Customer Reviews

Big Fish (Special Edition, with Collectible Book)

5 star:		(269)
4 star:		(117)
3 star:		(50)
2 star:		(28)
1 star:		(30)

 

 

Big Fish is the best movie I have ever seen and I have sent many, many people to see it and none have been disappointed. The easiest way to describe the movie would be "Terms of Endearment" for Sons and Fathers. The son knows that his father is dying, but is unable to let go without at least trying to distinguish between his Father's "Fish" stories and his father's real life. The viewer never knows until the very end of the movie where the truth lies in this senerio. I assume many viewers will find themselves in this "non-chick" flick and so you may need some tissue, I did. Also this is a Tim Burton masterpiece in production, visual effects, plot, music, and character interplay.
The sexiest scene I have ever viewed in a film takes place in Big Fish and yet there is no nudity in the scene. Jessica Lang provides the viewer with her usual superb performance and the young version of her character looks so much like her the viewer forgets they are two different actors and both their performances are outstanding. McGregor, although has lots of scenes in the movie, plays his part of the confused and somewhat angry son flawlessly. The father and his younger version keep the viewer so entertained that you never want this film to end. I would recommend this film to everyone over the age of 12. It is not a good choice for real young children because Tim Burton has done such an outstanding job of producing this film and most of the scenes are bigger than life and would easily scare younger audiances, although this is not a scary movie. It is brilliant and I do not understand why Hollywood has not given this picture more oscar attention and it is rare that I ever want to view a film more than once I intend to buy this DVD and watch it 100 more times.

I went into Big Fish with high hopes. I love Tim Burton movies. He has an amazing imagination, which is lacking in many directors today. Directors like Roland Emmerich, Renny Harlin, and of course the big one, Michael Bay. These directors only use special effects and big explosions, while the story gets lost. Meanwhile Burton's genius is that his beautiful visuals compliment his stories. So as the curtains rose, and the theater went dark I was overcome by a childish glee. Then to my disdain, the lights came back on, then went on, and off about 15 more times before the movie finally started. But what a movie it ended up being.

Big Fish tells the story of a young man trying to sort out the facts and lies that his father has been telling him for his whole life. As the story opens Will Bloom (Crudup) hasn't spoken to his father in almost three years. He got tired of listening to his tall tales, but when he gets a call from his mother (Lange) telling him that his father doesn't have much time he rushes down as a latch ditch effort to learn the facts about his father. Albert Finney plays Edward Bloom, a man nearly confined to his bed, trying to get his son to accept who he is. The majority of the film is told through flashbacks, showing the amazing life that young Edward Bloom (Mcgregor) has lived. From giants to circus, from war to salesman, the film gives you the glimpse of a life as Bloom sees it. Is it true? Is he lying? Or is he embellishing the facts? Who knows and who cares.

The actors in this movie shine. Ewan McGregor and Albert Finney are absolutely charming in this movie. You want to believe his stories, and you can see why others do. The convincing shed their accents and pick up a southern accent without you really noticing. Other notable performances include Jessica Lange and Helena Bohnam Carter. But another surprise would have had to be Lohman. This was the first movie I had seen her in, and I was amazed. She is extremely talented and even with the limited screen time she was given manage to catch my attention.

Now on to the inevitable visuals. Everyone knows of Tim Burtons visuals. Heck he has made it a trade mark., now known as Burtonism. This movie surprised me in the aspect that although very visual, it was the least of all his movies. What stood out to me? Well the town of Spectre along with the path to get there. It was a beautiful town, which represented Heaven on earth. Another notable section was the circus, where time froze while Ed Bloom saw the women of his life. The screenplay by John August captures the beauty of Daniel Wallace's book while expanding on it. The screenplay looked tailor made to be directed by Tim Burton. Which brings us to the score which was beautifully written by Danny Elfman. I have gotten so used to his dark and moody scores that I forgot how brilliant and light some of his scores can be. This is one of the best, compliments the movie perfectly.

