Big Fish vs. Return of the King in theatrical awards:
 

i wandered into a blockbuster and picked out the last big fish on the wall. i never gave this movie much thought cos lotr overshadowed everything else last year. but i tell you what, if return of the king and lotr's never existed, big fish would have taken a lot of awards. after watching big fish i grabbed the dvd case in a store and saw that it was nominated heavily. earlier this year and after watching the academy awards and gloating over return of the king's prescence, i have to say stumbling over big fish was like some visual gift. a surprise i never was expecting. tim burton made a beautiful movie and i will be waiting to see what he puts out next with much anticipation. but basically i feel big fish was snubbed because of return of the king's prescence. best picture should have at least gone to big fish and also jessica lange should have won best supporting actor. just my two cents.

And your 2 cents are right on the money...

Big Fish was a great,great,GREAT!!!!!

movie.

:thumbsup:

Definately a thinker movie that tugs at your heart strings. Also one of those movies that get better after every viewing.
I loved the storyline and the color.

I agree, "Big Fish" was a wonderful movie. In my opinion it's Tim Burton's best.

I still liked "Return of the King" better, but I wouldn't have been too disappointed has this taken a few of its' awards.

I also was a fan of Big fish. However, I doubt it would have won many major awards without LOTR. Not that it wasn't good, but you could see the major awards going to Mystic River, Lost in Translation, Cold Mountain, etc... Which isn't to say that Big Fish isn't better than those films, I mean everything is subjective, but it didn't seem to have the big push behind it that these other films had (for whatever reason).

Well, Big Fish is a great movie, but I don't think you can say that it was nominated heavily, or that without ROTK in the running it would have won a lot of awards. Big Fish, according to the DVD cover, was nominated for 4 Golden Globes, including best picture (musical or comedy), which means it was not in direct competition (for it's biggest award, mind you) with ROTK, Mystic River, 21 Grams, and a lot of other films. It didn't win even under those optimal circumstances. As for Oscar nominations, Big Fish got a total of one, for Danny Elfman's score (and a well-deserved nom at that). So while I agree that it's a great film, I doubt that it would have had much more awards attention than it already did with or without ROTK in the picture.

Did not especially like Big Fish. And I'm really a Burton fan (except for Planet of the Apes). Saw everything he's done in theaters (even Ed Wood the one week it seem to stay in theaters) and was underwelmed by BF. A few Burton-esque moments of unexpected levity and visually beautiful, but in the end just an empty film emotionally. What little feelings I had while watching the movie were ruined by the funeral scene, which seems to undermine the entire movie. So I feel that the movie was in no way hurt by ROTK. ROTK did not win best picture on its own merits, either. The award was payback by the academy for overlooking the first two films almost entirely.

west,i loved the funeral scene!it brought all his characters together from all the stories he told through his life..characters that his son always thought were BS....

wonderful

I'm a big Burton fan too and found this movie to be pretty weak.

I saw saw it right after ROTK and came out pretty letdown (but raging to see ROTK again!). A lot of good scenes but nothing moving/heartbreaking. You know 1/2 way through the movie what's going to happen.

It's a cool movie but nothing oscarworthy.

I loved Big Fish. I drove the "ol' lady" crazy speaking with a southern accent telling stories to the kids. Burton impressed me, and I'm not much of a Burton fan.

As for ROTK... it's in a league of it's own. Although it's shadow was difficult to escape, Big Fish didn't really compete much against it.

BF probably deserved a little more attention than it received, but... it found it's audience. And probably added several new recruits to Burton's army of fans.

tommy, the reason the funeral doesn't work is because it doesn't matter at the end of the film if the people are "real" or not. Crudup's character has let them become real to him. He has decided to accept his father and forgive his faults completely. It didn't matter that he was a liar and a teller of "big fish" stories. But then some of the stories are true? I haven't read the book, but maybe this played out better on the page than on the screen (if it was in the book).

Generally I like Tim Burton's movies, but I didn't make it through this one. I can't put my finger on it, but it just couldn't hold my attention. My infant daughter started crying during the movie (as she usually does when my wife and I are trying to watch something). I went upstairs to check on her...and didn't go back to finish watching the movie.

For the 40-or-so minutes I did watch, EVERY TIME Billy Crudup said something, the only thing I could think of was "for everything else, there's MasterCard." Is he the guy who does the voiceovers for MasterCard commercials? If he's not, he sounds EXACTLY like the person who does them.

I had heard so many good things about this movie before renting it, but it just didn't do it for me.

RotK deserved everything it recieved, it won not only for the 3rd movie, but for the 1st two also.

Saw Big Fish and I am glad it did not win best picture.

I would say there are very few movies that deserve "Best Picture". Schinder's List is the type of movie I think of as best picture.

Didn't care for this film much. The performances are good and the ending is nice but Burton piles on too much schmaltz and it's really quite predictable. Doesn't come anywhere near Edward Scissorhands as far as Burton's other work and Lord of the Rings is in a class all by itself.

I loved Big Fish, I saw it multiple times in theatres.
IMHO, LOTR should have got all of the awards for FOTR, and Big Fish should have won all of the awards when it went up.

But the way the Oscars work, it's not always who is best. If they skip over someone in a previous year, they sometimes will "pay them back" later... one reason ROTK took everything. You can disagree with this statement if you wish. :)