. Something paint store? Epstein's paint store. Oh. Caroline asks her mom,

did you love him, mom? And Daisy kind of like snarkily replies, what does a girl know about? Which makes me kind of think that this is like the end of her and Benjamin's story. Yeah, it seems like there should be more. I have to have more complicated feelings than that. Yeah. Well, she can't.

She's on so much delighted she can't. She's on so much delighted she can't think at all. Yeah, I'm sure she has. In 2005? Yes, on her. She requested. She was. a test patient.

Yeah. The first person to get dilauded. Yeah. Back in the past, Kate Blanchett-era, Daisy reads the postcard from Benjamin, and she doesn't look too happy about it. That was kind of my interpretation.

I'll give you that. Then she starts doing incredible ballet. It seems like she's happy. And in the last karaoke, she mentioned that she was, like, relegated to the core. She was not going to, a main dancer. But in this, she does,

she strikes her pose. She's right in the middle. She's the centerpiece. And then that 1930s gay guy we were talking about is looking really intently at Daisy to a degree that the women at the table with him are looking at him like, what's up with you?

Which makes me think we may see more of him, which I'm very excited. Oh, he may not be gay. Or I think he may be about to be like, hey girl, you got it. You're about to be the number one dancer in New York City. You said that she was in the core?

That's what she said. That's what she says. she's in the core, but what is in the center of the apple? Oh, shit. Damn, and it's interesting that you brought that up. I'll get to that later. Yes. Wow. Remember that we have a lot of dominoes we're setting up to that.

Yes, yes, yes. I can feel the potential energy. I can't wait. So, yeah, she's doing ballet in New York. Then back at the hotel, uh, Benjamin and Elizabeth tells Benjamin, not to bother with wine and cheese in Mermansk and instead to try the caviar and vodka

and they start eating caviar and vodka together and now here's where I have my thoughts I fucking hate is moving and acting and talking in this and I wish he was CGI again I kind of agree this particular scene he like was just I was just feeling like I truly have no

understanding why I was feeling a bubbling rage watching him slowly eat his spoonful of caviar because the thing is he's like he's like 20 something yeah what and when he was a kid he's still moving works and goofing around and now he's trying to act all why he's literally just trying to pull this old lady by faking being old he's not actually old and i think it's disgusting it is disgusting this is at this point this is a sort of awkward phase developmental phase for benjamin button where it really starts to look like brad pitt in a Halloween costume. Whereas the CGI, I could believe, this is not a human creature.

This is a monkey or some kind of other CGI animal that happens at four limbs and a head upon two shoulders. But as soon as he's in, when he's like wearing his, his like, whatever, this long robe thing is like night robe. Yeah. His frame is just so youthful. It is. And everything around it is old man.

And it just doesn't work. No, I totally agree. And I think Brad Pitt is a great actor. And I love Brad Pitt, but I don't think he's pulling this off. I don't think he's really does not. He, I think he's trying to be like ponderous and slow and old, which first of all doesn't really make sense because he's not old. He's young. He's too sexy.

And he's just comes off as when he's like eating, taking a slow sip of the vodka, I feel like he's trying to be like a like, you know, I'm world weary, which again, he's not. but it just comes off and he's like, I'm going to take a really long time to do everything. Yeah, he's supposed to be 21. He should be like fucking, he should be shooting this off like out of her tits. That's,

if he's at 151, he should be like pouring this on her ass and sucking it through a straw. So here's my question. Is he like, is he acting like that because he, because when he was a baby, he had like rheumatoid arthritis, right?

He had, he was like an arthritic baby. And like, he had all this like like problems with his body and stuff. Is he going to have like cataracts and shit? Does he still have that? Is he growing out of them? Is that why he's moving slow?

If so, they should have put a big hump on his back or maybe some kind of. A hump would change everything. Yeah. I think they're leaning too hard into this being his silver fox era. Yeah. I think they're straying too far. He's too old technically for him to be really a silver fox. This is what I mean.

I feel like the sexiness is hitting pre-foxing. maturely. If he's supposed to be here looking like he's 70 years old or late 60s, really the Silver Fox era is that sort of 50 to 260. Yeah. I think you're totally right. I think we're seeing a complete mismatch in age during this sequence. And I think I truly,

I think it could be completely fixed. I think it could be completely remedied by releasing a George Lucas style remaster of this movie where Brad Pitt is fully CGI the entire movie. Yes, I mean, I would kill for that. Like this, this, what you're, what we're seeing here is basically like when Jabba the Hut was a guy in a vest. Yeah, that's true.

This is not, this is not. This is not fully, yeah. This is before the screen wipes to show the different. Exactly. Yeah. VFX passes and it's like, replace the screen with. Honestly, they should add a line when they originally find him

in Curio 1, they should add a line to where they're like, oh my God, he's CGI. Yes. Yeah. And he should just be in a universe. a CGI guy. It should be C. Now what is CGII?

I'd be fine to lose Brad Pitt at this point and get a more qualified actor Tony Shalhoub or somebody would play Benjamin. Oh my God. Shaloob is button. Bring more depth to this.

Yeah. And then we get Brad Pitt as later, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Because I think... They should have been played by multiple people like that Bob Dylan movie. This should have been played by Brad Pitt's dad. Yes. 100%. God. Chris Elliott's dead, like a situation like that.

It should have been Chris Elliott and Abby Elliott and Chris Elliott's dad. Yeah. It should have been Chris Elliott is Benjamin Button. Abby Elliott plays Kate Winslet's character. It's like his show that he did in the 90s, Bill Pitt. Yeah. What if his name was William and his name was Ball Pitt?

Whoa. Brad Pitt's real name is William Bradley Pitt. Whoa. Really? And you know what my mom says that he actually changed his life? last name from pits to pit, but it's not true. I looked at it up. Yeah, I'm not seeing anything about that here. You're sure? Your mom, I'm just double sure. Can you double check? Yeah. Yeah, she is full of shit, bitch. So they're sharing caviar and vodka. Elizabeth, non-sequitur, S. Benjamin,

you haven't been with many women, have you? Which is like a crazy thing to say to like a 70-year-old guy. Yeah, you know what I love his line here, though. Yep. Uh, or what's, oh yeah, he says not on a Sunday. Is that what he says? Yes, which I think is implying, I think that's his way of saying that I've only had sex with prostitutes. Yeah. Brothels are like Chick-fil-A and they're not around Sundays. That actually, I could see that being the case. Because I couldn't think of any other reason why he would say that.

He was thinking of an ice cream Sunday. Yeah. I like Sundays. Because it's hearing. That's what I mean. There should be more shit like, oh, is he hearing so bad? Right. Or like old people get confused, you know?

