Movie Review: The Big Year

If there is one movie about the not-so-obscure hobby of birding (there are 48 million of us and counting...) you have to see this fall, The Big Year, starring Steve Martin, Owen Wilson and Jack Black, is just that movie. Actually it's the only movie about birding this fall.  Actually it's the only movie about birding ever. Which might make it my favorite movie ever. Full disclosure, I do have a life list, I do have a bird feeder, I do own a pair of binoculars and at least 8 bird books.

Take this review with a grain of birdseed.

Birding (not "birdwatching" - careful using that one around serious birders), is an activity in which the birder goes to parks, shorelines and forests in search of new birds for their life list.

And I must say, going to see The Big Year felt an awful lot like my personal experiences with birding.

I was alone, the youngest one in the theater by a good 40 years, found myself chatting excitedly with retirees. These were my people!  The film gave me a lot to crow about. An adaptation of a true story from the book The Big Year by Mark Obmascik, the movie was a solid, heartwarming comedy about three guys trying to see as many birds in North America in one year as possible. Cue gorgeous sweeping shots of Alaska, Wyoming, Oregon and Arizona. Cue cozy family moments when the birding trio find themselves occasionally back in the nest. Cue hilarious bird references.

Pink-footed goose!  Blue-footed booby!  Snowcock!

There were also a few moments when the movie gave the birding viewer a secret nod.  Phoebe's restaurant? Clever. While the film was everything a birder could want, it wasn't a hilarious, slap-stick, witty jaunt around the county, and in general reviews are tepid. But I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion (I mean, who hasn't missed that last flight to a remote Aleutian island?), and tearing up at the end when Jack Black compares himself to the American Golden-Plover. It was a nice movie, exposing the migration of a real group of people who spend their days traveling, listing and searching for that next rare bird.

THE BIG YEAR
RATED | PG
OPENS | 10.14.11