So when the lights came back on after the movie was over I was smiling. My imagination was just blown away again by Tim Burton. I was talking about the movie with a few friends after we got out of the theater and they noticed the same reaction from the audience as with me. I remembered being afraid when I sat down originally because it was the late showing and the audience consisted of teens. I was expecting a lot of dumb comments but they were as blown away as I was. Even now a few months later as I watch it on dvd I still can't stop smiling at how much I like this movie. This is a movie for everyone.

One of Tim Burton's absolute best. To answer the previous question, it's the same DVD as the initial release. It comes in big box (that's the cover shown) and this one includes the 24 page hardcover book "Fairy Tale for a Grown Up."

This is, indeed, a magical, mystical movie about fathers and sons, which is based upon the book "Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions" by Daniel Wallace. The book is a perfect vehicle for Director Tim Burton's signature melange of reality and fantasy. The story is that of a father and his son, their estrangement, and their eventual reconciliation. It is a beautifully realized film that will bring tears to one's eyes.

The father in question is Ed Bloom (Albert Finney) who loves to tell, at least it seems so to his son, Will (Billy Crudup), tall tales about his past. The son becomes estranged from his father on his wedding day, when his father tells one tall tale too many for Will's tastes. For the next several years, Will communicates only with his mother, Sandra (Jessica Lange).

When his father becomes seriously ill, however, Will and his wife rush to his side. Father and son take final stock of each other, and the seemingly tall tales continue. As his father gets progressively worse, Will, feeling that he really does not know his father, embarks on a journey to discover for himself, once and for all, the man his father really is. What he discovers is that his father was not so off the mark with his stories, and he finally begins to appreciate who his father really is and the impact that he has had on others. It allows Will to be able to say goodbye to his father in a way that his father understands and to be at peace with the man whom he discovered his father to be .

The film takes the viewer on a ride through some of Ed Bloom's tall tales, in a series of vignettes, where the viewer sees a young Ed Bloom (Ewan McGregor) living an almost fantastical life. We see him meet the love of his life, Sandra, as a young girl (Alison Lohman). We see him as a circus worker, a soldier, a traveling salesman, and even a bank robber. We see some of the people that cross section his life: a giant, a diminutive ringmaster, a witch, singing Siamese twins, and a bank robber. Ed even comes across a perfectly heavenly town full of wonderful, happy people.

This is simply a marvelous film with fantastical elements reminiscent of "Forrest Gump" and "The Princess Bride". Wonderful performances are given by veteran actors Albert Finney and Jessica Lange. Look for the very touching bath tub scene, where, fully clothed, the love between Ed and Sandra is palpable. Albert Finney, in the role of the senior Ed Bloom, is exceptional as a raconteur of the first order. Ewan McGregor is remarkable as the charismatic, younger Ed Bloom, infusing the role with a joie de vivre that is as infectious as it is engaging.

Jessica Lange is terrific as the senior Sandra Bloom, grounding her relationship with her husband with a steadfastedness born of years of mutual love and respect. Alison Lohman is simply lovely as the younger Sandra, imbuing her character with a beautiful sense of innocence and longing. It is interesting that both Alison Lohman and Ewan McGregor strongly resemble their more senior co-stars.

Billy Crudup is excellent as the angry Will Bloom, the son who needs to reconcile his image of his father with the man his father actually is. Robert Guillaume is masterful in the small role of the senior Dr. Bennett. The rest of the stellar cast is superlative, though Danny DeVito's southern accent needed a bit more work. The direction, however, is deft, and the cinematography is brilliant. This is an absolutely exceptional film. I really enjoyed it immensely, even though I initially viewed this film most reluctantly, and only after much persuasion by my son. I am certainly glad that I did. This film has made me a fan of Tim Burton. It is filmmaking at its best. Bravo!

