#52 - The Big Year (C+)

Well - I think you need to be an amateur birder to enjoy this??  I definitely appreciated this movie, as in 100% understand and love what they were trying to portray...but sadly I'm not sure anyone else in the theatre tonight enjoyed it.  For if you aren't a birder, or don't know a birder, I have a feeling you won't dig this movie.  The bird part was really close to home for me and honestly going into the flick, I didn't realize this was what it was going to be about.  

I did note a few mistakes....Jack Black's first sighting of birds, his #1 on his big year, was him looking at gulls and a few other smaller shore birds (aka, like 3 birds) and he only counted 1.  So, mistake!

Anyway, this cast was huge - Owen Wilson, Jackus Blackus, and Steve Martin (as well as Kevin Pollack, Anjelica Houston, etc.) - but the movie wasn't funny.  That is my big take home message.  So if it's not funny, and it's about birds, I have a feeling this movie is going to fail pretty badly.  Sad too...because the topic is so cool to me and close to my heart.  It wouldn't have taken much for them to make it funny to be honest.

I wish Rashida Jones was in this movie more as well.

There were times (mostly on the Auklet, which my mom told me was a play on Debbie Shearwater) where they were naming off birds so fast and so muddled that I couldn't even hear what they were saying nor understand the bird they were calling.

Non movie side note: on 10/3 of this year I went birding in Boerne, TX and saw 5 new life birds (Great Tailed Grackle, Tennessee Warbler, Lincoln's Sparrow, Black Crested Titmouse, and Olive-Sided Flycatcher).  Also this past weekend I saw 1 more life bird in my back yard - in the woods near my house (Yellow-Bellied Flycatcher).   My total is now 240.  A good couple of days.  If I play my cards right, I might be able to add two owl species as well.  My wife said she heard a Barred Owl the other day off our deck and I've heard the Eastern Screech.  Went hunting for them the other day and will continue to do so as the leaves fall....