It is kind of seeming like the first three curios were where they did all that material. And now the rest of the movie, they're just not going to do that stuff anymore. Oh, yeah, no, they abandon it way too early. He literally needs to, like, he needs to not be able to see her at all. Like, because they're in a dimly lit hotel at night. Like, his cataracts need to act up and he needs to fall down the stairs. He does need to fall down the stairs bad. But then he's young and his cry.

But you know, I like he's falling down the stairs when he looks like he's like 12 years old, falling down the stairs. Falling in the shower, 12 and just dying. Maybe that's how he dies. And we get another old time yet where Elizabeth begins to tell... I mean, this is one of those stories in this movie

where I'm just like, come the fuck on. What are we doing here? She tells the story about how when she was 19, she tried to swim across the English channel, but the current was so strong that for every stroke she took she was pushed back to, which she claimed she covered distance, but at that rate, that is not possible.

You were moving back. Yeah. That is a backward swimming. She says she did that for 32 hours straight. Then it started to rain and she stopped and she never did anything else with her life ever again. This is her story. You know what also is kind of interesting to me about these weird little flashback things? It does feel like David Fincher is like, it feels like a Wes Anderson thing, the way they're shot.

Yeah. Yeah. They're so odd. They're really strange. This is the stuff that you add into a movie to turn it into a limited series. They changed the film stocks for one of the the lightning guy. What was his name again? The lightning guy was even further back.

Yeah, yeah, Mr. Dawes. They changed that. That was something that somebody said in one of the emails, I remember, which is a very Wes Anderson move. I think maybe he was two. He had just saw, like, I don't know, the Darjeeling Unlimited. and was like, I need to... Unlimited, I don't know. I don't know either.

But he's like, I need to completely ape Wes Anderson for this movie. I don't know why. It sold that way more to me in this Kate Winslet thing. Just because the water, like the English channel set up feels so...

Tilda Swinds. Sorry, Tilda Swinton thing because it feels, it feels like... It's not even in this movie. Yeah. Kate Winslet is in this movie, dude. No. Yeah.

Yes, she is. If you think that's true, then you've been watching ahead and you're going to be ejected from the remainder of the five weeks. Tilda Swinton. Well, I don't even know what I was talking about anymore, guys. I'm so tired. Not Kate. Yeah. Who is Kate Winslet?

I don't even remember who the fuck. Who gives a fuck about her? Why? Which actually thematically is kind of on. I can see why your brain went there. You can't prove that she's not in that movie or in that scene because it's water. We don't know. True.

She could be underneath the water. She could have been Underneath the water holding Tilda Swin'Unton up. And 32 hours. 32 hours of swimming. No, it's not. Yeah, it is.

It's not a Brad Pitt movie. He's killed a swim. He's in the movie. 32 hours of swimming. Brad Pitt is not in Titanic. And neither is killed us Swinton, whoever that is, or you just said. 32 hours is unbelievable.

You're so right. I'm just like this is what this is a similar to me this is a similar level to Mr. Cake where I'm just like what the fuck is this man? What are you talking about? This is like if he was telling me like if I was in a room with David Fincher and he was like okay and then this happens I'd be like literally what the fuck are you talking about? That makes no sense. What does that have to do with a 90 year old baby?

It's because she's swimming backwards and it's the only reason. Yeah, yeah. that's the only reason why that that is even included is because of the backwardsness. But it kind of seems like she's in some sort of water stasis. I think the point of it is it's like, because also after she gets out of the water, they're like, are you going to try again? And she's like, why not? And then she says, and then I never did anything else ever again for my entire life.

And I think David Fincher's trying to be like, yo, if you try to swim for 32 hours and you just move backwards, you should just try again instead of giving up for the next 60 years. It's a cautionary tale. This is his idea of a poignant emotional, like, motivational tale. It's like this stupid-ass fucking rich old lady swam for 32 hours

when she was 19 years old and it ruined her life. Don't let that happen to you. Yeah, this was a bit much for me. Then they hold hands. Then, Elizabeth kisses Benjamin. They kiss, they kiss.

Benjamin, or Elizabeth, here's a little line that I want to talk about a little more later too. Elizabeth says, I'm afraid it's the witching hour and then leaves. Benjamin reveals, this is crazy. I don't know, I'm curious if you guys picked up on this too. Benjamin says this was his first kiss. Oh, it wasn't?

Unless he wasn't kissing the ladies at the store. Is he saying first kiss? He says it's the first time a woman kissed him, I think. Okay. Oh, okay. I feel like that makes it feel a little more like maybe he's mooching the prostitutes. It's been about nine years. Yeah.

Since he lost his virginity. But I think he said he was hitting it all the time after that. Yeah, I think so too. I mean, I, it just, I think this is a crazy thing to happen to a guy. to lose his virginity and then his first kiss nine years later. I just think that's really crazy. That's true.

That's a good point. Does that mean that it was the first time, first time a woman kissed him? Yeah, I guess I didn't think about that before I wrote that down. The first time a woman kissed him without pay. Yeah. Which I guess counts more. Maybe he said that last part really quietly at the end.

And if you listen. Yeah. The last time a woman. woman kiss me. It still is crazy to me, even though it logically, I understand it. Yeah. So then Benjamin and Elizabeth begin to have an affair, but Elizabeth has rules. Now, remember the witching hour.

Elizabeth has rules. One, never look at her during the daytime. Two, she must always leave before the sunrise. And three, never say, I love you. Like a mob. she's a complete vampire and witch yeah i i thought that it was it was a bit strange to me that we spend they he spends time and and precious film uh precious screen time

establishing these rules and then the whole this whole trist is over in like 90 seconds yeah yeah this this movie is basically a montage yeah i was like nobody really does anything why do you need any voice over here why can't we just And the thing is... One of the rules is never say I love you. And as far as we see, they obey that rule. And this is just another thing. Benjamin was real...

I have to say Benjamin was strongly irritating me during this curio. Yeah, yeah. And one of the reasons... He says that Tilda Swinton was the first woman who ever loved him. Which I'm like, that's like presumptuous, first of all. Second of all, what about, like, what about Queenie? What about your mom? Yeah.

Queen, I mean, Daisy. If you never said I love you, how do you know? I don't think she did love you, bro. I think she was using, I think she was a rich old lady using you for. She wanted that old man, dick. That prostitute that told you to stop having sex with her and you said, I can't. You don't remember that? That she loved you.

Well, I wrote that, I wrote that quote down and I wrote down presumptuous, diluted, and inaccurate. And that's how I feel about Benjamin in this, in this curious. She was using him. She was using him for that dusty, thing. He's developing some kind of behavioral disorder. I agree. I think he has something wrong with him.