This is one of my family's favorite movies and I was thrilled to see that it was available on blu-ray. I eagerly popped it into my PS3 last night expecting a visual treat, but was sorely disappointed by the "less than blu-ray" quality of the image. I'm convinced that this is an upsampling of the DVD. There's a lack of clarity in the details throughout the film. If you played the blu-ray and DVD versions side by side, I doubt you would see any difference between them.

I found it exceedingly hard to give this film a rating, even those 4 stars i decided for i'm not absolutely certain about, it could easily have been a 3-star decision or a a 5-star even.

The reason for this is that "Big Fish" is a tricky proposition to make up your mind about. The fact that many reviewers either absolutely love it or found it tedious is attesting to that notion.

While "Big Fish" is on the surface a film about a father in his dying days narrating the incredible and zany stories of his life and a son who tries to find out if these stories have any truth in them and simoultaneously learn who his father really was before he dies, there's quite many underlying and very significant questions and issues that this film deals with.

To begin with, we as viewers never really find out with any certainty if these stories are indeed true, but instead we are "trained" through the course of the movie to think with father Gloom's mindset, that is:
"it doesn't really matter if they are true, it only matters that they make a good story".

And then just when you think that's all there is, you realise that this film is like an onion really as another layer reveals itself to you:
"but isn't reality a matter of total subjectivity, and that what one person perceives as real the next person might think of as complete nonsense"?

And yet who's to say what the answers "really" are? Big Fish walks , in my opinion, a very tight rope, and having to maintain a very precarious balance it does incredibly well.

After the disaster of the "Planet of the Apes", Burton comes up in a domain where he does best: one between dream and reality where the borders are not only blurry but there might not be borders alltogether. It's all very "fortean" in concept, but Burton has proven in other films in his past that he can deal with this domain quite succesfully.

Aside of the premise of the film (which again, will be perceived by a lot of viewers differently) this is a cinematic masterpiece as Burton brings to life the old school of grand-moviemaking to life.

Alone the stunning depictions of the stories of father Gloom are cinema at its dreamy bestand this complimented by a cast headed by McGregor who ultimately finds a vehicle for the performance of his life make up for a not easy to forget film.

The rest of the cast is up to par as well. Father Gloom played by Finney is a wonderful zesty character, as well as his wife played by a graciously aging J.Lange. De Vito and Buscemi, even in second leads, remind us easily why they belong to that league of premier actors.

Sure enough, were this film to be taken literally, there are quite some plot holes, to name one example, why would a woman be so terribly in love with someone who was basically never there?

But, this is exactly the trick here. Big Fish should not be judged on that merit. Burton himself has inserted not one, but many hints inside the dialogues of the film in that direction.

Do see it. I'm not claiming it will change your life, but it will provide a lot of food for thought if you find a way to allow it to.

"Big Fish" is the latest bit of calculated whimsy from famed director Tim Burton. With a screenplay by John August based on the Daniel Wallace novel, Burton tells the tale of Edward Bloom, a man whose whole life has been one "big fish story" after another. Now old and facing death, Bloom needs to come up with a rousing finale to cap off his largely fictionalized life. Bloom's son, William, a realist and pragmatist, bitterly resents the "lies" his father has been feeding him ever since he was a boy, and yearns, in these last moments together, to hear the "true" story of the old man's life. But, in his investigation into the veracity of all the tall tales he's been told, William discovers that there may be more truth to these myths and legends than he has ever allowed himself to believe. He also realizes that, in debunking all the whoppers, he will be depriving his father of the one real trait that defines him as a person and that distinguishes him from everybody else.

