Oh, What Big Eyes You Have!

We saw the movie BIG EYES this weekend.  It was a Tim Burton movie and because of that I thought it would be great.   When I saw it, I thought  it wasn't all that great.  I think the reason we were not impressed with it so much because we did not have the element of surprise.  We knew what would be the "capper" .  We heard and read too many interviews about the movie.

But in case you do not know how it ended I will not ruin it for you.  It might help you like it better.

However, I have to say, that Tim Burton was out of his element; he is famous for making supernatural movies such as EDWARD SCISSOR HANDS and animated features such as THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS and other dark movies such as BATMAN RETURNS or  THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW.  This movie was on the sunny side, sort of.

As far as I know it is a factual story about the artist couple Walter  and Margaret Keane.

Now, to my own personal eyewitness of the BIG EYE paintings:

When I was in the Navy stationed in Lakehurst, New Jersey, we frequently went to New York City, and without fail went to Greenwich Village.  Some time or another, in an art gallery window was some paintings or prints of the BIG EYED sad little children by "Keane"  I was impressed by the sad feelings the pictures stimulated.  Then, about every time we went to the Village I saw more BIG EYES by "Keane" in the galleries windows.  The popularity grew and grew.  The pictures were selling like hotcakes.

This was in the year 1963-65 when we there often.  And that was about the time period the movie took place.   A big murel of Keane's BIG EYES was to be at the New York City World's Fair in 1965, but something went wrong.  See the picture and find what.

I thought it would be funny if at the end some old irate customer demanded his money back because he thought the name of it was "BIG ASS".