Yeah. In fact, I would like to do some kind of behavioral like, we should take a quiz and just answer as Benjamin. Let's do that. Yeah, yeah. I was going to say we contact like a psychologist or a therapist. If you're a therapist out there listening and you want to psychoanalyze

Benjamin, if you have any insight into Benjamin's just a good. That's smart. Please do email in. Just a profile of him. I feel like this also just through the Curio system, this is kind of like the experience I feel like, I imagine it's like the experience of having a child and watching them grow up and then being a toddler

being so cute and goofing around. And then they, you know, get into their 20s and they start acting like a shithead. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? That's kind of how I feel where I'm like, oh, Benjamin, you used to be so cute when you were an old cataract, disgusting mummy boy. And now you're fucking, you're

faking being old to get this old pussy. You're eating caviar with a spoon. Yeah. You're eating slow caviar and vodka. Right. You're eating too slow. You're a Cajun man.

You got to eat fast. This could be the influence of Mike Clark. This could. It could be. Are you supposed to eat caviar with tortilla chips or some shit? No. I think you're thinking of cheese and jalapenos and salsa. That's what you're supposed to eat it just with a spoon?

Yes. That sounds so gross. You can eat it with potato chips. It's pretty. good with potato chips. I didn't say, I didn't say tortillas. Pretty good with potato chips. I never said fancy potato chips.

I never, run that tape back. Run the tape back. Run the tape back. I never said fancy potato chips. You think the potato chips are the fancy part? What's wrong with you, man? He said, he said he's eating fancy potato chips. I never said, the potato chip is fancy as caviar on it.

I think putting caviar on a potato chip makes it a fancy potato chip. No, no, no, no, no, no, it's the ingredients that make the chip that makes it fancy. It would honestly make, I would completely believe it if you told me that you, like, whatever you're broke, it's because you, you are really into caviar. No, I actually, I don't like it. I don't like it at all. It's pretty bland and boring. It's just like a briny, like salty thing. You can just eat a caper.

Get the same, like, get the same experience. So they go into Benjamin to gets a hotel key from the lobby, room 57. Any number theorists, I know there are plenty of number theorists out there. Another great thing for you to weigh in on. And they meet up in hotel room 57 and they presumably have sex. They start kissing and close the door. But we don't know because Caroline stops reading and asks Daisy if she wants to skip this part. Can I say one thing?

Can I say one thing right now? Yeah. What curios is this? Curio 5. What number has been popping up so often completely? It's even on the soundboard. Seven. But I look a lot.

I don't think I have one. The number of the fucking room. Five, seven. Seven theory is holding extremely strong. Curio 5. They're saying wait till Curio 7. I literally, I want to contact a numerologist so bad. There's a lot of experts we have to.

contact. And for people who aren't aware of seven theory, seven theory is basically the theory that the number seven is, there's a lot of it in this movie. Yeah. Yes. And also, Brad Pitt made seven, or David Fincher made seven, with Brad Pitt,

and Morgan Freeman, and, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Kevin Spacey. Whose victims were what age? Seven. Yes. Oh, shit. Yes. But they look lot out of and his name rhymes his name even fucking rhymes with seven that tell you that guy

must have fucking woeims if if anybody's got we got a serious case of majembe he's got a jimbae you know what let's find his email and email that to him right now at kevin let's just try kevin spacie at gmail dot com say you have weims yeah you sir have weims you sir have wimbe Speaking of whims, Daisy doesn't says she waves away the suggestion to skip this part of the diary saying, I'm glad he had somebody to keep him warm. Worms. Wames.

Worms. Every single night Benjamin and Elizabeth meet in room 57 and they have sex, but it's always new and exciting, which Benjamin makes sure to say. One night, though, Elizabeth is not in the lobby. Benjamin falls asleep on the couch, and when he wakes up, Pearl Harbor has happened. Captain Mike calls a meeting

the crew of the Chelsea all come into the bar that Chelsea is being commissioned to serve in the Navy repairing and towing ships the cook leaves and John Grimm if we remember him

from the previous Curio he's upset because he's afraid of getting food poisoning because it is one of the leading causes of death at sea just behind inadequate safety equipment now Benjamin volunteers to become the new cook

which here's another part where I was just like Benjamin, Why are you doing that? He says, I've been cooking all my life. That's just not true. We've seen your whole life, bro. You never see that.

The closest you've gotten to cooking is making a cup of tea and holding a can of molasses. Those are the two things you've ever done about. Also, he lived in basically a hotel. Of course he didn't cook. No. Yeah, he's never cooked in his life. What is he talking about? This shit pissed me on.

He's going to give him food poisoning. Oh, yeah. Also, one thing, one small thing. just a little piece of fun trivia the cook was played by the science teacher from Ned's Declassified Is that true? Yeah

And what is And what is one of the characters' names in Ned Zee classified? Cookie, holy fuck. Cookie. Whoa. And how old was Cookie before they filmed the show?

Seven, but he looked out older. But he looked a lot older. And also He said it to war. K-Y in his case. So maybe Y used did a little seating there in the Wirtle. Yeah, I don't, I still thought that that guy was named Cookie for a while. Now we just need a place for Meath.

Can we find a place for Meath, guys? We'll find it. I think we'll find it. Do you spell Jembe? Maj-J-E-M-B-E, I believe. M-A-D-J-E-M-B-E, I believe. J-E-M-B-E. Yeah.

Okay, I just sent it to Kevin Spacey. Oh, okay. Kevin Spacey at g-mail.com. I sent them an email that says, subject line regarding you. Mr. Spacey, you have worms and mojumbe. You said worms, not WOMS? Oh, I'm sorry, I'll reply again.

I mean WOMS. I meant WOMS. Sorry, and WOMS. The Benjamin's headed to war, and Elizabeth has disappeared. We don't know why. to assume it has something to do with her spy husband having to go

infiltrate Nazi Germany or something which again would be a very cool thing to see but the only thing we ever hear about is her husband is just that he is a spy we don't get to see any cool James Bondness she left Benjamin a note that only says it was nice to have met you here's my other piece of evidence that I don't think Elizabeth loved him I think I don't think that's what you do

no I think I love somebody and I think Benjamin, I think you're a certified moron. Yeah. I'm saying it again. Attach a picture. So he remembers you. Forever and ever on that. Or at least kiss the envelope, man. Come on. Yes. You want to kiss. That's what I mean. She doesn't wear that stuff. She's plain as white rice. She's plain as paper. Yeah. He's so mean to her. Yeah.

He doesn't even love her. He just says the first woman that loved me. The first woman that loved me was plain as paper. But this is making it. This is, you know what? If my grandpa said that, I'd be mad at him. The plaintiff's paper thing was definitely kind of out of pocket from him last Curio. But now, again, Curio system, now it's coming into focus why he's being cruel to her.

She left. Mm-hmm. She has intel. And also she used paper. And she used paper. So, and also, he's writing on paper at the time when he says that. So, of what words, he says, you plain as plain as, uh, paper. I don't know.

