The Big Year
Tags: bleak

Plot synopsis:
The film follows three seasoned birders who each set out to achieve a Big Year. They are Brad Harris (Jack Black), a 36-year-old computer programmer based in Baltimore; Stu Preissler (Steve Martin), founder and CEO of a New York company bearing his name; and a roofing contractor named Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson), who holds the current Big Year record of 732 birds.
Bostick is obsessively possessive of his record, but his third wife Jessica (Rosamund Pike) is concerned; this was supposed to be the year they focused on conceiving a child. She also believes that Bostick's birding obsession is what destroyed his previous marriage.
Brad is a skilled birder who can identify nearly any species solely by sound. He hates his job maintaining the operational software of a nuclear power plant in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. Living with his parents after a failed marriage, an aborted career at Dell, and dropping out of grad school, he is a "typical Jack Black underachiever". He hopes that doing a Big Year will give him a sense of purpose and possibly even make his father proud of him.
Stu is the founder and CEO of an enormous Manhattan-based chemical conglomerate which he built from the ground up, starting in his garage. After decades of corporate success, he is ready to retire to Colorado with his architect wife. Fear of an empty schedule led him to come back from a previous retirement, but now he wants to leave his company in the hands of his two lieutenants (Kevin Pollak and Joel McHale). The company is in the middle of complicated negotiations to merge with a competitor, so his two anointed successors keep calling him back to New York for important meetings; to some extent he is a prisoner of his own success. A Big Year has been his lifelong dream and he's pursuing it with the full support of his wife.
The movie portrays various incidents that take place while the trio compete with each other to achieve the world record of sighting the highest number of birds during the Big Year event.
All three birders are coming to understand the cost of their birding obsessions. The Big Year will result in Brad developing a new bond with his parents, and makes Stu's bond with his family even better. On the other hand, Bostick's third marriage will also be on its way to break.
Bostick races home from yet another birding trip to keep an important appointment with his wife at a fertility clinic. He is literally at the front door of the clinic when he receives a report of a sighting of a snowy owl, his most coveted and elusive bird. Despite the fact that his wife is waiting inside to have her eggs harvested, fertilized and implanted after undergoing months of hormone injections, he speeds back to the airport and phones in an obviously made-up excuse for his absence. His wife returns alone to their big house, and screams in frustration inside the empty nursery. When Bostick finally returns home after the fruitless search for the snowy owl, she tells him she still loves him but can't be his wife anymore.
As the year draws to a close, Stu enjoys his newborn grandson; Brad finds a new relationship with fellow birder Ellie who had just broken up with her boyfriend; and Bostick finally finds the snowy owl that eluded him for a long time, however his obsession of being the best birder in the world cost him his marriage.
At the end of the Big Year, Stu and Brad are very close friends. Stu is now happily retired and Brad is happy man with his new girlfriend Ellie who also has an interest in birding. Stu and Brad congratulate each other on "a very big year", after each sighting 700+ bird species that year.
The Big Year results are published and Stu phones Brad with the news. Bostick is first with 755, a new record; Brad comes in second; Stu is fourth. Brad opines that he got more birds, "but we got more everything," as he looks at Ellie, who has come for a weekend visit. Stu smiles, looking at his wife.
The film ends with Brad and Ellie cozily birding together on a rocky coastline, while Brad confesses that birding is no longer the biggest part of his life. Stu, contented in retirement, is hiking with his toddler grandson (already enamored by birds) in the Rockies. Bostick is on a birding adventure in China, alone and gazing wistfully at a happy couple walking with their newborn child.

Review: They seem to give high ratings to mindless movies and fail to appreciate the good ones.The Big Year is a beautiful drama-comedy picture, starring 4 of my favorite comedians - Steve Martin, Jack Black, Owen Wilson and Jim Parsons.
With the lead cast consisting of Owen Wilson, Steve Martin and Jack Black, you would think The Big Year will be just another slapstick comedy with little to no story and cheap laughs.
Three men of different ages cross paths in their interest for birding; spotting as many birds as one can in one year.But the film isn't really about "birding", it shows us life through three different views and the challenges life can bring and the choices that everyone has to make.The Big Year is not a movie you will sit through laughing out loud, but you will be smiling for the better part of the 100 minutes.One of the most underrated movies of 2011, The Big Year suffered from lack of promotion and a misleading poster and trailer.Do yourself a favor, and watch this, you will not regret it!.
Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson all do a great job as lead actors and come across as real bird lovers.The settings are incredible - taking viewers from Attu Island in the Aleutians to Brownsville, Texas, and everywhere in between.
Several supporting actors providing some funny moments with their hatred of Owen.Overall, Big Year is a funny and heart-warming movie that will make you think about your own priorities and dreams...and maybe grab some binoculars and search out some birds..
Those unfamiliar with the book or the movie's plot line, a "big year" refers to an informal competition in which birders try to see the most bird species they can within North America (North of Mexico) in one year.My concerns were put to rest within the first 5 minutes.
The Big Year's low IMDb rating and box-office take had me worried that this film would be a "lame-duck." Turns out, this movie is really good.I am not a "birder" and know very little about birds other than what I find on a typical restaurant menu.
Take a look on Wikipedia, a big year is real thing in the ornithology world, and there is a world record holder with 745!So if you like this film, write a review and let's get the rating up closer to what it truly deserves..
To start things off, this is a story about three talented birders - one young hotshot (Owen Wilson), one budding hotshot (Jack Black), and one old guy (Steve Martin) - competing against one another to see who can list the most birds in North America in one calendar year.
Also, you can form alliances and team up with others along the way if your goal is to stop the top dog, the favorite expected to tally the most birds in the end.But overall, a big year is not all that unlike it was portrayed in the film making allowances for Hollywood invention, etc.
I liked that the film delved into this a bit, as each actor seemed fairly believable as a competitive birder, with enough scheming and conniving behavior thrown in to give you a feel for what a big year can really be like.And now on to the movie from a scientific point of view: I'd rate the scientific accuracy of the birding lore here fairly highly at times.
In fact we watched it primarily to see just how bad it was...This is one of those movies that is not only way outside the usual subject matter, but has that rare and fantastic ability to take what many consider to be a "boring" topic and make it interesting.Outstanding writing, performing and camera work result in a gift-wrapped surprise that actually - I can't believe I'm saying this about bird-watching - had us on the edge of our seats.I have to mention that I hated most of Steve Martins earlier stuff, but he definitely seems to be one of those actors who is getting better and better with age and I'm almost sorry that he spent so much of his acting career playing the fool, because he really shines in more serious performances.
'THE BIG YEAR': Three Stars (Out of Five) Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson star in this bird watching comedy based on the book 'The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession' by Mark Obmascik.
It's not as much of a laugh riot as you might expect coming from the combination of the three big time comedy stars and it's surprisingly clean and lightweight (coming from the three big time comedy stars) but it is much better than the reviews and box office might lead you to believe.The story is narrated by Brad Harris (Black) as he tells how he followed his dreams, despite lacking much money, and competed in a 'big year' to surprising results, in large part due to the other skilled birders he met along the way: Kenny Bostick (Wilson) and Stu Preissler (Martin).
If I told you there was a film with Steve Martin, Jack Black, John Cleese, and Owen Wilson, odds are good that you'd expect a film which afforded you an abundance of laughs.
The movie manages to get you submerged into the race between the competitors in the birding competition, and when they do manage to catch a glimpse of that rare bird, you feel like you are right there with them."The Big Year" is actually holds one of Jack Black's best performances, proving that he is more than just your average standard comedian actor.
And the on-screen chemistry between Martin, Wilson and Black is really working quite well."The Big Year" is a movie full of beautiful shots of nature, scenery, and of course, birds.
I want to lose any sense of sequential time by focusing on the timeless beauty of a bird in flight."The Big Year" didn't succeed for me as a movie or as a treatment of birdwatching.
Where do I begin......This movie has Steve Martin (one of the comedy greats in my mind), Owen Wilson, and Jack Black.
Pros: Big Names Scenic shotsCons: Not Funny Waste Of My Time I Want My Life Back Seriously I can't Believe I Watched This Horrible Script Horrible Story Bad Acting From Big Names Who Thought This Movie Would Be A Good Idea HOW DID THEY GET THESE ACTORS?!
