Eric Roth has a lot to be thankful about. The award-winning writer of Forrest Gump and Munich, this morning Roth was nominated for an Oscar for his adaptation of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The bad news? Whatever money he made from Benjamin Button—or any of his other movies—is long gone. In late December, Roth revealed that he'd lost "all his retirement money" to Bernie Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Now Roth has filed suit against Stanley Chais, the LA-based money manager who helped collect an estimated $250 million for Madoff. So if Roth ends up winning on Oscar night and his acceptance speech strikes you as a little overly emotional (or you're just outraged that Button won), you should probably cut him a little slack.

Eric Roth, the writer behind current Brad Pitt vehicle The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as well as Forrest Gump, is suing the investment manager who put his money into Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. He joins a long list of people who say they lost millions in the alleged fraud.

Sad news: on a day that has already seen the ignominious shitcanning of Hollywood's best "cyborg dinosaurs rescue kidnapped children" franchise, word has emerged that screenwriter Eric Roth has quietly buried his unnecessary script for Forrest Gump 2 out by the old oak tree. While promoting The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Roth told Slashfilm that the sequel just didn't seem the same after 9/11 happened (what, those scenes of a digital Tom Hanks outrunning smoke and debris in Manhattan felt too soon?). The news reminded us that several years ago, we attended a talk where Roth revealed the Gump sequel's surprise twist, which he told us not to tell. Guess it doesn't matter now! Here's your before-the-jump SPOILER ALERT...

The studio fatwa prohibiting early reviews of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has ended, it seems, with Variety leading the critical charge online late Sunday. Prepare to be shocked by the general consensus: It's good, and will surely be nominated for Oscars! Who could have seen this coming? Nevertheless, the film has its detractors, and we hear from them — along with those slobbering at its altar — after the jump. (Light spoilers ahead.)· "David Fincher and screenwriter Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) have delivered an historic achievement, a masterful piece of cinema, and a moving treatise on death, loss, loneliness and love. As the movie proceeds, and Brad Pitt as Button ages backwards, we know where he is headed: it's where we are all going. But he feels he has to go there by himself, without his loved ones. And nobody wants to die alone." — Anne Thompson, Variety · "Perhaps it’s my youthful cynicism, who knows, but I thought Fincher brought an arm’s length approach to the emotions in the film and I wanted Roth’s reaction to that. Of course, Roth doesn’t particularly agree with my take. Indeed, he was right in the middle of telling me how the bathroom was filled with sobbers after the screening when a beautiful young lady walked up to us and told him how much the movie had affected her. But he took my comment in stride. 'Fincher is the kind of director that brings you right up to the point of sentiment and then brings it back,' he said. 'There’s something to be said for that I think.' " — Kris Tapley, InContention