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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1980s
    Movies - 1980s Movies - B 3 Mins Read

    Big (1988)

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    Josh Baskin (David Moscow) is a 12-year-old New Jersey kid, madly in puppy love with an older blonde girl.

    Josh and his best friend Billy head for a local carnival, where right in front of his blonde goddess and a crowd of older kids, Josh is refused admission to the ‘Super Loops’Β carnival ride because he’s too little.

    big_004Humiliated, Josh tries the “Zoltar Speaks” machine, which offers him one wish. He wishes he were big.Β The next morning, Josh wakes upΒ –Β in the grown-up 30-year-old body of Tom Hanks – to find his wish has come true.

    Naturally, Josh’s mother doesn’t believe this grown man is her son (thinking her grown son is actually her son’s kidnapper) and Josh is forced to run from home screaming.

    Billy does believe him and convinces Josh to head for New York City, where big people go to play.

    The gravity of the situation doesn’t really hit him until he’s alone at St James’ Motel in a grubby $17.50 per night room with stains on the furniture and a chain across the door.

    Suddenly he is by himself with nothing but the sounds of his neighbour screaming down the phone on the other side of the wall and gunshots coming from the street below for company.

    Josh suits himself up and scores a data entry job at the MacMillan Toy Company, but after a kid-to-kid-at-heart bonding session with company owner Mac MacMillan (Robert Loggia) – in the famous sequence where the duo play ChopsticksΒ andΒ Heart and Soul with their feet on a giant three-octave floor piano in FAO Schwartz – the man-boy is promoted to Vice President in charge of Product Development.

    Now with a beefy paycheque,Β he soon moves into a gorgeous Manhattan penthouse apartment, complete with a pinball machine, bunk beds and giant indoor trampoline.

    Fellow exec Paul (John Heard) doesn’t like the new guy, but Susan (Elizabeth Perkins) slowly warms up to Josh’s innocent charms. From an adult perspective, things look pretty rosy for big Josh, but Josh doesn’t see things from an adult perspective.

    Being big has its advantages, but after just six weeks of being an adult, Josh just wants to be himself again.

    Big‘s sweet, childlike nature won over audiences young and old, who made the film one of the biggest hits of the year. The movie also helped turn Tom Hanks – who received his first nomination for an Academy Award for his performance – from the gifted goof of SplashΒ (1984)Β and TV’sΒ Bosom BuddiesΒ into one of the biggest leading men in Hollywood.

    Josh Baskin
    Tom Hanks
    Susan

    Elizabeth Perkins
    Paul

    John Heard
    Billy

    Jared Rushton
    MacMillan

    Robert Loggia
    Scott Brenner

    Jon Lovitz
    Young Josh Baskin

    David Moscow

    Director
    Penny Marshall

    Video

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