Surprisingly because, although the cast is a very talented one, the bird-watching subject is interesting and comedy dramas are enjoyable when done right, the trailer wasn't particularly very promising and there were the worries of whether anything interesting would be made regarding bird-watching, whether the cast would be well-used and the dangers of the comedy forgetting to be funny or the drama to be too sentimental or both.The Big Year is not a perfect film, with the odd predictable part, some pedestrian pacing and for personal tastes some of the historical montage narration was a little irritating and not always necessary despite it being well-delivered by John Cleese.
I think this flick is the best Jack Black since King Kong and The Pick of Destiny.Owen Wilson in his movies mostly a devil may care emo-boy, but in this flick he shows us he actually can act and portrays struggling, developing characters.
Of course, "The Big Year" uses birdwatching as a conduit for looking at the lives of the main characters: executive Stu Preissler (Steve Martin), computer programmer Brad Harris (Jack Black) and birding champion Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson) spend a lot of time trying to see how many avians they can spot, but they haven't spent anywhere near enough time trying to bring their relationships with people to the fullest potential.The movie makes the right choice by developing the characters.
However, if you do it for a year than it's an actual bird watching competition known as "The Big Year", and of course, everyone denies they're doing a "Big Year".To sum it up real quick, it's about Jack Black teaming up with Steve Martin (who both play the protagonists) to beat the high score and reigning/defending champion of 737 birds, Owen Wilson, who is the antagonist in this movie.
I was surprised to see such a good/highly respected cast in a this movie as well; I mean Jack Black, Steve Martin, Owen Wilson, Kevin Pollak, etc.
Mind you, I usually steer clear of movies starring Jack black as he rarely does good, clean films (with a few exceptions like Kung-Fu panda and School of rock which I loved by the way) but this one is a good, wholesome comedy for the whole family to enjoy.
The actors, the audience, and the characters.As others have written, this is not your typical Jack Black, Steve Martin or Owen Wilson movie, although Owen Wilson doesn't stray far from some of his other characters.The romantic interest (Rashida Jones) was delightful, and (not having read the book) I thought that she was secretly going for a Big Year herself, so the plot was twisted in my mind to that effect (not a bad thing).
It also was a treat for the eyes as these "birders" go all over America looking for different species.The three male leads - Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson - all do a fine job and their characters are totally different even though they have the same objective - become the man who finds the most different birds within a one-year span.
Instead he creates a 'safe bet,' a film which is guaranteed to entertain during the brief moments which do contain some semblance of excitement and humour, whilst also refraining from being offensive in any manner whatsoever, but this results in a film which will fails to suitably engage a mass audience for its one hour and forty minutes running time.'The Big Year' follows a poor, young, yet aspirational birder in Brad Harris (Jack Black), who also serves as the films narrator, and a retired former-CEO named Stu Preissler (Steve Martin) who wants to leave his world of work behind him once and for all (he's attempted retirement before) and actually enjoy the finer points in life for once.
Despite an insurmountable mountain of wealth at his fingertips, he instead opts to drive, pillage and work toward his birding conquest by himself and along the way he meets the determined Brad as they strike a friendship up over their common love for the feathery creatures.Alongside their story, there is also Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson) who holds the Big Year record, once a contractor, he decided to turn his efforts toward his childhood hobby of bird watching, and his hard-work eventually paid off as he became the most recognised birder in the world, but this wasn't without consequence.
Fast forward a few years later and now Bostick is attempting to settle down with his new wife Jessica (Rosamund Pike), but when January 1st rolls around again he can't shake the fact that somebody may be attempting to break his record and he sets out once again to complete yet another Big Year and in the process he places yet another marriage on the slippery black rocks of potential divorce-hood as he must carefully navigate a tight-rope between his hobby and his future.The picture opens with on-screen titles stating that this is a true story, except for the fact that all the facts have been changed in this adaptation of Mark Obmascik's book, a relatively subtle and mild-mannered joke which sets the tone for the rest of the movie, the key word here being: mild.
The Big Year is on the surface a well-judged comedy with Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson, which does make it pretty sellable.
All in all this mix makes for a beautiful gentle film that is easy watching.I'm giving this a 9 because even though there are smarter comedies out there, and there are comedies that'll make you laugh more, I can't think of another in the past 12 months that was just this sincere and good natured, and that's a rare bird indeed.....