And what did she most likely? also the only time likely leave Russia on a paper seven Plane Majibai oh okay plane he does not leave Russia on a plane She we see him

Oh she Yeah maybe He also uses paper The only time that he says That he's in love with Elizabeth is when he writes a postcard To Daisy and says he's in love with her Yeah

He's so fucking mean He olden sends it to her Yeah to the girl that he knows They'll fuck her up Yeah he's a fuck her up Yeah he's a fucker man. He's a jerk. He's a fucking asshole. He's an asshole.

He's an asshole. We know there's everything that's coming to him. Yep. Yeah. Youngness. Yeah. The Chelsea heads out to help in the war effort. They have a new crew member, a chief gunner who's assigned to them. Dennis Smith, who's a Cherokee,

and he loves America. He says, when you spell America, A-M-E-R-I-C-A, you're spelling freedom. Which is not true. Dude. Spell it again and spell the numbers of the letter of the word. 1.13, 5, 18, 9.

How many letters are in the word I meant? 1. America. How many letters? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. America is the ultimate 7. I don't know if I agree with that. but that's just an ideological split between me and you personally. I just don't,

I just don't buy into the midst of America in that way, being the Great Seven. Yeah. No, no, no, no. The ultimate seven. Okay. Oh, that's, yeah, that is different. Yeah, way different than the Great Seven.

I would say it was great. I said it was the ultimate theory. It's actually an extremely problematic and racist theory. Yeah, definitely on the fucking, uh, whatever the ACLU hate speech hate groups they

yeah seven theory everything you need to know about seven theory grant a great seven three theory um one night on the

on the boat uh pleasant Curtis speaks for the first time when before he only ate apples um pleasant Curtis says hey Benjamin I've been watching you you look trustworthy here's all my money

I've ever had in my life It's so strange. He says, give it to my wife if I die. Benjamin does not say anything or reply in any way. He just takes the money and puts it in his pocket. And then instantly, yeah, sorry, go ahead. Instantly, the bells begin to ring and everyone has to, it's all hands on time. They're in bed.

And then immediately they're like, guys, come up, come upstairs so you can all die. Come on. Yeah, this is a crazy thing where I think the Curio really shined. I didn't notice that these were, happened one after the, other until my third watch. Because I think that you just kind of, same thing where just you watch a movie normally, this time, timeline just makes sense. You're just like collapsing.

You're just like watching the movie. But when I'm watching it for the third time, I'm like, wait, yeah, they're not cutting. Like this is just happening. Yeah. Yeah. This is just instantly happening. It's built in montage. So when it, when it's not montage, but they change locations or like move something,

you just assume that it's still in that. It's years later or something. But no, instantly the bells start to ring because they've come upon a sinking transport ship that was split by a torpedo carrying 1,300 men. Every single person on the ship has instantly died because they turn off their engines and it's dead silent.

No sound at all. And they seem to destroy some of the bodies. They seem to cut up their bodies with the... I thought we were about to see a Jaws situation. I thought we were about to see some sharks. That would have been great. I genuinely thought that was about to happen because I was thinking about the USS Indianapolis style shit.

But not quite. But this also I think is my favorite visual visuals of the movie so far when they're filming from up under the water at all the bodies floating and the blood is clouding up but it's all black that looked pretty cool. I think Fincher you got you got me that time.

When I watched it, it's pretty cool I can't like. When I watched it on my phone my brightness was at halfway and I didn't realize and I was like, dude he needs to get his fucking eyes checked because you need a home theater bro. Yeah I know but I was like dude I can't fucking see shit. This

just some like David Fincher color grading bullshit and then I was like oh wait and I turned the brightness all the way up and I was like oh whoa this is sick so Fincher hear your flowers you deserve them oh yeah well done so yeah

Benjamin remarks on how silent it is which is funny because the movie at this point suddenly gets insanely insanely loud and I've basically been coached for weeks at this point that this is going to always be a very quiet movie where I can't understand what anyone is saying, so I always have the volume of my

TV at about three times the normal volume. And then so this scene started to happen, and I got very scared and had to scramble for my remote. So I'm taking the flowers back, Fincher. You got the images right, but work on the sound next. A U-boat, I believe,

a German U-boat submarine surfaces, and the men run to their battle stations. Benjamin picks up the last life jacket, but I think it's one of the Brody brothers goes, is that the last one and then Benjamin just gives it to him. Yeah, which is like, I mean, because in that situation, it would take

so long for him to explain that he actually has more life to live than this guy. He's like, ah, fuck it. Yeah, of course I'm old. He's also the chef, which is like why like, yeah. Cook goes down with a ship. True. Cookie goes down.

Well, he shouldn't have, they should have just let him sit in the bottom of the boat. They shouldn't have had him like coming up the holes in the boat with his body. Yeah. Or at least a carrot. They should have just killed him right here right now. Yeah. They should have offered him a sacrifice to the Germans.

Just in case we need food two weeks from now, if we're still floating here, we're going to kill you and chop you up. All right. Listen to up, you German bastards. You're going to try Cajun cooking for you to eat. They should have killed Benjamin Button and like waved his leg at them and been like, no, it's okay. We already killed the one guy that was on here. German. Waved his leg. Legless. Leglessness.

The sub begins to open fire, shooting the fuck out of everybody on the Chelsea. Dennis returns fire, and this is Star Wars-style bullets. These are... Oh, yeah, looks awesome. This is fucking cool. Dennis returns fire, but he's hit. Mike Clark is also shot. He falls down from the ship's helm or controls or wheel or whatever you're supposed to call it in this type of boat.

And the boat accelerates forward and rams into the submarine. and the submarine explodes in a crazy double-style explosion. It's like, why don't even shoot at him, just do that from the fucking. I know, it worked. Drive over it. Both vessels begin to sink. Benjamin runs to Mike Clark, who's bleeding out. He laments, they shot the hell out of my painting, which referring to his body.

Because of his tattoos. Benjamin tells me he has a nice spot in heaven waiting for him. A nice spot. And Mike Clark gives a poignant, shockingly. lucid and relevant speech about how at the end of your life you need to let go and then he instantly dies. We begin to zoom out of the sinking Chelsea and curio and end the first half of Benjamin button. This is the exact midpoint right here. It's pretty crazy. This was like as we were coming up on this scene or as this scene was happening and like this fight was was starting. The bullets are

flying. I was really like, God, there's like fucking one minute left in this. Please don't end with, just in the middle of an explosion or some shit. Yeah. And then it, I mean, really, you could, this is yet another just perfect ending. Unbelievable. Oh my God. Oh my God.

I think this one, we're not doing the ratings yet. God, I'm just, I keep trying to jump the gun. It's just, I really, this is my favorite curio so far. I'm going to say, whoa, that's crazy. I don't know. I like, I liked it a lot for. I, I liked it a lot for a different reason than I've liked the previous ones.

