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Another Winter Thing: "The Big Fish"

DougGrosjean

New member
Hi,

Heads-up on a very good movie: "The Big Fish".

Posting here becasue there's enough people fishing here that I think will "get it"; and because this movie is story-telling at its finest, which is sometimes raised to an art form on this list.... And one of the characters does ride a Harley long-distance on a sales route. And becasue from my own posts here, I've learned that many of us are fathers, and all of us are kids.

"The Big Fish" is about a dad that tells outlandish stories to his son, from his infancy on up. At first the kid believes every word Dad says, but by the time the son reaches adulthood he thinks every story Dad tells is just that, a story, and the the two split apart. The son becomes a writer, and the Dad tells him several times "Son, you got all the facts and none of the flavor...!"

Eventually, the kid is surprised to learn that many of the stories have more than a ring of truth to them.

Given such a simple story, I can't tell much more without destroying the joy you might find in the movie itself. Trust me on this.... it's that good. Perhaps the best movie I've ever seen.

It's a simple plot, simple story, and simple characters. But the movie comes alive as Hollywood special effects illustrate the outlandish stories that the father tells, with fantastic scenes of birth and storms and journeys and monsters and kids. There's a one-eyed witch, swamps, a giant man and a giant fish, a circus, a Harley with a sidecar, plus a fast red car, and a bank robber who decides that the real plums are on Wall Street and becomes a stockbroker so he can make real money... It's a series of absolutley incredible stories.

My son 9 y/o son Jean-Luc was laughing, I was laughing, my SO Sharon was laughing, the whole theater was laughing, so the appeal crosses age lines and generations. I don't recall any swear words (there may have been one or two), and there's some nudity but it's very abstract and inoffensive. It certainly didn't shock Jean-Luc at all.

We went to that movie because sometimes I wonder if that's what it'll be like to grow old, to tell youngsters stories that they eventually don't believe anyway. Somehow, I wondered if I'd see myself and Jean-Luc in this movie. And I did see us, a little bit, as I sometimes do tell him stories of our motorcycle trips together as bedtime stories. Course, I have illustrations and such when I do this, reading from HTML pges on my laptop... <g>

After seeing the movie, I'm not sure what Jean-Luc will think of my old stories as he ages, of waterfalls and Jeep trails and Alaska, and storms and boats and sometimes really dumb decisions leading to fear and adventure and disaster.

Perhaps the fact that I took photos as I went on my own journeys will make him a bit less skeptical of what I tell him. Or perhaps he'll stumble across a stash of my negatives and think "Holy crap, the old man wasn't kidding about going over the waterfall in that little boat...."

In the end, I came away believing (and telling Jean-Luc) that the two of us have a great many adventures ahead of us yet, and that he ain't seen nothing yet. But he will.... :):):):)

If you like a good story, one that's extremely well-told, you'll probably like this movie. It's one of those rare movies I'd like to see again, very much. Perhaps two more times, or even three....
 
It's on my list to see. My brother highly recommends it and that carries a lot of weight in my book. So does the fact that Tim Burton was at the helm.
 
Hmm...this is a pretty big fish...

1806028-M.jpg


Ian
 
Went and saw 'Big Fish' this weekend with a bunch of grrliefriends. Enjoyed it very much and can't remember the last time a theater full of people clapped at the end of the movie.
:clap
Heard a story about it on NPR this morning too - it edged out 'Lord of the Rings' as the #1 movie.
Doug Grosjean said:
...one of the characters does ride a Harley long-distance on a sales route.
Doug - Are you sure that was a Harley?
 
Hi,

Glad you liked the movie!

I thought it was a Harley, though it seemed to me that it was too old of a HD for the timeframe. Looked to me like it had solid fron forks and an ancient light.... but the appearance is so short it's hard to get a fix on it.

Doug
 
It IS on-camera a very short time. When I saw it I thought that it was an Enfield. I tried to find info online and couldn't. If anyone has any more concrete knowledge I'd love to know for sure.
 
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