Nearly a month ago, the trailer for the next highly anticipated film David Fincher film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button debuted before the fourth Indiana Jones movie on May 23rd. The Spanish version of the trailer was briefly available online that day. Now Fincher and Paramount Pictures have officially launched the trailer today in High Definition over at Apple.

This is as good as it gets.

My first viewing of the trailer on the big screen was a transcendent experience. Maybe greater than the one for The Dark Knight coming July 18th. Hell, it’s on par with There Will Be Blood.

The angelic and somber score comes from Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals - Aquarium sans the choir that has been used in Terrance Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978) and a few Ren and Stimpy cartoons. Except for the odd line of dialogue that bookends the trailer, the music is dominant like a silent picture. It reminds me of the eerie, dialogue-free Dark City Trailer.

Best of all, it doesn’t overstay its welcome clocking in at one minute and forty-six seconds. Too many trailers go to the trouble of cramming in every cool visual along with the final confrontation into two minutes and forty seconds. Over-eagerness does not suit a seducer.

The F. Scott Fitzgerald short story makes for a compelling hour’s read. It draws parallels to Daniel Keyes’ Flowers For Algernon. A baby is born wrinkled, decrepit and frighteningly able to talk candidly about the indignity of being given a milk bottle. As the time passes, Benjamin Button (nearly named Methuselah, referring to the son of Noah who reached the age of 969 years old) must contend with living a unique life of regressing to youth both psychically and mentally. He is always withheld from the conventional human experience, but strives for it anyways.

Within Fincher’s command after Zodiac (2007), his most successful feature, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button could become an instant classic. I hope.

The film stars Brad Pitt (12 Monkeys, 1995), Cate Blanchett (The Talented Mr. Ripley, 1999), Tilda Swinton (Young Adam, 2003), Julia Ormond (The Baby of Macon, 1993), Elias Koteas (The Thin Red Line, 1998), Jason Flemyng (From Hell, 2001), and Taraji P. Henson (Hustle and Flow, 2005)

Christmas looks promising this year.

I was just mulling over the Ron Clements and John Musker film The Little Mermaid (1989) and this popped in my head: Since Ursula (voiced by Pat Caroll - Songcatcher, 2000) has duped so many mermaids and mermen, poor unfortunate souls, into breaking their contract in exchange for physical beauty or whatever and then having transformed them into hideous seaweeds held prisoner in her garden, wouldn’t anyone in the Kingdom realize a sudden depletion in mermaid population? Where are missing mermaid notices and search parties?

Some ruler King Tritan turned out to be; he’s doesn’t even give a damn about his subjects’ whereabouts! Must be too busy arranging for the few mermaids left to attend another musical starring his daughters and obsessing over Ariel, the youngest one. What a tool!