It's more action. I mean, three, obviously, that's the best one. But this one, it's like, you know, I like Return of the Jedi. I like Return of the Jedi, but Empire Strikes Back is the best one. You know, that's an interesting way to put it, because I'm the one of those guys where my favorite one

is Revenge of the Sith. And so maybe we're seeing kind of a split here where just are the types of things, The types of movies and series that we like, or curios in series that we like, are just different styles. Yes. Maybe when there's a funny puppet.

Like when there's a funny puppet around. Wait, and I actually do like the CGI better. I said that earlier. Yeah. So that completely tracks for Liking Revenge of the Sith one. This also, I mean, the character My Clock ending, dying right at the end of the halfway point,

are we going to see My Clock run backwards after this point? The symmetry. The symmetry. I'm also wondering, my feeling was like, okay, you start with the,

with the ghetto's clock, and then you have my clock. And then who, who is filling up the clock, who or what fills the clock void in this movie after my clock? Jordan's stop watch. We don't know.

It could, it could be a stop. I mean named stopwatch. Jordan stopwatch. I wouldn't put it past this movie to have a character named stopwatch. That's the name of, that's the name of the name of the,

private, the private that the military, like there's going to be a military boat that comes by and it saves Benjamin from the water. And he's like, hey, stopwatch. What are you doing? I'm trying to get this man on board, sir. And he's like, stop watch. That's cool. And that was the day I met Mr. Sunnydile. And then they were like, I mean, possibilities are endless. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I want to throw something out there too, which is I do think. think, you know, I, this is not, this, I liked this curio a lot. It wasn't my favorite curio, but, um, I did kind of have the realization as this kind of submarine boat gunfight and then ramming an explosion, like true action. This is, I think, empirically, this is the first interesting thing that has happened in this movie. And I think it is the first, moreover, I think even more than that, this is the first interesting thing that has happened. happened in Benjamin's life. Yeah.

I think it's the first and last. I don't think there's going to be any more things like this. For a movie that is so gumpian in so many ways, Benjamin really has been nowhere, has seen nothing, has no life experiences, has been almost nobody, hasn't done anything. My kind of metric for this, I was thinking about this, if an old guy, if a guy who looked like old Brad Pitt was, if he was in a bar and he saw. started talking to me and he was like, let me tell you my life story. This is the only thing that I wouldn't just be like, okay, man, hey, I got to go.

If he's like, and then I had sex with a prostitute. Now I was only 14 years old. I'd be like, yeah, man, that's funny, but I got a head out. But if he was like, and then we rammed a German U-boat, I'd be like, holy fucking shit. Yeah. Wait, tell me more about that. No, I got to tell you more about this plain as paper woman I was in love.

I used to be, I used to stay in a hotel. Yeah, no, no, no, tell me more about the U-boat. Tell me more about the U-boat. No, no, no, no, you want to learn about this woman. Yeah, you want to, then two-tenths of my entire life story on this woman sitting in this hotel. It really is like, I think that, I think that kind of on the previous curio, I think the scales fell from my eyes a little bit.

And I was kind of just how boring that one was. I really saw like, for something, for a movie that takes place, over such an eventful time in history, really nothing is happening. And most scenes begin and end with people standing in a room and talking. And most of the things that people do are talking. Yeah. And not usually...

It's a tough heavy movie. And even when they start to talk about something interesting, they stop talking. And then the narrator says, and then we talked for the rest of the night. Yes. Like, it's kind of like they're trying to make a movie where it is just, this is like the, this is the napkin pitch of this movie. I think the movie is.

You know, it's also an interesting way to write a movie. And you get this, you're afforded this luxury when you do this kind of like montage voiceover thing, is that you can write a bunch of scenes where the narrator tells you how good or how bad something was without. actually having to write that dialogue and then bookend all of those montage moments with just one person giving a monologue or a speech like Queenie has done or like obviously Mike Clark has done and it's kind of cheating in a way. It is fully cheating and it's crazy to do in a movie that is two hours and 46 minutes long because that's the thing that you do when you're like, oh, I have my 80 minute movie

and I want emotional stakes. I mean, yeah. And just Benjamin just really is kind of just getting, this one, I really, my opinion really did flip on him. I mean, just that caviar and vodka scene was just an unimaginable aura loss to me. Him just pretending to be old, sitting in his fucking ratty-ass pajamas while she's in this like fur coat and like... Put on a sexy sailor's outfit.

I mean, he's just, he's on a nice. He's on a bad path. And I strongly hope that this kind of near-death experience and presumably I was trying to watch this and see if I could tell who dies outside of Dennis and Mike Clark and more people definitely die, but I can't. Everybody dies. I mean like every single person to die except for him. There's one other guy alive, but I couldn't see who it was. He is a bad omen for the people in his life. I think the guy, if I'm not mistaken, I think the guy that, now this is interesting actually, I think the guy that Benjamin gives the lifesaver,

too is the only other guy who survives or at least the only other guy we see alive after that because it kind of zooms out and there's a guy wearing a lifesaver like shaking somebody else on the deck who looks dead I think it's one of the Brody twins and he's shaking his brother he's going in for one last fight

yeah well they're not on land so yeah true I had I just had an idea I was just thinking about this because we brought up Star Wars earlier right yeah do you remember the prequel edit that Tofer Grace made No.

Oh, well, Tofer Grace made an edit of the prequel movies where it condenses into like one 90-minute movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe. We do an edit of Benjamin Button. We do an edit of Benjamin Button. And we make it a raucous sex comedy like American Pie. That's a good idea. That is a good idea.

I would do that. I think what's beautiful about this movie is you could do that three times and do a different genre for everyone. Yeah. Yeah, we could cut it. I mean, if you just did, if you made it an hour and 10 minutes long, like, just like a shitty, like short studio. Right when he goes to the, right when he goes to the brothel, he's like, here, I got to show you, like, whatever, I forget how that scene plays out. But then the needle drop right there, all American rejects my dirty little secret. He walks in the brothel.

And then here, let me, let me, let me, and then Caroline closes the book. You want me to skip this part, Mom? And Daisy says, time just seeped out of me. me. I would cut it, actually, I would cut it like cheaper by the dozen where it's a big family and every Benjamin, every age of Benjamin is a different kid in the family. So it's like, it's like the baby Benjamin is born and you get the reactions of all the other Benjamins.

Yeah. The old, the seven-year-old Benjamin is like really old. It's like really annoying to the 60-year-old Benjamin. A good schizophrenic guy YouTube upload. Oh, yeah. Benjamin Button Redux. I want to see that so, I want to see this movie re-edited so bad. Just any re-edit by a lot of movies.

