As they say in the movie “Big Fish,” fate does indeed circle around on a man and it eventually had me leaving Austin – that quaint Texas drinking town with a political problem – for the very small Eclectic, Alabama.
Eclectic – the actual name of the town – is 11 miles east-north-east of Wetumpka, Alabama, where much of “Big Fish” was filmed last year. I am also a long time Burton fan.
So once I found myself a long ways from my spiritual home – the draft house and the Austin downtown – I also found myself with something pertinent to say about a movie by a director I enjoyed, filed at locations I recognize.
I was disappointed by “Big Fish.”
“Big Fish” was adapted from a novel by former Wetumpka resident, Daniel Wallace. He has a cameo in the movie as the tedious economics professor whose slide presentation is interrupted by one of Edward Bloom’s profession of love. Wallace has written another book, the “Watermelon King” which is receiving local praise.
The book is, of course, longer and features more fanciful stories, such as Edward Bloom’s encounters with Amazon warriors and how he could run so fast he could get to a place before he actually started running. The section where William Bloom is at the deathbed of his father also covers several chapters.
Most of the tales also have a kind of joke quality – a kind of shaggy dog feel – to them, much like the story and joke Edwards tells his daughter-in-law about the death of the milk man.
Wetumpka itself is an attractive place, in a small town kind of way. Several million years ago there was a meteor strike in the area, which means the downtown areas is in a bowl in addition to being along the Coosa River. As such, the streets intersect is odd and sharp ways.
This worked out well for the film-makers. All the street scenes were filmed in Wetumpka, from the mob scenes to the bank robbery. The large building behind the mayor-character in the mob scene is the actual Elmore County Courthouse. The front of a book store can be briefly seen in where Edward and Norther race from the bank – the movie people relettered the window of the actually town “Mom and Pop” book store for the scene.
There are two bridges crossing the Coosa River, an older one in the downtown and a newer one just north of the downtown. The older one is the one seen in the movie and filming on it closed it for traffic for two days or so. Some of the locals protested because it meant the traffic on the northern bridge got worse.
The shots along the river, from fishing, to talking to the giant to William letting Edward go, could have been filmed nearly anywhere. However, there are no caves like that along the river and anyway, Alabama law prohibits giants from living in river-side caves.
The movie was filmed last winter and spring. It was usually rainy for Alabama last spring and this put the production behind schedule somewhat, as they were waiting for clear days. The weather seen during the funeral is what most of the region looked like for most of the spring.
Most of the cast and crew acquired a good reputation for being open and friendly, except for Jessica Lange – she was described as being standoffish, but not quite rude.
The cities of Ashton and Spectre do not really exist. However, Auburn does and it is home to one of the largest and the most elite schools in the state. The buildings seen in the scenes where Edward is wooing Sandy are real buildings on the campus of Auburn University.
The Bloom house is actually a one-story building in Wetumpka. The upper floors were just added walls and gables to make it look bigger.
The movie is colorful and vibrant for Burton, as compared to be charcoal palette of “Edward Scissorhands,” “Batman” or “Sleepy Hollow.” It is also a fun tale, from Edward’s sports victories to his stumbling into the Normal Rockwell-like town of Spectre to playing fetch with a werewolf.
However, I was never able to entirely get over what was arguably the message of the movie – that Edward’s tall-tales where more important than the truth because they were more entertaining.
I am myself a reporter – rather like William but I have a much better relationship with my own father – and I at least try to cleave to the truth in my writing and work. Fabricating and exaggerating “facts” and stories is unethical. That is not to say it never happens – just that it should not be rewarded when it does.
That is exactly what Jayson Blair did and he deserved to be hung-out and dried for it.
Fiction is all well and good, and socially and psychologically we need it, but we must live on facts and trying to replace life with fantasy is a bit pathetic.
As a southern myself, I am familiar with tall-tales. However, as I am over 30 and not 3, they ware on my nerves.
