Cast Away (2000)

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Cast: Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, Nick Searcy, Chris Noth

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, boy. How much time do you have? I’m reasonably sure I saw it three times in the theater. I can remember so clearly being at my first job—sacking groceries for a now defunct purveyor of “fine” foods—being told that they had over-scheduled for the shift and needed someone to clock out. They had barely gotten the sentence out by the time I was already walking to my car, and heading to screening #2*.

And yet, for some reason, I have not seen it in… I don’t know how long. I’m going to guess its been about twenty years.

Did I Like It: I spent so much time writing about my experiences with watching the film in the far flung past, what more is there to say? It’s a rather brilliant way to make a movie, leaning into the central problem of trying to depict a man stranded on an island and just make two separate shoots out of the thing. Can any other actor hold a film all by himself for as long as Hanks does here? Everything is working to the film’s favor.

Some might complain about an ending that tries to put a bow on everything, but I couldn’t disagree more. The real movie for me starts when Noland (Hanks) gets back to the civilized world. He had to be so terrified that he would only make things worse by trying to leave the island once it became even remotely possible. And when he returns, the reality of the situation is not all he imagined (or had to imagine) it to be. But then he is free to live any kind of life he might imagine in that final moment. Leaving the island paid off. Some might say he goes immediately back to the angel wing girl (Lari White) and that puts too much of a bow on things. I think he might do that. But the point is he can do whatever he wants.

*I said once recently that “leaving work early to go see a movie” is my love language, and it not only goes back that far. I was not-yet six and my first time seeing Back to the Future – Part III (1990) (something about Zemeckis films released in years ending in “0”, I guess… Don’t bring up The Witches (2020), please.) was probably the incident which wrinkled my brain in such a way, and I wasn’t even the one taking off of work for it.

The Terminal (2004)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Stanley Tucci, Chi McBride

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. One of those movies I saw during a summer in Fort Worth where I saw everything, mainly because what else does one do in Fort Worth*.

Did I Like It: I seem to remember in my recent review of 1941 (1979) that I wonder what Spielberg’s career might have become if he his first comedy had been either funny or a hit. It took him the better part of twenty years to come back around to it, but he found the right combination to try again. Sure, one might argue that Always (1989) and Catch Me If You Can (2002)** are comedies, but neither is played largely for laughs.

Harnessing the pure charm which made Frank Capra’s films work, Spielberg finds the right tone. And by that pure charm, I mean having Jimmy Stewart in the film is that right combination. Given that Stewart died in 1997, putting Tom Hanks to work got the same effect done.

That all sounds like I might be denigrating the movie with some faint praise, but Spielberg utilizes some real craft to make such a gentle film feel like it is effortless. Coordinating the large set—what? airports weren’t wild about film companies shooting in their international terminals a couple years after 9/11?—to make it always seem interesting and almost never forces me to focus on just how much a multi-story Borders Bookstore ages the whole thing is something more people should be analyzing to death.

*This doesn’t even try to cover all the other summers where I committed to see anything and everything that came out. Maybe there just isn’t anything to do in Texas or Oklahoma.

**Looking over the filmography Spielberg made both Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) and Minority Report (2002) in the same year as each of those examples. The man may not be human.

That Thing You Do! (1996)

Director: Tom Hanks

Cast: Tom Everett Scott, Liv Tyler, Johnathon Scheach, Tom Hanks

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure. I was alive in 1996. In that far flung land of long ago, we welcomed that little ditty, as it saved us—or at least freed us—from months of vagaries at the hands of “Macarena.”

Did I Like It: There’s a number of things I’d like to talk about with Tom Hanks if we were in a private conversation. What typewriter is best? Who is the best character on For All Mankind* and why is it Molly Cobb? Was he ever really hovering around the Zefram Cochrane role in Star Trek: First Contact (1996)?

Also, the big question I would have for him, before I would annoy him in a Chris Farley show-like spiral: Did he write this movie for himself years earlier for him to play Guy? Because Scott is really channeling that pre-Philadelphia, post-Bosom Buddies Tom Hanks energy. Maybe it’s the kind of movie you only get to make after you’ve won two Best Actor Oscars in a row, but it is so breezily charming, that it becomes a perfect distillation of the movie star persona behind it.

But that’s all it is: likable. Maybe it doesn’t need to be anything more than that, but maybe the bigger question is whether or not Hanks really wanted to direct movies, or just saw the opportunity to try it on for size. Some stars like Eastwood and Redford started directing and never looked back. Shatner only did it only because Nimoy got to. Hanks is somewhere in the middle.

But damn if that song isn’t catchy as hell. I’d like to see Eastwood try to write a hit. No, on second thought, I’ve seen Paint Your Wagon (1969). No, I don’t. Everybody is doing exactly what they are supposed to.