Yeah. Any kind of, like it, a family-fying a horror movie. I think family-fying Benjamin Button. Yeah, the horror elements are continued. As I said, I feel like I talked about this, maybe even in the first Curio. This is centrally, this is a movie about telling a story during a scary storm. And stories like that are typically scary. and I think we have been seeing these horror elements throughout,

and especially in this curio with the witching hour being mentioned, the vampiric rules that Tilda Swinton has, and check this out, the Murmansk, it sounds like Murman, which is kind of a monster. True. Or, ooh, the Katrina edit, where they barely talk about Benjamin at all, none of the Benjamin stuff happens.

The hospital edit. The hospital edit where it just comes to, it's just, yeah, we should just put all the hospital scenes to get. We should definitely do that. Yeah. Only the hospital at its scenes together. You make 30 or 40 different movies out of this movie. You really could.

I mean, it's a rich vein. It's a rich. It's a palette. This is an entire palette of colors. And we do with it. So I feel like I unlocked something. Oh. And I was thinking about, and I'm going to need soundboard services for this.

I was thinking about some of our different themes we've been keeping track of. I was thinking. about Ote's joke. Sound board. I love flight these birds. They taste so delicious. Yeah. And I was thinking about I was thinking about clocks.

I hope you're doing my clock. Yeah. And I was thinking about I was like, how are these connected? How can these be connected? And then it hit me. And what honestly made it hit me is thinking to myself during this one, Benjamin is an idiot because he continually is

in misinterpreting idioms, doing dumb things, saying things that don't make sense, he's uneducated, he's an idiot. Why did the idiot throw the clock out the window? He wanted to see time fly.

Whoa. Wow, dude. And I think I even said that joke like a couple curios ago maybe, but it just hit me that that is that is the union of clocks and flightless flightlessness.

So you're proposing sort of a Bojack Horseman why the long face kind of seeded a joke that is the seed of the entire

concept of I wouldn't be surprised if that's where David Fincher started writing the script from if he said I want to write a movie about this joke.

Yeah. Oh wait. It seems as if there's a perfect short story that I like you now from X-19-0 Cheryl.

But that really That really hit me I thought I'm going to be keeping an eye on that more I think throughout the second half The next five curios I think we're going to see more surface about this Halfway it is Time is fucking flying I can't I mean and it's a montage movie

Which montage means time flying Yeah And this This movie can be boring Yes And at some at which point time is not flying And yet it's still so delicious. It's so delicious.

And when we're done with this, genuinely, this will be one of the most special movies to me. And that's horrible to admit. This is going to be one of those special memories of this case of Benjamin Button for the rest of my life. It's horrible. This is going to be one of those classic scenarios where I have to explain something that I don't feel like explaining to somebody that I don't know at a party. Like when we were doing a shrimp off and. Oh, yeah. I kind of had got myself into this situation of having to explain what the shrimp buff is.

This is going to be a similar thing where someone's going to say, oh, have you ever seen Benjamin Button? And I'm going to have to say, well, yeah, but I watched it in 16-minute segments. And I watched these segment three to four times. And I did it over the course of an entire month. Yeah, that's horrible. Can I show my painting? Yes, please do.

Is it about that time? Okay. So obviously, guys, you know that this, by now that this is. Oh, did you guys like my last painting? Yeah, your last one, I think it was your best one. one. Really? You think so?

It looked really good. Yeah. Thanks. I mean, it was traced, so we kind of were. Most tunifying. So I figured tunification, you have to start with something that you're tunifying. Yeah. I know, I don't think it made it bad, but we definitely erased my eyebrow at that.

I'll just say that. Okay, that's fair. I didn't make a slide show for this one, but today is surrealism. Okay, so the works of some of the great early 20th century artists. Dalai. Dali. I'm going to show this. I'm going to be honest, guys.

This one I think is, I think I popped off with this one in a major. I think this is my greatest, my greatest painting I've ever done. I'm excited to see it. Wow. Whoa. Look at this. Shadow. Never played around with Shadow before.

I can see the shadows. Did Shadow a cake? a clock that instead of having the normal numbers has the ages I believe we've seen him at cool on it a button as the sun and then every time I looked up a picture of a Salvador Dali painting or not Salvador Dali I would just search surrealist art

because I don't really know that much about art there was always some fucking apple so I thought the apple is maybe part of what makes something surrealist it's like there's the apple is it's so weird to see an apple or something Well, it's the first fruit of the alphabet, so it's a good place to start. Yeah. Can I say, Caleb?

Yeah. This is great. And this looks like five times as 3D as your 3D sculpture. I know. I know it. I know it feels like there's a lot of depth. This might as well be your digital sculpture. You know, that somebody offered, I don't remember where I, because, you know, I get DMs now about Benjamin Button on every platform.

get the emails, I'll get random text messages. I don't know where somebody said this, but if you're listening to this and you offered at some point in the last couple weeks to 3D print my digital sculpture, which somebody did offer, please reach back out so that I can send you the file, because I would love to see, I would love to see these guys eat their words for dissing my... I liked your sculpture.

I was a nice sculpture. It's a 3-D, I understand it's not fucking 3D, because of the picture that I didn't wear it, to put the sun. What was the sculpture? If you played the episode back, you'll see that I said that I could see that it was 3D.

Okay. If you go back to that Curio, I remember saying, I know that's really believed. I truly believed it. But that said, this one is way more, this one is way more 3D, though. I think that I'm, guys,

I'm seriously, I think I'm getting somewhere in terms of, I think I'm getting better at art. And I think you can see that here, that I've never been somebody who's good at drawing. And so I gave up on drawing, I picked up painting, I think I'm much better at it. Yeah.

So, guys, that's five. Thank you. Thank you for that one. You're welcome. Are we going to set up a red bubble store for you? I think what I'm going to do is make like a faces of Vader T-shirt that has, like that not obviously the same, not that joke, that hilarious joke of he has the same face, but that format of all of them.

A trip ditch, but with 10. Yes, a deck tick, deck tick. The first ever Benjamin Button deck tick t-shirt. Yeah, I think that'd be pretty neat. I'm going to read a few emails. We got some good emails for this one. This one is from Jackson. It says,

Hi, pal, I was inspired to look through the letterbox reviews for TCC OBB and notice the curious amount of them mentioned watching the movie over more than one viewing. It seems the curios system naturally manifests itself in the viewing experience of this film. Whether the viewer is willing or not, I attached a few examples, no spoilers. So here are a few letterboxed reviews pulled by this person. Three stars. Took me three fucking months to finish, but wow. Three stars. I recommend everyone start a movie and wait three years before watching the last 30 minutes. Great experience. And two and a half stars. This movie aged me six years, literally. I started it when I was 14 and just finished it today.

