Never Seen It! Sunday: Big Fish

You know when you're talking to someone you think is like totally happening in a far out way and they ask if you've seen their favourite movie and you lie and say you seen "parts of it" because you don't want to seem like a total pop culture pariah? Yeah, we do too - and we hate ourselves for it! That's why we're vowing to watch at least one movie we've put off, ignored, rejected or just plain-out forgot about every week from now on. Join us as recount the popping of our cinematic cherries, complete with awkward, over-analytical details!

Photo: impawards.com

BIG FISH

DATE RELEASED: December 10, 2003

DATE ACTUALLY WATCHED: February 5, 2011

WHY NOW?: After Boardwalk Empire won two Golden Globe awards and a SAG, I decided to find out a bit more about the show and maybe start watching it, so logically, I looked it up on Wikipedia. And you know what that means: about an hour lost of my life spent clicking on pointless page after pointless page. Except this time via Steve Buscemi's bio, I remembered how badly I wanted to see Big Fish.

WHY NOT THEN?: Although I've wanted to see the movie since it came out, no one else really cared to see it with me. So I waited. Then when it was out on DVD, still, no one wanted to watch it with me. So I waited. Then it was on TV one day, so taped it. The next day I rewound it a put it away for a day when I had more time. But then I got caught up in other films and forgot about the tape until I lost it, then forgot about it. Sad, right?

EXPECTATIONS:

• Gorgeously surreal sets.
• Gorgeously surreal story.
• That creepy, curious Burton directing touch.
• A fairytale for adults.
• A film that I'd fall in love with a rewatch countless times.

WHAT I ACTUALLY GOT...

• Gorgeously surreal sets.
• A bit of a choppy though captivating story.
• Ewan McGregor's strange, almost cacophonic, Scottish/southern American accent mash-up.
• A Burton film that isn't so creepy, though still very curious, and surprisingly more sane than his other works.
• A new travel destination: the peculiar, quirky little town of old Spectre, where no one wears shoes and everyone likes to dance in the town centre at night by lantern light.
• A craving to watch Moulin Rouge!.

ONE NIGHT-IN STAND OR SECOND DATE POTENTIAL?

One night-in stand, though charming chance encounters in the future. It's neither Burton's best nor any of the actors' (McGregor, Marion Cotillard, Billy Crudup, Helena Bonham Carter, Buscemi or others), but I wouldn't mind watching it again if I came across it.