The title of the film actually functions on two symbolic levels simultaneously. On the one hand, it reflects the fictionalized nature of Bloom's life and the grandiose egotism of his character. On the other, Bloom is, himself, the "big fish" in a small pond, as he leaves his mark on the world around him. "Big Fish" is actually most effective in the scenes set in the present, as father and son come to terms with the quality that each dislikes most about the other. William feels deceived by a father who, despite the fact that he made himself appear to be a larger-than-life heroic figure, was actually just a mediocre, often-absent dad, too busy with his secret "fantasy" life to make time for his own lonely son (the story has strong echoes of "Death of a Salesman" in its underlying vision and theme). Bloom, in a similar way, finds his son lacking in the kind of large-scale imagination that Bloom feels makes life worth living.

The film is considerably less successful in the "flashback" scenes tracing Bloom's life from his own birth to his son's early childhood. The scenes are all elaborately staged in the best Tim Burton manner - filled with hauntingly mythical settings, surrealistic events and doses of Magic Realism - but the filmmakers can't overcome the unfortunate fact that these sequences are essentially as uninteresting and irritating as real "fish stories" tend to be. Bloom's "adventures" come across as dime-novel vignettes, which is supposed to be the point, I guess, but it still means that we are squirming with impatience through large - indeed very large - stretches of the film. Every time we come back to the present - to real, flesh-and-blood human beings - our interest picks back up. That's why the film, in its latter stages, becomes such a moving and profound experience, as we finally get to see and know the real man who is Edward Bloom, wrinkles, warts and all.

Burton has assembled a wonderful cast for the occasion. The marvelous Albert Finney plays the dying Bloom and invests the film with an emotional depth just by his mere presence in the role. Ewan MacGregor does a fine job as the young, idealistic Bloom, while Jessica Lange and Alison Lohman enact the parts of Bloom's wife present and past (MacGregor and Lohman look as if they could truly grow up to be Finney and Lange). Billy Crudup brings a subtle depth to the role of William and the scenes between him and Finney truly touch the heart. Helena Bonham Carter, Steve Buscemi and Danny De Vito round out the impressive cast.

Maybe it says more about me than it does about the film that I ended up liking the parts that were the LEAST Burton-esque the best. But, then again, this is from someone who thinks that the comparatively earthbound "Ed Wood" is Burton's best film.

There is something exhilarating about riding two trains and running 27 blocks down the street to see a movie. Living 8 or so miles outside New York City has its perks for one of my new jobs. Going to press screenings of yet to released blockbusters. It's just to bad I'm at the mercy of the New Jersey Transit rail system. With delayed trains and lots of snow covering the ground of course I had 10 minutes to get from Madison Square Garden to Union Square. No small feat if you ask me.

But as I settled down in my chair at the Regal Union Square, and as I sipped on the sweet nectar of the drink called COKE, a film unfolded. A film so good, it made my mad dash to the theater worth every minute and as I reminisce about the filmed triumph that is BIG FISH, I feel a sense of awe and wonder. Tim Burton has created a film better than EDWARD SCISSORHANDS and a film that is worthy of Oscar.

William Bloom (Billy Crudup, Waking The Dead) is mad at his father Edward Bloom (Albert Finney,Erin Brockovich). You see his dad loves to tell stories about his youth. Except none of them seem true. Stories of Giants named Karl (Matthew McGrory, Bubble Boy), Circus Freaks, wandering poets, Siamese Twins from Red China, bank robberies, a witch, and a really big fish. William longs to meet the real man behind all the stories. But when Edward is stricken with cancer, William comes face to face with the man, both the real one and the legend.

BIG FISH is the kind of movie where a new surprise is hiding around every corner. From babies being spit across the hospital floor to a classic car being submerged underwater. The frame is jammed with visions both colorful and humorous. I especially liked the witch whose one eye could tell you how you would die. What an eerie and yet oddly beautiful old woman she was.

I also loved the tender moment that Edward and his wife Sandy (Jessica Lange, Titus) had in the bathtub. It's a scene full of both raw emotion and sweet reflection. Here's a woman who's watching the man she loves die right in front of her face. Every moment counts, and every word and breath sacred.

