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The Main Characters
--Edward Bloom (Ewan McGregor (young)/Albert Finney (old)) is a man of many tall tales. It seems everything he says is a complete fabrication and very far from the truth. When he starts dying, his son comes back and wants to know the truth about him, and he just tells him the same “stories” as usual.
--Will Bloom (Billy Crudup) is the son of Ed. He believed his father’s stories for a while, but eventually grew tired of them and even stopped talking to his father for many years until his father is close to dying. He is pissed his father keeps up these stories, but finds the tall tails really aren’t all as embellished as he thought.
--Sandra Bloom (Alison Lohman (young)/Jessica Lange (old)) is Ed loving wife. Most of his tales focus on the love he had for her and she’s been a great wife to him, and mother to Will.
The Setting
Although they live down south, the active imagination of Ed Bloom dominates the film.
The Plot
The film is very easy to follow. Ed Bloom’s has always told fantastical stories. Everyone knows this and his son Will can’t stand it. In fact, he stops talking to his father shortly after his marriage and continues not talking to him for three years. He just wants to know his real father. He doesn’t want the storied version, he wants the true version. One day, he learns his dad is very close to dying. He goes back home and starts communicating with his father again and still gets increasingly annoyed that his father won’t tell him the truth. His father is adamant he is telling the truth, and Will does some investigating of his own, to know the true facts of his father’s life. What he finds is that his father’s version isn’t as far from the truth as he once thought. His allegorical story telling is only slightly exaggerated and the moral of the story is the same. The places are the same, and the bare facts are the same, just with slight exaggerating. Will gets a new appreciation of his father and bonds with him in the moments leading to his death.
Movie Review
This is what I’m talking about. Truly one of the greatest movies to be released in 2004, it was horribly unrecognized at all major awards ceremonies, and unjustly so. It’s a great tale of a son’s mission to find out the truth about his father and finding out his father wasn’t as misleading as he thought. It’s such a deep movie, too. Everything has multiple meanings and one could spend years to uncover all the various deeper meanings to things too. It’s a movie that will make you think, but not in a bad way. The story itself is easy to follow, it’s the deeper meaning of the story that is left to interpretation. The acting in the movie is fabulous (Ewan, I’m looking at you especially) and everything works. The movie will make you think and you will enjoy it. It is a true masterpiece of the mind, soul and heart. ****.
DVD Features
A) Extras
1) Feature Commentary
The commentary is done by director Tim Burton and is done in interview format. I have heard the interview type commentary before (on the Who DVD) and I quite like it. They ask questions about things the director may or may not have mentioned and generally keep the commentary moving, causing little or no dead time. I missed the name of the guy asking Tim the questions, but such is life. The commentary is very informative and I would recommend it to anyone who buys the DVD. He talks about almost everything and gives really honest answers to the questions asked.
2) Featurettes
--A) The Character’s Journey
----1) Edward Bloom At Large
This is a 9-minute featurette on the journey of Edward Bloom. Tim Burton and Ewan McGregor talk about Edward Bloom’s life, really and the filming of it.
----2) Amos at the Circus
Ahh, a 4 and a half minute featurette on the circus scene. Pretty cool, actually.
----3) Fathers and Sons
A 7-plus minute featurette on the relationship between Will and Ed Bloom. The actors give their feelings on it and it’s a good look at their unique relationship.
--B) The Filmmaker’s Path
----1) Tim Burton: Storyteller
This is a close to 7 minute featurette on Tim Burton. He talks about making the movie and all, and the actors start off by saying their favorite Burton movie.
----2) A Fairytale World
This is a nine and a half minute featurette on the shooting of the film. Really interesting stuff in here.
----3) Creature Features
This is a 6 and a half minute featurette on the various creatures that appeared in the film, as well as other things (like the Handi-matic). Really fun feature.
----4) The Author’s Journey
This is an 8-minute feature on the author of the book, Big Fish. Daniel Wallace was the author and he really talks about writing the book and a little about his life story.
--C) Fish Tales
This is just something that when activated, an icon will pop up on the screen while the movie is playing and take you to one of the related featurettes.
3) The Finer Points: A Trivia Quiz
You can either take the challenge which is hidden in the Filmmaker’s Path featurettes or the old fashioned way (one after the other). Here are the correct answers: B, C, B, C, B, A, C, B, C, and A. When you get them all right, you get the scene where time stood still and the special effects behind it.
4) Previews
Lots of previews here: Big Fish (2:27), 13 Going On 30 (2:32), Spider-Man 2 (2:10), 50 First Dates (2:31), Hellboy (2:32), The Company (2:00), You Got Served (2:24), Mona Lisa Smile (2:32), Something’s Gotta Give (2:48),The Triplets of Belville (2:16), Secret Window (2:14) and the Big Fish Soundtrack (:34).
B) Audio/Video
This is the Anamorphic Widescreen Version (1.85:1) and the transfer is amazing. The colors are bright and vibrant when they are and when it’s dark, there are no visible compression problems. The audio is presented in 5.1 Dolby Digital, and it really doesn’t need it too much. It’s mostly talking but the times the surround is needed, it is used well.
C) Liner Notes
There are no liner notes, actually.
D) Easter Eggs
At the main menu, highlight special features and hit up twice. It will put a star over the top hat. Hit enter to get a one-minute eleven-second clip of Tim Burton driving a golf cart of sorts down Spectre’s main road, shooting fireworks.
Overall Review
The DVD starts out with some previews, which is very VHS. The previews are: Secret Window and Spider-Man 2. That’s alright with me since Spidey 2 was awesome and Secret Window is a great little film. The movie is amazing and that’s worth an easy recommendation right there. The extras will be what pushes this over a mere recommendation rating, and the extras deliver. It strays away from the usual making of featurettes, but they compliment the movie so well. There’s about an hour of featurettes just on the movie and all are worth watching. The commentary is great and if you like movie previews, this movie has tons.
Overall Rating
10.0
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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