*Don’t tell me he doesn’t watch…

Asteroid City (2023)

Director: Wes Anderson

Cast: Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: Anderson’s movies remain triumphs of immaculate art direction. The juxtaposition between the televised examination of the play we never quite see and the delightful weirdness surrounding the alien which visits them both is a delight. There are plenty of absurd laughs to be had, and he has really tapped into grief in a way that he hasn’t really managed to tap into since The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). So, before I get into the large meat of this interview, please know that I enjoyed the film immensely. It’s worth catch, and worth catching in the theater, especially as it looks like it will show up on streaming by the time I finish typing this review.

And yet, for every element in his work that is just as strong as it ever was, I wonder if something hasn’t quite been lost over the years. His early films, especially Bottle Rocket (1996), and the aforementioned Tenenbaums had a certain quality about them as if Anderson were convinced the powers that be would take away his ability to make movies. Now there is a serenity to his films which only servers to keep me at an (admittedly negligible distance. The early films had the vibrant energy of a someone not sure if they were going to get away with what they wanted to do. Maybe he is just in a bit of a slump on this front, and I may be having a reaction to this and The French Dispatch (2021). Maybe as Anderson has aged and matured as an artist, it is unreasonable to expect him to hold on to that rebellious spirit.

Maybe he just needs to work with Owen Wilson again. I’m honestly not sure why they don’t write together anymore. And I really don't know why he isn’t in this film at all. Honestly, as I type this, that may be my only real complaint.

Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

Director: Nora Ephron

Cast: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Bill Pullman, Ross Malinger

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. Not as many times as You’ve Got Mail (1998), certainly, and I have to admit the moment that sticks in my head more completely than any others is the exchange about one of the letter writers is Sam’s (Hanks) third grade teacher, but that’s only because that scene is in The Cable Guy (1996), and I’ve seen that film quite a bit.

Did I Like It: Here’s a statement that I didn’t think I was going to write when I started rewatching the movie, but it is a conclusion I can’t escape:

Sleepless in Seattle is the Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) of romantic comedies.

Wait, don’t go. Let me explain.

This isn’t necessarily a measure of quality. Sleepless is fine, I have no complaints, but if we remember from earlier, I’m more of a You’ve Got Mail man, myself, and it isn’t just because of the typewriters, because there’s more than a little typewriter porn to be found here. It’s more of a measure of the film’s construction.

Much has been made of the chemistry between Ryan and Hanks. It made Mail one of my absolute favorites, and made Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) a mainstream movie and not one of the weirdest thing to get a wide release.

But they barely share a scene together in this film. They look at each other across a highway, and I wouldn’t be shocked if neither of them where on that stretch of road on the same day. They exchange a few words on the roof of the Empire State Building, and that’s the whole show. Just like Montalbán and Shatner in Khan, when you think about it. Maybe I’m the only one thinking about it. I can acknowledge that.

Apollo 13 (1995)

Director: Ron Howard

Cast: Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, Kathleen Quinlan

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. In fact, taking the movie in at 11 on VHS* feels like the first—or at least one of the first—movies meant for grown ups that really captured my imagination. It sent me into one of several periods over the last thirty years where I became obsessed with the space program, or at least that era before NASA decided to putter around in low Earth orbit for all eternity**.

Did I Like It: I’m smack dab in one of those periods where the Apollo program absolutely fascinates me. It’s entirely the fault of the Apple TV+ series For All Mankind, which has rapidly become one of my favorite television series ever. By its very nature, the show guarantees that we’re never going to know what’s going to happen at any given moment.

Even if I hadn’t already seen the movie several times over the years, I’d know exactly what happens by the end.

And yet, it is still thrilling. That may be partly because the story—without any Hollywood embellishments (of which there were few, judging by the Jim and Marilyn Lovell commentary track on the DVD—is just that thrilling. Everything that could have gone wrong on humanities third attempt to land on the moon did go wrong, and yet astronauts Lovell (Hanks), Haise (Paxton), and Swigert (Bacon) still return home at the end.

Also, and I really didn’t think this was going to be the case nearly thirty years after the film, but the special effects still work. The launch sequence is still insanely thrilling, and there isn’t even any inherent tension at that point in the film. The journey for the free-return trajectory to the moon depicts a lot of subtle details of the flight (chiefly debris from the explosion following the spacecraft through most of its arduous journey) that I honestly hadn’t noticed on previous viewings. Lora indicated one shot didn’t hold up as much as the others, where Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise) watches the launch. She was right, but it didn’t even occur to me until after we were done watching that the film might have any technical flaws at all.

*How did we ever live like such animals? It boggles the mind.

**I know we’re trying to get back into the actual exploration of space beyond our planet, but as I type this Artemis I failed it’s second launch attempt in half as many weeks, I’ll believe it when I see it.

You’ve Got Mail (1998)

Director: Nora Ephron

Cast: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Parker Posey, Greg Kinnear

Have I Seen it Before: Many, many times. Greg Kinnear’s character might have seeped into my brain a little bit.