Ewan MacGregor (Star Wars: Attack of the Cloans) does a fine job as young Edward the adventurous youth of all his older counterpoint fantastical stories. His performance strikes the right cords at the right moments, allowing the audience to take hold of a man who may be the fabrication or the true version of a man who's telling the story.

Tim Burton's directing is top notch. He's proven that he's a master of the visual image, and BIG FISH is the perfect film to allow people to sit up and take notice. He strikes the right cord between humor and tears, joyous circus's and scary forests. His deft eye even takes us behind enemy lines. In a scene that is both inspired and quirky all at the same time.

BIG FISH is also a film about heritage. What's more important in the scheme of things, how we lived or how people remember us? It's a little of both, and this film puts us right in the middle of it all. Watching a life unfold around us.

BIG FISH is the reason I love going to the movies. Sure sometimes you have to dig through the trash to find a gem and this is a gem of a motion picture. If you see one film at all this year BIG FISH is worth a trip, even a whirlwind 27-block sprint to your local theater.

1-liner: Confused son (William), bitter at father who has told him a "fabricated big fish" version of his life, finds resolution in discovering the truth of his father--which is not that far away from his tall tales.

William's father is a small town hero who leaves his home to enter the real world: the cities and financial the schemes underlying professional capitalism. While in many respects, his father does not become the global hero that small town boy set out to become, he does become a successful man--a reputable salesman and a loving, responsible father.

Yet, William's father is Walter Mitty-ish, living a real life and a fake life, one more incredible, greater than the man. The stories his father tells him are outrageous, but as an innocent and trusting child, Will had believed them all. The movie starts with story-told flash-back scenes of the "lies" his father told him, intermixed with shots of a gathering for a wedding aniversary, where his father, who is now old, tells his lies and tall tales to the gathered. The incredible stories are loved and accepted by all--except for Will.

Will refuses to talk to his father, and they have not talked for three years, until he is notified that his father's cancer has reached a dire stage. He returns to his father and attempts to wring truth from him--to reach the other 90% of his father, the sunken iceberg secrets his father hid in his deep, dark, brooding sea of a mind. His father, however, is angered and outraged that his son believes him to be not the man associated with the stories.

As he helps his mother clean out the abandoned swimming pool, now moldy and opaque, the semblence of a big fish stirring beneath the rod he uses to fish out the debris, Will realizes that he must try to catch the fish--to discover the truth of his father. He sets out to sort through his father's old documents, the deeds and invoices and papers of his life.

Will finds that bits and pieces of his father's tales are based on truth, although the final version involves some amazing fabrications. He tracks down Spectre, a small town his father had bought to save it from the ravenous financial monsters of capitalism gone awry. A belief that has always infuriated him is that his father, a salesman, was away most of the time and had an adulterous affair elsewhere. In the outskirts of Spectre, he finds the ten year old girl his father describes in one of his tale, but she is now aged and something of a witch character. She tells him the truth: she is a girl hopelessly stuck with an unrequitted love affair--his father had always been true to his wife, his love.

This discovery brings Will to a revelation that allows him to atone his anger at his father's lies to him. As he lies by his father's deathbed, his father's doctor comes along and tells him the real version of his birth. There was no big fish involved, and the doctor admits that he likes his father's version better. It's more interesting, less mundane than real life, dreary reality. Will, however, likes the doctor's version, the truth, better. But, he has already come to accept his father for who he is, a man whose life is seen to be something of a envious legend to others, purely because he refuses to let the truth of things boggle him down, defying reality's stronghold against his fate for fantastics. Moreover, he realizes his father had been a good man, is a good man--despite his stretching of the truth in his tales.

As his father recovers from the stroke that sends him to the hospital, Will gives his father his last triumph. Will tells him the story of the river, of how they escape the dire truth of reality, the finality of the antiseptic hospital emergency room, driving wildly to get away from the holds of the world, to arrive at the river, where everyone--all the familiar characters in his tales--is happy and waiting for his arrival. Will fabricates the tale so that he manages to carry his father all the way into the river, and then drops his father in its depth... and his father becomes a fish. A big fish. And, he swims away.

