BIG

Today, I thought I would go back to the classics. Big was insanely awesome in the fact that, at some point in time, every kid needs to be bigger than they currently are. Maybe not in the sense that this film puts forth, but what 12 year old doesn't want or need to be taller, and that's what its' really about. It's not about maturity, or age. It's all about height. When Josh can't go on a carnival ride because he isn't tall enough is one thing, but to be embarrassed in front of the "girl" is a whole nother ballgame. When he finds a "Grant your Wish" machine called Zoltar, he simply states," I want to be big". Thinking nothing of it, he wakes up the next morning only to see this hairy man child looking back at him in the mirror. If that's not bad enough, he is mistaken as an intruder by his mother, and basically becomes homeless in that very instant. Talk about scary shit. I had no idea what to do when I was 12. I had people making those decisions for me. To be thrust from a pre-pubescent boy into a late 20's man overnight is one thing, but with no help from anyone other than from your best friend, who is also 12, they end up making a pretty good go of it. He lands the golden job of playing with toys all day. Are you kidding me? I want that job now. I can't imagine getting paid for that. He is able to afford a sweet ass apartment that most grown men with college degrees can't even afford. He fills it with toys, a basketball goal, and a trampoline. The writer hit the nail on the head with the kind of crap a 12 year old would buy with that much disposable income. I wanted everything in that place. Who wouldn't want their own soda machine? He is showered with praise for the excellent ideas he has for new toys, catches the eye of a very attractive woman, and ends up losing himself in the corporate world. Is it feasible to say a 12 year old would actually continue to show up at a job. I don't know. There is a point when I felt really sad for Josh. He was missing the best part of life. He basically lost his adolescents, and there was a point when I wasn't sure if he was going to regain it. On the bright side, he did get laid, big time. A 12 year old losing his V card to a HOT mid thirties businesswoman. At that point, if he did get back to his old self, he would be a god among boys when that news got spread around, which I'm sure it did less than a week after he got back. One last thing, I recently pondered the fact that his mother saw what he would look like when he was 25, so is that going to cross her mind at all when he is 25? It was traumatic for her to have an "intruder" in the house and then think her son had been kidnapped. Will she remember the face she saw those many years earlier or will she just see Josh progressively mature into a young man who looks like Tom Hanks?
NMB rates the movie BIG- A Work of Cinematic Art. I hope you'll agree.


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