After the rather challenging and stressful experience of recording an entire episode with both of my 11-year-old sons, our Film at 11 podcast now returns to its regular, more manageable one-on-one format. This week, I introduce my son Joseph to Penny Marshall’s classic fantasy Big, which remains as delightful and charming today as it was when it premiered back in 1988.
I didn’t see Big in the theater at the time. I caught it on cable during its innumerable airings in the following years. The movie became quite a television staple in those days, and I watched it a bunch of times. I’m pleased to say that the film still holds up remarkably well – aside perhaps from the way the story glosses right over the full implications of the romance between the Tom Hanks and Elizabeth Perkins characters. But that part of the movie was always a little uncomfortable, and I think Marshall handles it with sufficient sensitivity to not cross too serious a line.
As he may have proven in prior episodes, Joseph can be a tough critic at times. He didn’t love this movie quite as much as I might have expected him to. However, he makes some valid, even incisive points that show he put some thought into trying to process the film.
| Title: | Big |
| Year of Release: | 1988 |
| Directors: | Penny Marshall |
| Watched On: | Hulu (via Disney+) |
| Also Available On: | Blu-ray Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
A technical note: Once again, I recorded a whole podcast episode only to discover after-the-fact that one of us had knocked the camera out of focus when we came back for the second half of the discussion. In this case, I don’t think the damage was bad enough to require reshooting. My face is a little fuzzy, but Joseph mostly stays in focus. If we’d try to do this over again, I think the conversation would have suffered for it.
Video Streaming
Big is in big need of a remaster. 20th Century Fox released the film on Blu-ray way back in 2009, followed by periodic repackagings and reissues that I believe all amounted to the same disc. All of those Blu-rays contained both the movie’s original 104-minute theatrical cut and a longer 130-minute extended cut that originated on DVD.
I don’t own any version of the movie on physical media, so Joseph and I watched it via streaming. Hulu only has the theatrical cut, but that suits me just fine. I assume the streaming copy is sourced from the same underlying video master used for the theatrical cut on Blu-ray, and it’s quite dated. The 1.85:1 image is fairly soft and dull. Colors are adequate, but nothing special. Grain looks mushy and could be resolved better.
Audio quality is similarly lackluster. Although the soundtrack is technically encoded in Dolby Digital 5.1 format, I didn’t notice any surround activity during this viewing. Dialogue may be clear and intelligible enough, but the track sounds very flat and undistinguished on the whole. While I doubt that Big was ever meant to be a sonic powerhouse, I have to assume that at least the musical score could sound a little crisper or richer than this.
In the hands of just about any other studio, I’d say that Big would surely be destined for an inevitable 4K remaster and possible physical media re-release that could only improve upon this. However, Disney’s lockdown of the Fox catalog puts that in a lot of doubt. In the meantime, what we currently have is watchable, if barely so.
Related
- Tom Hanks
The Video File Blog 
Another movie I actually saw theatrically. My dad really did take us to see almost everything. I was about 11 and a half when this was released and remember loving it. I own the Blu-ray dvd combo, but forgot there was an extended version. I’m kind of curious to see what’s in it. It’s probably been over 20 years since I’ve watched this. Do your two boys have similar tastes in movies? Do they have specific favorites?
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They’re very different in what they like or don’t like.
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