When you were 12, did you ever wish you were bigger? And did you also ever wish to make your mom think you got kidnapped and that a 30-something brash woman with smoker's breath would have sex with you while also pretending to be your new mommy? If so, then the 1988 Penny Marshall movie "Big" starring Tom Hanks is right up your alley.
Sure, the sickly sweet score, oversized piano dancing, cushy job at a toy company, and silly-string fights make this film feel like a light-hearted age-swap romp, but when you actually look at what this movie is about, it feels more like a horror movie.
Hanks plays Josh Baskin, a kid who made a wish on a racist fortune teller machine and then aged about 20 years overnight. He's obsessed with little kid toys even though he's weeks away from turning 13, and he doesn't seem to mind pretending to be his own kidnapper to his distraught mother faster than he can say, "I'm technically getting molested by my co-worker!"
Elizabeth Perkins plays Susan Lawrence, Josh's said jaded, workaholic, man-eating, 30-something co-worker who falls for a man with the mind of a 12-year-old boy and doesn't seem all that fazed when she finds out he actually is 12 years old.
Robert Loggia plays Mr. MacMillan, the aloof owner of the toy company Josh quickly climbs the ladder of, whose entire character is to pretend that every innocent and dumb thing that comes out of Josh's mouth is somehow insightful and refreshing even when they're not.
To round out the cast, we have John Heard (the dad from "Home Alone") as Hank's one-sided rival, Mercedes Ruehl as Josh's super sad mother, and Jared Rushton (one of the shrunken kids in "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids") as Josh's wily best friend, Billy Kopecki.
Join us discuss all the 26 minutes of weird scenes that were added to the "extended cut" of this movie, wonder why the police don't seem to care much that the young Josh is missing, and question how Tom Hanks' version of Josh is able to get a bank account and rent an expensive apartment without even knowing his own social security number.
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This episode is sponsored by Negative Footprint.
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