Oh my god. People are dividing this into parts that we can't even imagine. Yeah, I wonder. I wonder why. And my theory is plane. Plain? That's a good theory. They were on the plane and they were watching this movie.

And they were like, oh, I'm not going to bother to finish it because it's Benjamin Button. I kind of get what's going to happen. You don't think the guy who watched it in six years took. I think that he saw it on a plane and then. then didn't finish it for another six years. You don't think that he cut the movie into, into,

uh, 30012 separate parts. No, but that could be, I mean, maybe we could do that for the rest of the, the rest of the podcast for the rest of our life. Yeah.

Not a bad idea. Cool. I think that if you watched it, I think that this movie might actually only get better than more you divide it into, into more. I think I might agree. Yeah. Uh,

Here's another email. This is from Hannah. She sent us some trivia from Amazon Prime. And one thing stuck out to me here. It says, references seven. Benjamin Button, Brad Pitt, falls asleep on a couch in a hotel during his tugboat travels, very similar to Mills and Somerset waiting for the fingerprint results. So that's one of the trivia items is that Brad Pitt sleeps on a couch in both movies.

It's self-referential. That's cool. Um, here's another from Peter. Uh, I'm probably not the first person to make this connection, but the actress who plays teenage Daisy is Madison Beatty. She also plays one of the Manson Girls and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood who Brad Pitt violently kills in self-defense at the end of the movie. Whoa. David Fincher is also directing the once upon a time spin-off series about Brad Pitt's character. Whoa.

This is really all kind of becoming linked together in a really crazy way. Yeah. The world is fastened to this button. That's the girl who played the Daisy that isn't L. Fanning? Yeah. I think so. Oh, okay. I didn't double check this.

Middle Daisy is what we'll call her. There's Little Middle and Kate. Yeah, Kate Daisy. Little Middle Daisy. Now, this was the one that I was most excited about. I can't wait to share this with you guys. This is an example of someone putting in the work in a serious way. list about podcast hello

you're probably thinking what but let me keep reading I'll admit I was initially skeptical about your latest five weeks project but since Curio 1 I've been captivated by your deep analysis thank you I've never seen the film but it left me wondering if Fincher had woven in any further oddities in a more obtuse fashion namely what if like the heavy metal bands of the 80s satanic panic he had left a layer of clues

recorded backwards so I'd I decided to take each of the four current curios and reverse the video and audio. I would then do a viewing with both audio and video to see if any grand visual statements were unlocked, following by an audio-only experience to really focus in on the riddle spoken in reverse. This is amazing. This was more work than I expected. As it turns out, FFMPEG's video reverse function takes an extraordinary amount of RAM even on 16-minute chunks. And then it's a screenshot of their task manager showing all 128 gigabytes of RAM being used.

I persisted and have now completed the initial curio inversion protocol analysis to the best of my abilities. Pal, I wish I had better news. I found next to nothing. Perhaps Fincher knew I was coming. My summary would be that it feels a bit like watching Tenet in Dutch. At best, there are scattered fragments of quasi-reverse speech, such as at one point, Benjamin sounds like he says, biscuits, which might be a clue if he was doing anything biscuit-related at the time or if biscuits were a larger part of the narrative. but they are. He becomes a chef. He becomes the chef.

Cookie. Oh my God. During the faith, now this part though, during the faith healing scene, the preacher in reverse sort of says, oh, we there, he went, he's standing up. I've included that snippet and with this email, just so you don't think I'm pretending to have sat through an hour of this film backwards twice.

Given we, the reverse, have just seen Benjamin standing, then moonwalk backwards into his wheelchair. this proclamation is accurate. The wider implications of the secret backward storytelling is still unknown to me though. And this is from area. Yeah, I have the video clip that they have attached here. All right.

Let's check it out. What did they claim? And here's what I'll read out again what they're, what do you supposed to say? Before I clicked this, I was like, oh, it's probably like, you know, you know what you're expecting here. Yeah.

You're going to hear it, man. I'm just going to say that. This is the preacher saying, oh, we there. He went. he's standing up. This is right after Benjamin has walked.

Okay. Wow. There he went. He standing up, he walking? Holy fuck. Play that again. That's crazy. Oh, we had a horn.

He went. Wow. Wow. That's a pretty good match. Thank you for setting through hours of that and using up an insane amount of your computer's memory. I know. But get that clip because that was incredible.

We've got five more curios left. So back to work. You might want to go. You might want to hop on New Egg in order another 128. Mm-hmm. But that really, that really blew my mind. That's a great email.

Yeah. Thank you for that email. And keep them coming. Thank you very much. We're appreciating them all, even the ones that we are not. We don't read them on the show. We're all, we're all reading all of them. I get to,

I get to read all of them. and I appreciate all of them. So keep them. There's enough coming in that I don't think we can read them all. Yeah, definitely not. Keep them coming. And yeah, it's podcast about list

at gmail.com if you wish to reach out. And again, if you are making any kind of re-edits of the film, if you want to psychoanalyze Benjamin, please email us at that email. Any expertise that you could lend? Chemistry. Leverage on to Benjamin Button.

Music theory? Just figure out a way to do it. Fucking numerology. That's the one, that's who I want to talk to about the seven theory. Yeah, I think I have a book on numerology. Or maybe I don't anymore. But I'm going to, I'll look into some, I'm no expert, but I'll do some looking as well. I'm looking for hidden equations in the movie that we aren't even realizing.

I'm talking, I'm talking like schizophrenic level. Like, in this scene, Benjamin says a sentence that has 30. 35 words or something. 35 divided by 35 divided by 5 is 7. I don't want to receive that email. That's actually the type of email I don't want to receive because you can make any number maybe 7.

Let's make it just not that specific example. No, no, you know what I mean though. All right, no around the number wheel. We have to, wait, we have to name and rate. We forgot to name I just realized. Oh, yeah. Wait, don't we, do we do the name and rate? Yeah, we do the name and rating.

Also, by the way, I just was looking back at my notes and I wrote down caviar, eating caviar, it's eggs, kind of a reference back to sperms. And a reference to legs as well. Leglessness equals eggness and birds. Water fish, but flightless birds.

There, okay, so for name, I mean, obviously, I feel like the name has to come from the most interesting part of this curio, which is the fight at the end. Yeah, I think I agree with you there. I mean, very straightforward down the middle would be battle stations. Battle stations is good.

That's kind of what you would name this if this was a movie, I feel like. I had one earlier and I forgot to write it down. And I really wish I did because it was really good. What, do you remember what kind of vibe it was? Something about Mike Clark. Mike. They shot up my painting. I also don't think I should have a big,

spoiler. I enjoyed Mike Clark. Mike, D'Lark. I enjoyed Mike Clark. I enjoyed Mike Clark is pretty good. I enjoyed Mike Clark because I did. I like that.

