Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Hottoceame The Age of Commercialism

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

claudecat I love Tom Waits' music, I think he himself is a very interesting personality, and I saw this at the height of my interest in him, back when it came out in theaters. Yet I actually thought there was too much Waits in this movie. The director seemed in love with Tom, to the point where I felt like all the other band members were ignored. I didn't think Tom's "character" was developed particularly well--nothing very interesting happened with it. So the film was, to me, an unhappy cross between a straight concert film and a fictional story with characters. If they were going to go with a fictional story, and have Tom play someone other than himself, I think they should have taken it much further.

MisterWhiplash Tom Waits is one of those handful that, to my possibly limited knowledge, appears to be a complete original; this doesn't mean he just sprang out of thin air (although it's not an explanation totally out of reason), but that whatever influences he's taken in- the Beats, Bob Dylan, Cole Porter, gypsy and blues and jazz and rockabilly- one can't distinguish really between one or the other. Like Kubrick or Hunter S. Thompson or Dostoyevsky, there's a totally distinct voice and creative force at work when looking at what they can deliver, and Big Time is an extremely welcome treat for those who are enthusiasts of the Waits's work, especially his 80's renaissance period. If you're new to Waits it's not exactly deterring as a feat to experience it, but it will be somewhat perplexing and bewildering and just flat out bizarre as a concert movie. For Waits fans, it's business as usual- or unusual as it happens.The method to the director Chris Helm's madness is to form a loose narrative around the concert Waits is performing in LA: there is a 'character', or one or two or three, that are watching or listening to this concert either from bed on New Year's Eve or from a ticket booth or from the heights of the top of an auditorium working the lights. This doesn't come off as possibly hackneyed or artsy as it might sound, on the contrary it works brilliantly into the stream-of-consciousness head-trip that the Waits concert is anyway (at one point, I believe during 'Innocent When You Dream', he sings while standing in a bathtub). And on top of this, the art direction, the cinematography and lighting, the stage set-up, everything about it blows the senses as complimentary fixtures amid the wild and sad and funny and quixotic stories Waits lays down in his songs.And the performance - this is key to how astonishing Big Time is. For everything that you think you might imagine Waits and his band do on the albums (in this case much, if not all, of the material comes from Frank's Wild Years, Swordfishtrombones, and very happily as a big-big fan Rain Dogs), Waits and his great-eclectic band accomplish, and no song sounds quite the same as on the album either, which is also a treat. Classic numbers like 'Rain Dogs', 'Gun Street Girl', 'Way Down' and 'Time' are performed with an immense heart and soul and bravura that maybe isn't as surprising for those who may have had the luck of seeing Waits live in concert. But the best news for fans, and for newcomers, is that Big Time captures what it's like, and of what those dark and sinister worlds are in the songs and even in Waits's own mind. It's like entering some sacred netherworld with Waits as tour guide and ringmaster and occasional joke teller amid his poetry (my favorite is his "oft-asked question" and answer involving if pregnancy is possible without intercourse!) A+

morrisonm-1 This movie is perfect for those who have an appreciation of the artistry of Tom Waits, or who can say with some degree of honesty that they watch and enjoy movies on the IFC channel. I would not recommend this movie however to those who are unfamiliar with his work. The combination of his visual imagery and unique sound is likely to be too much for the uninitiated. You should be comfortable with his music before watching Big Time. This warning of course does not include IFC watchers who can handle just about any degree of weirdness. The movie itself is a series of vignettes very loosely tied together, with Tom as the central character. Each includes or at least introduces one or two songs and a monologue. The vignettes include portions of concert shows but all are set within the environs of a rather seedy theatre, including such areas as the loge, the bathroom and the ticket booth. It is a great treat to see Tom Waits performing live. If you are familiar with and enjoy his music you will surely enjoy this movie. Turn the sound down and you will quickly realize that the visual aspect of the performance is structured much as his music is. The result is a wild agglomeration of disparate elements that cuts to the quick but delivers a soul satisfying experience.

johatz There is a brilliance in the seemingly unintentional fluidity of the music is Waits' power. It is theatrically awful, in the sense that it includes music that is interesting in its ferocity and its failures but also exists as a remodeling of what is tangible about consciously produced sound. It is music, undeniably, it is watching MTV in the mid eighties through a dirty window in a smoke filled room with an obese man dancing and singing along. It is an event, a living process and a benevolent cultural tumor. See it. Allow it. Learn.I grew aware of a certain truth that is unrelated to reality. The truth of a person. Tom Waits is an instrument of himself. He has fashioned a persona that is so real, and simultaneously so fantastical that it cannot be fraudulent. His presence is haunting, human entirely aware and yet still skewed. His music is that of perspectives. Each note, of each strange instrument carries its own voice. The collective whole does not then become an singly integrated piece but a turbulent chorus of voices and desires. It's as though the instruments are arguing about which direction they are going and in their argument become the songs, the melodies, as though they had no intention of doing so but happened to. There is no good excuse that his music has not prevented trifling, logical and in-specific pop music. I blame myself.