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I’m really looking forward to this movie coming out though I know next to nothing about it. It looks weird, Tim Burton directed it, and there looks (sounds) to be some good music as well. Does anybody know anything about it? Story development? Direction? Themes?
Has anybody seen it yet? JaBird maybe?

Hey Norb…

Saw it last night. It’s good. Very touching at the end. The story is about a 30 year old son trying to learn the truth about his father who loves to tell tall tales. It’s not as weird as it should be, though. Amanda said after the show, “Everything was symmetrical…right in the middle of the screen,” which isn’t very Tim Burtony. But the good by far outweighs the bad. But go see it…you’ll like it.

I hear you Jason, about the weirdness. It’s Tim Burton! I was hoping for wilder things. The element of spookiness was there but it lacked the kind of visual stunners that make my toes curl, that Burton movies have. The spiders in the forest could have been bigger, the line of shoes could have been far more ominous, the ventriloquist in the Chinese/North Korean camp creepier, the leaning house more weirdly out of perspective, the colors more vivid, and the circus! There is nothing more bizzarre and visually stirring than the circus, and yet even that lacked the punch I wanted.

Despite the slightly disappointing scenography, it was still a very sweet story and an inventive plot. Most of all, it sharpened my love for stories. My sister said afterwards that she wished it would keep going. And I did too.

Norbert, just go see it.
A bit of useless knowledge for you, however…Tim Burton has never been the same since his divorce following the Planet Of The Apes. His marriage was more than a union of man and wife, and even more than business partners. He and his wife were creative together in a very inventive way. My personal belief is that Burton is trying to find his own way of seeing things after so many years of seeing through the shared glasses of his marriage. I think that is why Sleepy Hollow tanked. Big Fish is all Mr. Burton and finally a film that warrants his name upon it. Personally, it is a masterpiece.

On another note, I was recently reading an article in a homeschooling magazine ( the LINK ) about the father’s roles in parenting. One of those encompassed the “Mythmaking Father” who enriches his children’s childhoods with the stories of the family and how they became who they are today (ancestral heritages). The author even encourages a bit of fish story telling to captivate the imagination of the child and instill in them a sense of pride over their ancestors. Whether or not this what Burton was getting at, he drives home an interesting and compelling concept of the fatherson relationship.

I liked Big Fish very much, right up to the silly tag-on ending that explained how one becomes immortal when one becomes a story told to the next generation.

I agree that the imagery wasn’t as far out as other Tim Burton stuff, but I wonder if Burton toned down the exaggerated imagery just a bit so that we believe it all really happened when we get to the end. I liked how everything was exaggerated and stretched just a bit, but still was believable enough to have happened. This movie is fun for the whole family.

i loved it too! did it remind anybody of the book “life of pi”? assuming someone has read/seen both…

Yeah, Life of Pi came to mind often while watching Big Fish. The endings couldn’t be more different though. It would be an intersting compare and contrast. Ten pages on my desk tomorrow morning!

i also enjoyed the stories and the visuals (and thought it could have been a little wierder).

the part that i did like about the ending was how a lot of the characters from the stories showed up, but were more realistic and humanized (e.g. carl was big, but not GINORMOUS; the twins were identical, but not joined at the hip…) which really brought out the idea of storytelling and exagerration to me.

I haven’t read Life of Pi yet.