People – at least southerners – tell these stories because they feel small. They tell these stories because they often have small lives, small experiences, small education and small minds. Nonsense about how parrots talk about anything but religion (because that would be rude) is just a sad and childish attempt to fill that void between the small person and the larger world. Rather than truly learning about the world, rather than truly living in the world, they make-up nonsense about the world. It reflects their ignorance but is seen as pardonable because it has the razzle-dazzle of a circus side-show barker.
I have a good relationship with my father and he has told me stories of his life. But he has not run any of them into the ground and none of them involve love at first sight, big fish or hungry giants.
The other possible message, about a son and father reconciling, was good.
Albert Finney gives a good performance as a dying man – I have had people in my life die slowly and his performance was as close to the real thing as it could be without becoming a turn-off. Ewan McGregor also gave a vibrant performance as the man-myth. Lange, standoffish or not, was not really given enough to do, other than to stand around, smile a lot and occasionally grieve, in her role as Sandy Bloom.
Billy Crudup (what a terrible stage name – he really should have come up with a better one), Helena Bonham Carter, Steve Buscemi, Danny De Vito, Marion Cotillard, Matthew McGrory and Alison Lohman all give solid performances. It was also good to see Robert Guillaume again and he carried the perceptive physician role well.
The special effects are lovely; particularly the bit where Edward brushes away popcorn hanging in the air as he crosses the circus once time has stopped. The soft look of the stories and the lack of real detail to the fish also helped as these were “myths.”
When Carter appeared as the “Witch,” she reminded me a bit of some of my older female relatives. However, in the other role she played, as the older Jenny, she did not appear old enough – she should have been at least 20 years older than Crudup, but instead only appeared a few years older than him. This is not a complaint about Carter’s performance, just the work of the make-up people. She carried both roles well and I wonder what I would have seen in that glass eye – at a guess it would involves tequila and the paper’s press machine.
The movie is fun, but if it has a message, at best that message misses the mark.
For information from people who disagree with me: http://romanticmovies.about.com/gi/...ser.com/specialreports/BigFish/movieInfo.html
As an aside, “Big Fish” went into limited release before Christmas. It only went into wide-release last Friday. I suppose the powers-that-be did not want to movies in wide release at the same time involving attacking trees and finding golden rings in rivers while fishing.
Eclectic – the actual name of the town – is 11 miles east-north-east of Wetumpka, Alabama, where much of “Big Fish” was filmed last year. I am also a long time Burton fan.
So once I found myself a long ways from my spiritual home – the draft house and the Austin downtown – I also found myself with something pertinent to say about a movie by a director I enjoyed, filed at locations I recognize.
I was disappointed by “Big Fish.”
“Big Fish” was adapted from a novel by former Wetumpka resident, Daniel Wallace. He has a cameo in the movie as the tedious economics professor whose slide presentation is interrupted by one of Edward Bloom’s profession of love. Wallace has written another book, the “Watermelon King” which is receiving local praise.
The book is, of course, longer and features more fanciful stories, such as Edward Bloom’s encounters with Amazon warriors and how he could run so fast he could get to a place before he actually started running. The section where William Bloom is at the deathbed of his father also covers several chapters.
Most of the tales also have a kind of joke quality – a kind of shaggy dog feel – to them, much like the story and joke Edwards tells his daughter-in-law about the death of the milk man.
Wetumpka itself is an attractive place, in a small town kind of way. Several million years ago there was a meteor strike in the area, which means the downtown areas is in a bowl in addition to being along the Coosa River. As such, the streets intersect is odd and sharp ways.
This worked out well for the film-makers. All the street scenes were filmed in Wetumpka, from the mob scenes to the bank robbery. The large building behind the mayor-character in the mob scene is the actual Elmore County Courthouse. The front of a book store can be briefly seen in where Edward and Norther race from the bank – the movie people relettered the window of the actually town “Mom and Pop” book store for the scene.
There are two bridges crossing the Coosa River, an older one in the downtown and a newer one just north of the downtown. The older one is the one seen in the movie and filming on it closed it for traffic for two days or so. Some of the locals protested because it meant the traffic on the northern bridge got worse.
