I decided at the last minute to join some friends and check out the midnight screening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last night.

There were a handful of people who came sporting Indy fedoras and you could feel a real sense of excitement in the air. Yet when the movie ended at around 2:15 AM that feeling changed into something much more somber, and it wasn't entirely because it was so late at night. The excitement was sucked away and it was replaced by a bunch of tired people leaving the theatre in disappointment.

I don't intend to launch into a criticism of the film here. Instead, I'd like to share what my favorite part of seeing Indy at midnight was: a trailer for David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

All of the other trailers that played before the film were met with resistance since those in attendance just wanted to get on with the show. The Benjamin Button trailer, however, was met with a weird silence. The audience wasn't exactly doing cartwheels over it, but I got the impression that everyone was saying to themselves, "Woah, what is this?" and in a mostly good way.

I'm very excited for Benjamin Button, which is due in theatres December 19th. It looks as though it has the potential to not only be Fincher's most visually stunning work (right now that title belongs to Fight Club) but also his most emotionally resonant one. I don't want to throw out the 'O' word just yet, but it certainly feels like a contender to me.

The film is based on a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald and it follows a man (played in the film by Brad Pitt) who starts to age backwards. From what I saw, the effects they've used to make Pitt appear older and more feeble look amazing.

I want to go see Jones again just to catch this trailer on the big screen, it moved me that much.