"I wanted to be the greatest birder in the world." Stu (Martin), Brad (Black), and defending champion Bostick (Wilson) have all decided to the the "Big Year" (a year long competitive bird watching event).
A movie about bird watching with Jack Black (I have never been a big fan of his) did not sound appealing to me.
(he takes it up the way some guys take up golf) The film is basically these 3 guys (all of whom are on a quest to see who can see the most species of birds in one calender year) bouncing off each other and trying to find a balance of happiness that allows them to live their lives and indulge in their birdwatching (which means being able to leave on an airplane or a bus for somewhere where there's a rare bird sighting at the drop of a hat) I liked that the film doesn't force happiness on its 3 characters--they're all allowed to take their time to achieve (or not) the kind of happiness that they've been looking for their whole lives---all 3 are finally giving in to their passions and doing what they love most in the world and the happiness that they feel while driving themselves crazy trying to shoehorn in their commitments to their various loved ones or jobs feels quite real.
(if you think about it--he is being with his love interest--he clearly has more of an interest in being the best birdwatcher--but no the screenplay has to stick him with a girlfriend so that the audience won't hate him either.) Jack Black or Steve Martin don't get that kind of guff for choosing to follow birds but only because they're seen as committed to their real world commitments such as trying to hold on to their jobs or wives (in Black's case it would be trying to gain his parent's approval by finally doing something and sticking with it.) I understand that the film is trying to have a "bad guy" so that there will be some sort of conflict for the 3 men to engage in throughout the film (so that its not just endless scenes of the 3 guys flying from place to place trying to see birds) but even if Owen Wilson's character is prone to lies and playing dirty tricks on the 2 other men so that he can remain the world's record holder for most birds spotted in a single year by a bird-watcher...i didn't think the writer or director was right to judge him as not as good a person as the other 2 guys for that.
Story of 3 birders, Kenny, being obsessed with his love for birds and record making, wants to be the best, Stew a successful businessmen seeking retirement and wants to do a big year and the last one, Brad who is stuck with his mediocre job, how they travel all across America and do the big year and try to make a world record, this movie is just brilliant, at the starting it was a bit slow, that is just my view, it may differ and i thought i would not be what i expected but it turns out to be a great movie, its something different, the movie speaks for itself, its very unique, very catchy, its something that you would have seen before, believe me, very inspirational, it is a beautifully directed movie, it deserves a rating of at least 8 stars out of 10, must watch, teaches us the importance of family, believe me at the end its worth it...
But having said that, I'm still glad they went for a comedic approach of film-making, since it suits its premise and also obviously all of the actors who are in it.Owen Wilson, Jack Black and Steve Martin are all 3 comedic actors, who are all surprising good in their roles.
The only thing more surprising than there being a movie made about competitive bird watching (birding) is the cast the filmmakers assembled for it -- Jack Black, Steve Martin and Owen Wilson!
Steve Martin, Owen Wilson and Jack Black give great performances and between them make this a wonderful film.
Before I delve into the actual film contents I just want to say that I recognize Jack Black (Brad Harris), Steve Martin (Stu Preissler) and Owen Wilson (Kenny Bostick) as exceptional actors.
This film starts out with Brad Harris (Jack Black), Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson) and Stu Preissler (Steve Martin).
The acting from Owen Wilson and Steve Martin were great, but I felt like Jack Black had a hard time fitting into his character.
All aspects of the movie were interesting from the leads combo (Jack Black, Steve Martin, and Owen Wilson!!!) to the whole premise (A birding competition?
They want to win who saw the most birds prize at the end of the year.The best thing about this movie is the lovely scenes, the birds, the mountains and the love and kindness you feel from Jack Black, also the love, kindness and support Steve Martin gets from his family as he goes on trips with the two other birders, Jack Black and Owen Wilson.The two points I did not like a lot one was in the beginning.
Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson), Stu Preissler (Steve Martin), and Brad Harris (Jack Black) are all bird watchers hoping to break the record for most different species spotted in one year.
I thought that the movie would be better because of the characters featured in it like, Jack Black, Steve Martin, And Owen Wilson who are all really funny but I wouldn't have expected them to be in a movie about "Birders".
It had a good story line but it wasn't something i was really interested in and i never knew how seriously people took bird watching and had no idea there was even a Big Year.