Big Fish

I just finished watching the movie "Big Fish" and I just had to sit down at my computer and write about it. Tim Burton is back. This film resurrects the sublimely blurred lines of reality that I enjoyed so much in "Edward Scissorhands" and "Beetlejuice," and the kind of darkly uplifting and heart-rending story of the former as well as that of "The Nightmare before Christmas." Albert Finney plays Ed Bloom, a Walter Mitty type who's tall tales just might hold a little bit of truth. Billy Crudup is his estranged son who sees his father's stories as his way of escaping a life of bordom. The film is a progression of these myths interspersed with returns to the present, "real" lives of Bloom and his family who are trying to cope with his coming death from cancer. The tales are smartly funny and a touch scary at times. I love everything Billy Crudup does, and this performance is no exception. All of the performances are wonderful. This is Burton's masterpiece.