Denver's favorite 2009 Netflix rental was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? Really?

"I'm more appealing than I look."

Wondering how your friends and neighbors spent their evenings last year -- the ones who close their blinds, anyway? Turns out many of them were watching a dreary, seemingly endless movie in which Brad Pitt spends a long, long time looking like an ancient, quasi-computerized Billy Barty.

As evidence, check out this New York Times web feature that allows residents of numerous major cities, including Denver, to check out the ten most rented Netflix movies of 2009 by zip code. Click on the Denver thumbnail, then move your cursor over the map, and you'll soon discover that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is atop the overwhelming majority of metro-area lists.

Among the exceptions? 80230, which preferred Slumdog Millionaire; 80203, Westword's zip, which went for Milk; and 80239, which loved, um, Twilight. Two out of three ain't bad.