What a lovely gift our screenwriting teacher gave us tonight. “I know this is a difficult time in your writing,” he said (and goddamn, it is). “So I’ve arranged a treat.”

And what a treat it was: We walked as a group down to the Michigan Theater, where we were among the first souls in the country to see “Big Fish,” Tim Burton’s adaptation of Daniel Wallace’s novel.

Since we’re stipulating tonight, let’s stipulate two things:

1) I hate Tim Burton movies, as a rule.

2) I loved “Big Fish.”

Since I’ve been paying more attention to movies this term, I’ve come closer to Sean Penn’s way of thinking, that movies should be experienced free of as many outside opinions as possible. I can’t do that — when the baby-sitting surcharge can drive a night at the movies into the $50 range for two people, you need to have some idea if this’ll be worth your time and money — but I see his point. I’m so glad I saw this movie knowing hardly anything about it.

So I won’t spoil it for you, other than to say it’s about fathers and sons and death and love and reconciliation and magic and mostly about the fish stories we tell one another.

My friend Jones says he wants to see me describe a movie as “A triumph!” somewhere on this site. OK:

“A triumph!” — Nall, NN.C