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MOVIE OF THE DAY: BIG (1983)

This is a real heart tugger; funny, sad, wise. It makes a great holiday film.

This is Tom Hanks just after he transforms from 13 year old Josh Baskins to BIG Josh. He is about to have some wonderful adventures and at the end of them, he will want to be back in his boy body again.

In a way, this picture is a metaphor for Tom Hanks career. He got BIG and became TOM HANKS. Inside the institutional Hanks is a young energetic actor who convinced you that what you were seeing was the real thing. After BIG, Hanks had about ten more years before he sort of ossified. SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE is about the limit of his charm for me. I quit going to see him after that.

Elizabeth Perkins has the unenviable job of convincing us that she is in love with a big child and she pulls it off. She has worked about as much as Hanks since then; but with a lot less attention paid to her; and I am sure, less money.

We also see Robert Loggia in a smallish but important part as big Josh' boss. You can still see the boy inside Loggia. He didn't lose it in his long career. He has 108 productions (film and tv) listed in IMDb and is still working at 73. I still love to watch him.

This is not one of the NYT 1000 Best/20thC but we gave it a 4 out of 5 on the Netflix rating chart.