the best parts: Big Fish

The worlds of Tim Burton are the cinematic equivalents of Dr. Seuss, Raold Dahl and Maurice Sendak – fantastic fairy tales filled with magical light and dark lessons of life. BIG FISH is his most beautifully constructed story since EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, appropriately shifting focus from the angst of a teenager emerging from childhood to the anxiety of an old man exiting life at the other end of adulthood. At first, the jagged pace made me fear another PLANET OF THE APES disaster. I was as frustrated as Will Bloom (Billy Crudup, with fingers crossed in this comeback role) trying to make sense of Burton’s depiction of Ed Bloom’s fantastic life (played alternately and brilliantly by Albert Finney and Ewan McGregor). Patience, my child – through repetition and gentle, but deliberate pacing, the jumps back and forth in time and between fantasy and reality yielded clarity. Like any great short story, the conflicting stories of BIG FISH were set up to converge on a single elegant moment at the end of the film. Then I got. And I cried. And I loved it… witches, giant catfish and all.

the best parts: not many movies earn the tears in my eyes; as always, Ewan McGregor’s smile; Jessica Lange is in the same elegant league as Diane Keaton this year; it’s good to be Tim Burton’s girlfriend, just ask Helena Bonham Carter; “I don’t think I’ll ever dry out”; daffodils and bloody noses; what if Flannery O’Connor wrote The Odyssey?; borrowing from Stephen Sondheim’s INTO THE WOODS – “be careful the things you say, children will listen”