New Orleans Centerpiece of New Brad Pitt Film

I just saw Brad Pitt’s new film, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, at our historic Prytania theatre on Sunday night. I’ve paid more attention, mostly for appreciative reasons, to Brad Pitt’s career since he has decided to make New Orleans his home as well as the focus of his charitable ventures such as his Make It Right Foundation. With the film taking place and having been shot right here in New Orleans (some of the many movie production trucks crowding around historic NOLA sites that have been appearing commonly since Katrina belong to this production), Brad Pitt again helps out his adopted home. This time he helps by reminding the outside world of just how picturesque, magical, and downright unique and beautiful place the city of New Orleans remains to this day.

I agree with Roger Ebert’s assertion that “Button” was very reminiscent of screenwriter Eric Roth’s other work, “Forrest Gump”. But hey, it’s not like Forrest Gump was a box office bomb, so maybe they did this on purpose. And if you liked “Gump”, you are almost certain to like this film, as the heavy-handed sentimentality of the earlier film is omnipresent in this feature as well. Pitt does, as always, a steady and believable job in the eponymous lead role, as well as providing his standard eye candy for the ladies. The film loses its way a bit, in my opinion, about ¾ of the way through when Pitt’s character finally realizes his long anticipated romance with Cate Blanchett and ponders his future as husband as father and makes choices that I found hard to swallow (I’ll be intentionally vague to avoid any spoiler alerts).

What the film did best was feature the city of New Orleans, its architecture, flora and resplendent beauty as both background AND centerpiece for this story. The French and Garden Quarters are heavily featured, with much of St. Charles Avenue and the streetcar line there. There are locations on Prytania, Napoleon and Esplanade as well as plenty of the mighty Mississippi and Audobon Park. For a person familiar with the city, the film takes on a new level of enjoyment as you play your own version of “Where’s Waldo” with the houses and landmarks of the city.

Its been said that the film exists as an apology from the film’s producers to the city of New Orleans for the city’s shabby treatment at the hands of Katrina and botched government assistance. Whether this is true or not, it’s nice to see the film industry paint such a loving homage to our beautiful city and for such an outstanding template to urge future filmmakers to come here as well. -CB

Previews at the New Orleans Office of Film and Video: http://www.filmneworleans.org/site325.php

Brad Pitt Builds Green Houses

We’ve all heard about New Orleans’ many famous denizens. Archie Manning’s and Anne Rice’s homes are staples of any New Orleans Garden District tour worth its red beans and rice. But newer to the New Orleanian fold are the most famous Hollywood stars that operate under a single unifying moniker. I am, of course, referring to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. The two megastars purchased a high end property in the French Quarter to make their primary residence, and more important than the added tourist dollars that their collective star power will bring to our city (reports of Angelina sightings in French Quarter restaurants and playgrounds are a current mainstay of tabloids) is the pledge that the couple are making to rebuild the city.

Pitt, who is interested in architecture and has studied under Frank Gehry, has pledged 5 million of his own dollars to begin a homebuilding initiative, dubbed Make It Right (MIR), which will focus on building new homes for families who lost theirs in Hurricane Katrina. The homes will be built to LEED standards, which further demonstrates Pitt’s dedication to environmental causes. The homes built so far have an interesting visual style. While some designs allude to the New Orleans “shotgun” style of home design and have drawn praise for this, some others are more unusual and have drawn criticism for being similar in appearance to double-wide trailers. Ugh. I think, however, we should all remember that Brad has excellent aesthetic tastes (look at his wife) and that he should be lauded, rather than criticized for his humanitarian efforts.

I have included some photos of MIR’s housing designs at the top of this post. What do you think of them?