If you saw Tom Hanks pick up his well deserved Oscar for 'Forrest Gump' and would like to go back and enjoy his second best film role, Fox Video has just the ticket for you.
'Big' earned Hanks his first Academy AwardŽ nomination in 1988 and is, in my opinion, bettered only by 'Forrest Gump' in Hanks' filmography. Written by Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg and directed by Penny Marshall, 'Big' is the story of 13 year old Josh Baskin. After being embarrassed by his size, a dejected Baskin drops a quarter in an odd arcade machine and wishes to be 'big'. The following morning Josh wakes up with a 30 year old body. Unable to convince anyone but his best friend what has happened, Josh is forced to run away to the city and try to make it on his own until he can reverse what has happened. Hanks' portrayal of a 13 year-old in a man's body in a grown-up world is flawless. He somehow is able to capture the innocence of childhood without coming off as childish. His is a memorable performance in a memorable film.
Fox has recently reissued 'Big' on laser disc with a fantastic letterboxed transfer. This transfer does not carry the THX stamp, but could very easily. Comparing this new disc to the previous full screen transfer is like comparing a beat up, faded Metrocolor print to pristine IB Technicolor. The improvements are large and immediately noticable. The colors on the new disc are truly gorgeous. Deep, highly saturated hues from beginning to end make this look like a brand new movie. There is a bit of smearing in the brightest reds, but the almost complete absence of chroma noise makes this easy to overlook. The rather noticable graininess in the old disc has been completely removed. The image is silky smooth with deep, clean blacks and excellent detail. The image has been matted to a ratio of about 1.85:1. A direct comparison to the full screen transfer indicates that either the film was shot with a hard matte or the full screen transfer was zoomed in. There is a noticable amount of image added to the sides and little or none matted out of the top and bottom. The compositional balance is greatly improved with the wider framing.
The audio has also benefitted from a remaster. Frequency response is much wider with particular improvement in the low bass. Highs and mids are very clear resulting in a much more natural sound. The Dolby Stereo soundtrack contains a number of good directional and panned effects that come through with cleaner seperation. The surround channel is used sparingly but to good effect.
'Big' runs 104 minutes and the CLV disc contains 25 chapters. The side break occurs at a scene change and is not too disruptive. Fox has not included a trailer (c'mon guys, what's the deal). List price is (gulp) $49.98.
Yeah, yeah, I know. 50 bucks is pretty steep for a single disc. Well, what can I say. Art ain't cheap.
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