"The biggest fish in the river gets that way by never being caught. (Advice from Old Witch)" The pure truth of his father's life shall be left unknown, as in death, his father flounders away, a free fish, the biggest fish, uncaught forever. William finds resolution in knowing that his father was a good man, despite his inability to tell his life the way it really happened, despite his inability to accept the mundane facts of life as is.

Like What Dreams May Come, this movie is filled with bathos scenes--many of the camera shots are also reminiscent of Dreams. There are no spoilers above, although the plot is aptly summarized. Moreover, the man's death is foreshadowed--the fact that his father stumbles upon Spectre (wherein the place distinctly reeks of being the carefree afterlife), arriving "early," then promising that he will return when it is his time. The glory of this film lies in the emotions it stirs within us. The beauty of it is portrayed via brilliantly posed scenes, the clever mixing of characters from the tales with real life, and the precise usage of comic relief in the midst of what would have been a bit dry if utterly serious.

Will's completion of his father's story marks an elegant ending, where he carries on the task of his father, a man capable of living without being overburdened by life, a man who knows how to embigger the life of others through his tales of sheer magnificence--whisking his father away from the desperate finality of reality, the hospital room and his frail stroke-beaten health, to the fate his father saw in the glass eye of the witch's--death as the biggest fish in the water, uncaught.

{QM Multiverse: the time-seperated but simultaneous observation made by Will and his father renders the state of his death. Prior to Will's observation that his father is to die as a big fish, perhaps a different version of his death exists in the superposition of states. However, after Will states his observation, and his father's agreeing to it--the aged memories blurred, accepting of new content in place of the real--reality is set. Thus, his father's tall tales are real, though in a different reality, the one existing in his memories. They are real to him because he observed them, but when his reality mixes with that of others, others can observe in his place and he can revoke his observation for that of someone else's, thus make someone else's observation the "real reality."}

Tim Burton has been lambasted numerous times in the past as only caring about visuals, having characters that are nothing but caricatures, and in the case of BIG FISH, having characters that are only an excuse to segue into an exciting visual.

Uh, wrong.

There's more heart and soul in many of his films, namely EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, and our topic of discussion today, BIG FISH, than in most other movies that I can think of. Each one brings a tear to my eye, each one is extremely beautiful, emotionally and visually, and each one tells a bittersweet truth about humanity, while enveloping us in a completely fantastical world at the same time.

I saw BIG FISH for the first time last night and I ain't gonna forget it any time soon. It's the story of a son, played by Billy Crudup, and a father, played by Albert Finney, whose life after his son's birth consists of nothing but telling the same blown-up stories again and again. This could be due to, or the result of, never being close to his son, and never being able to properly communicate with him (or people in general). Or it could just be a man blowing up the truth due to an unconscious dissatisfaction with settling down, and giving up the freedom of his youth. It could be a lot of things.

He spins yarns of 15' tall giants, witches, werewolves, tuna-sized catfish, bank robberies, mysterious towns, circuses, the Korean war, Siamese twins, and on and on, and his son is sick of hearing it. He just wants his father to tell him the truth, and is particularly humorless about it all, even as his father lays on his deathbed.

The stories are shown in incredible, often visually stunning flashbacks, with the quixotic Ewan McGregor as the young Edward Bloom, and I was very satisfied to see that Tim Burton is still using predominantly non-CGI special effects -- or, if they were CGI, they were tangible and extremely well-done.

The final scenes will strike some as too sappy or manipulative, but I though the effect of the entire undertaking was profoundly beautiful, especially the ending which brings everything together in a bittersweet fashion that never struck me as too sentimental, too apparent, or too conventional.

Hats off to Tim Burton, for this was one of the best of 2003, and without a doubt his best film since EDWARD SCISSORHANDS.