Big Time
              
Director: Chris Blum
Year: 1988
Rating: 7.0
Tom Waits is a national treasure. He should be our Poet Laureate. Frost and Warren were great but Waits speaks to the real world. None of this fences and the road not taken. He talks about winos, broken bottles and broken faith. His music is a mix of blues, jazz and despair. With a voice that sounds like it has never slept and has spent much of its life in a smoky gin joint where the music was loud and the conversations louder. Where men huddled with women and didn't have enough money left to take a taxi home. He grew up in a middle-class family in California but somewhere along the line he fell into Steinbeck's Cannery Row and slipped into a 1940s black and white noir murder mystery with femme fatales and gunsels on every corner. He is a modern troubadour, spinning stories, creating characters who have less of a future than the Edsel and women who love all the wrong men and never find redemption.



His voice takes some getting used to like eating raw onions. My girlfriend walked by as I was watching this and wondered if he was ok. I said that's how he sings and then she wondered if something was wrong with me. Well, I am in fact tone deaf and in college was told to drop out of a Music Appreciation class by the professor. Maybe that is why I love Leonard Cohen, Dylan and Waits. This film is a performance of sorts by Waits for 80-minutes. Mainly his singing in concert but very theatrical and little snips shot for the camera to throw in. I wasn't familiar with these songs - I loved his first three albums but have not stayed up with him. This is great if Waits is to your taste. I asked my gf to sit down and watch and she froze me in place with one look that said no, thanks. I would rather pound my head against the wall. It would be less painful.