That's a good name. He was the best part of the movie. He was the best character. So far he's the best part. He was for sure. Mike Clark. What about what about vodka and caviar? That's tempting. That would be a good album, ma'am.

Caviar and vodka. Cavier and vodka. It's tough. I like both of those. I can't. I think you guys both did a great job coming up with a name. And I'd like to almost, and to honor that, can we please call this? I enjoyed Mike Clark and vodka and caviar.

Yes. Yeah, I'm done with that. Like as if you enjoyed all three? Yeah. Because I think we did. Well, I didn't really enjoy the caviar. I enjoyed vodka, caviar, and Mike Clark. Okay.

Yeah. Write that down. Now, how are we feeling about ratings? I'm giving this one an eight. Really? Yes. Because there was something incredibly interesting for the first time. I'm going to give this, I'm going to give this an 8.7.

Whoa. That's higher than me. Yeah, because I enjoyed this. I enjoyed that. last part of it so much. Yeah. This is crazy because I think for the first time I'm going to be giving the lowest rating. Really?

Yeah, I think I'm going to go for, I'm going to go with the seven today. And I'll tell you why. I think, I do think that that was the most, it was the most interesting part of the movie thus far. But as a curio, it was one 16th of the curio. And I

really did not like how Benjamin was behaving. I didn't like how he was kind of, it felt like he was manipulating Tilda Swinton and to sex in kind of a way that I thought was true. That's fair, but he's not a perfect character. He's a bat. I still like to the movie. Can I say, I'll say right now, my rating is to re-edit where he's the villain.

He is the villain. Are you kidding me? He comes up on screen. A seven is still very good. Yeah. And I did enjoy this, but I'm docking it a little because I also think another gripe I had was the cliffhanger on the last curie. was hotels and magical place at night

and that was probably the most excited I've been about a cliffhanger so far and the payoff, yeah, I can truly say that. The payoff being a mouse running around, I think really let me down. I think this had the best this is the only, this is the time,

this Curio had a factor of I want to skip to the next one. Like I want to watch ahead that I had to fight a little bit, which is, you know what, now that I'm thinking about it too, I think this one also had a, it had probably the least annoying hospital parts. Yeah.

So far in total, I would say. The hospital parts were very short. And you know what, I'm going to go up. I'm going to go, let's do a seven, I'm going to do a seven point three. Okay. I'm going to hit a seven point three on this one. So that. What are we looking at here?

Whoa. Guys, I promise I didn't do this on purpose. But it comes out to eight even. Oh, are they going to say seven. Yeah, that would have been cool. but if I had the soundboard I would do seven again which is but this is an even eight

okay that's pretty good I'm happy with that which I think if I remember correctly is just behind Curio 3 which is sitting at 8.03 okay but I mean yeah this one definitely I'm excited for the next one

yeah want to see what happens because I also have to imagine and have to hope for the next one is that we see Benjamin enter a new phase in his life. Yes. Me too. It's really setting that up. And I really excited for the second half. The reveal the reveal where that he like comes

he's going to like step off of a boat or something and we're going to be far away and he's going to take his hat off and he no longer has white hair. Oh my God. That's going to be that would be so cool. All right. Ben, we'll play us out. Yes. To close us out, we have a song today

from one, Mike Lunch. Mike Lunch Mike Lunch I hope you enjoy Mike Lunch Cavier and Vodka Wow That was really good

I didn't stay up off he's in teas Great Right Right She said I'm sorry That be just That was really good That was great

So yeah Shout out to Mike I didn't Had no hand in that Mm-hmm I think Mike is still on tour. I'm not sure. Plug the dates, dude.

Let me look that up. There's also, there's, oh, I completely forgot to say this. Okay, so Mike made this song, right? And a couple weeks ago, I was talking about that synthesizer I found on the street, right? You all remember this, the microcord, right? So Mike has a synth repair shop in L.A. called Buddies. buddy's synth repair, right? And Mike said, oh yeah, dude, like, send it out.

I pick it up, I go to look at it, right? What do I see on the back of this synthesizer that I found on the fucking street? Oh, yeah. Look at this. If I can find the fucking photo, hold up, hold up. Yeah, it is pretty crazy. Yeah.

I wish I had remembered this before because then I could have it queued up. That would have made this a lot easier. It's okay. Hold on. Dude, it's about waiting. That's what I want. In the meantime, can I tell you something real quick?

I just tried to look up Mike Lunch to get the tour dates, and it auto-corrected to Mike Lynch. And the first thing that comes up is from Financial Times, the curious case of Mike Lynch. Whoa. The rise and fall of the cleverest man in the room. That is not his band name. These are happening. His band name is Choir Boy. and they are no

I don't think they're they were opening for AFI hold up okay so now Instagram is not fucking loading you can just say what's on the back of the

yeah I mean the back of the keyboard had the initials B B yeah it had the initial oh here it is look at that

that's pretty easy BB right there stuff I really understand how people get people schizophrenia that I, and sometimes when I look at the emails that are coming in, I'm like, this might be doing serious, permanent. Guys, I mean, it really did blow my fucking mind to see, to hear this, the Benjamin Button song in a random movie I watched it.

I was like, oh, I'm sick, I'm lying around, I'll just throw a movie on, and my ears perked up. And it just, there are, there are synchronicities that, and symmetries that we just have begun to uncover. Guys take care of yourselves. but don't go crazy but go do it go crazy go crazy and make it our problem until the email is sent

and then you can relax a little bit yeah crazy on the emails we'll see you back on the Patreon for the beginning or should I say at the end of the first half of

we'll see you for week three day one we'll hear you for the five Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

See you. See and hear you then. Bye. Bye. Stay curious. And stay in case. That's good. That's good.

Stay curious. We gotta end every episode. So they're in a bar altogether, the crew. Captain Mike Clark is using a translator for some reason in a Russian bar to explain to a crowd if it seems like military people to explain about how hummingbirds are actually near a call. And he lists off a bunch of hummingbird facts for them. I didn't write down the fact, but it's like, yeah, their hearts beat, their wings beat

like this fast. Their hearts beat this fast. So they stop flapping, they die. Flightless birds, they stop flapping, they die. So delicious. Then he says, if you slow down footage of their, he says, he doesn't say footage, he says moving pictures. Because you, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fenture smartly went, ah, wait. What did they call them back then? They did not know that this was.

If you slow down the moving picture of their wing beats, Their wingtips go like this. Now what shape is that? There's a figure eight mean. And Benjamin goes, whispers to himself. And then Captain Mike Clark goes, Infinity!

And then everyone in the bar starts laughing as if that's a punchline to a joke. And then the Brody twins start beating each other up. It's the stupidest scene in the world. The worst scene in the movie so far. It makes no fucking sense. It's always actual nonsense.