The shots along the river, from fishing, to talking to the giant to William letting Edward go, could have been filmed nearly anywhere. However, there are no caves like that along the river and anyway, Alabama law prohibits giants from living in river-side caves.
The movie was filmed last winter and spring. It was usually rainy for Alabama last spring and this put the production behind schedule somewhat, as they were waiting for clear days. The weather seen during the funeral is what most of the region looked like for most of the spring.
Most of the cast and crew acquired a good reputation for being open and friendly, except for Jessica Lange – she was described as being standoffish, but not quite rude.
The cities of Ashton and Spectre do not really exist. However, Auburn does and it is home to one of the largest and the most elite schools in the state. The buildings seen in the scenes where Edward is wooing Sandy are real buildings on the campus of Auburn University.
The Bloom house is actually a one-story building in Wetumpka. The upper floors were just added walls and gables to make it look bigger.
The movie is colorful and vibrant for Burton, as compared to be charcoal palette of “Edward Scissorhands,” “Batman” or “Sleepy Hollow.” It is also a fun tale, from Edward’s sports victories to his stumbling into the Normal Rockwell-like town of Spectre to playing fetch with a werewolf.
However, I was never able to entirely get over what was arguably the message of the movie – that Edward’s tall-tales where more important than the truth because they were more entertaining.
I am myself a reporter – rather like William but I have a much better relationship with my own father – and I at least try to cleave to the truth in my writing and work. Fabricating and exaggerating “facts” and stories is unethical. That is not to say it never happens – just that it should not be rewarded when it does.
That is exactly what Jayson Blair did and he deserved to be hung-out and dried for it.
Fiction is all well and good, and socially and psychologically we need it, but we must live on facts and trying to replace life with fantasy is a bit pathetic.
As a southern myself, I am familiar with tall-tales. However, as I am over 30 and not 3, they ware on my nerves.
People – at least southerners – tell these stories because they feel small. They tell these stories because they often have small lives, small experiences, small education and small minds. Nonsense about how parrots talk about anything but religion (because that would be rude) is just a sad and childish attempt to fill that void between the small person and the larger world. Rather than truly learning about the world, rather than truly living in the world, they make-up nonsense about the world. It reflects their ignorance but is seen as pardonable because it has the razzle-dazzle of a circus side-show barker.
I have a good relationship with my father and he has told me stories of his life. But he has not run any of them into the ground and none of them involve love at first sight, big fish or hungry giants.
The other possible message, about a son and father reconciling, was good.
Albert Finney gives a good performance as a dying man – I have had people in my life die slowly and his performance was as close to the real thing as it could be without becoming a turn-off. Ewan McGregor also gave a vibrant performance as the man-myth. Lange, standoffish or not, was not really given enough to do, other than to stand around, smile a lot and occasionally grieve, in her role as Sandy Bloom.
Billy Crudup (what a terrible stage name – he really should have come up with a better one), Helena Bonham Carter, Steve Buscemi, Danny De Vito, Marion Cotillard, Matthew McGrory and Alison Lohman all give solid performances. It was also good to see Robert Guillaume again and he carried the perceptive physician role well.
The special effects are lovely; particularly the bit where Edward brushes away popcorn hanging in the air as he crosses the circus once time has stopped. The soft look of the stories and the lack of real detail to the fish also helped as these were “myths.”
When Carter appeared as the “Witch,” she reminded me a bit of some of my older female relatives. However, in the other role she played, as the older Jenny, she did not appear old enough – she should have been at least 20 years older than Crudup, but instead only appeared a few years older than him. This is not a complaint about Carter’s performance, just the work of the make-up people. She carried both roles well and I wonder what I would have seen in that glass eye – at a guess it would involves tequila and the paper’s press machine.
The movie is fun, but if it has a message, at best that message misses the mark.
For information from people who disagree with me: http://romanticmovies.about.com/gi/...ser.com/specialreports/BigFish/movieInfo.html
As an aside, “Big Fish” went into limited release before Christmas. It only went into wide-release last Friday. I suppose the powers-that-be did not want to movies in wide release at the same time involving attacking trees and finding golden rings in rivers while fishing.
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