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Tuesday, May 13, 2008

BIG FISH (2003)

In his shot at triggering our paternal tear ducts, Tim Burton has created a whole new sub-category of the male weepie: charmless whimsy. It's over-produced and bizarrely cast (though Billy Crudup is less mannered than in usual), plus as chilly as its eponymous metaphor/metamorphous. And never more cold-blooded that when Dad dies in the arms of his son. The film should come with a warning label: BEWARE CURDLED SENTIMENTALITY. Father & son reveries are as common as studio V.P.s in Hollywood (what else could be so easy to pitch to all those grown-up boys who ran away from their Dads?), but did megger Tim Burton really want to outmush the likes of Phil Alden Robinson's (FIELD OF DREAMS/'89) and Frank Darabont (THE MAJESTIC/'01)?

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