Did I Like It: Remember when this movie was released and it seemed like it was a love story for the foreseeable future? Dial up connections, America On-Line, and the impenetrable power of the large bookstore chain.

Now, it’s possibly even more quaint than its ancestors The Shop Around the Corner (1940) and In the Good Old Summertime (1949). A subsequent, more current remake of the film would only work as a horror movie. Which now that I think about it, I need to go make a note in another document… The Greg Kinnear character can still use AOL if it makes everyone feel a sense of unearned of comfort.

On that note, I’m struggling to think of a film more designed to—and succeeds to—comfort from moment to moment. Hanks and Ryan—the end result of a long-dormant government experiment to create beings of pure likability—are at the top of their collective game*, and that’s in a film where demonstrably, Hanks is playing the villain. Imagining a world where everyone from the corporate fat cat to the plucky underdog is fueled entirely by being good with a turn of phrase when they’re not eye-ball deep in a book is more romance than anyone ought to get from a single movie.

And sure, the triumph of true love against odds in a world of increasingly impersonalized communications has its charms, but that ain’t what keeps me coming back to the movie.

*Yep, I’m putting this one ahead of When Harry Met Sally (1989) and Sleepless in Seattle (1993). Come and fight me about Nora Ephron films, if you feel the need.

Joe Versus The Volcano (1990)

Director: John Patrick Shanley

Cast: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack

Have I Seen it Before: Yes. Although I can’t remember how it all ends, for some reason. That’s probably the best way to rediscover a film, now that I think about it.

Did I Like It: It’s certainly a charmingly weird film, I cannot deny it that. Starting with frames filled with dream-like production design from Bo Welch—hinting at the work he would do in a few years in Batman Returns (1992)—this world is not our own, and yet there are any number of moments that feel distressingly real, although most of those have to do with the horrifying drudgery of Joe’s (Hanks, being imminently Hanksy, even in a slightly off-beat milieu) job.

The secret weapon for the film is Meg Ryan, surprisingly enough. While she has always been a charming presence on film, she’s always felt more like a movie star. Here, she fully embraces the weird on display and very nearly disappears behind two distinct characters, before giving the people who showed up on date night the Meg Ryan we all know with her third character in the film. So few leading ladies are given the opportunity to to flex their craft, it’s one of the film’s stronger elements.

The one element about which I think I might truly bring myself to complain about the film is that the ending is something of an anti-climax. The volcano spits both the leads out, they figure out that Joe hasn’t been dying this whole time, and they sail off into the sunset. That may be why I can’t remember the ending; there isn’t much of one. It is a minor complaint, but might help to explain why the film never quite seeped into our collective thoughts the ways other films with this degree of talent have.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020)

Director: Jason Woliner

Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen, Maria Bakalova, Dani Popescu, Tom Hanks (no, really)

Have I Seen it Before: Ah, yes, the pleasure of taking in a new movie in 2020. The movie business is hurting. Movie theaters are hurting more. Maybe there will be a new day soon when we can all be sort of annoyed by the one-two punch of being sold premium theater chain memberships and softball trivia questions. But for now, I’m glad some studios are understanding that streaming options are a good way to start digging their way out of an unfortunate hole. 

But that’s not what this review is about.

Did I Like It: The element that keeps the original Borat (2006) still fresh, after the individual jokes have lost their shock value, is Cohen’s perhaps insane commitment to the bit at hand. His fearlessness cannot be duplicated, just as his catchphrases rendered his most famous character fairly neuter.

And it is clever the way we get the Kazakh journalist back, with him realizing that he has become too well-known for his previous style of antics. The man who hides behind his characters now hides behind new disguises, and we’re off to the races.

But it isn’t as fearless as it once was. There isn’t the preposterous high of Borat (Cohen) wrestling naked with Azamat Bagatov. He’s older now, and tamer, while the kind of people he is imitating and the kind of people he exposes have metastasized everywhere. The film is funny enough, and timelier than I would have expected, but I do wonder if there will be anything to see here within a couple of years.

The one thing I am struck by, and I keep coming back to in the days since viewing the film, is how life-affirming it turned out to be.

I know. I was surprised as well.

Borat himself softens a bit within a certain limitation, growing to accept his daughter (Bakalova, getting to do the kind of stealth prank work that Cohen might be too high-profile for anymore) and fitfully move his country out of their medieval views, but he is hardly a saint after the credits kick in. The real unlikely hero of this unlikely sequel is Holocaust survivor Judith Dim Evans. So many people Borat has met over the years fall to the occasion of being the worst possible example of a human being. As Borat enters her synagogue dressed as Borat’s idea of a Jew, she has absolutely earned the right to meet his nonsense with anger. Instead, she talks to Borat and meets him with love. Even Cohen can’t keep the act up against this towering pillar of humanity. It’s heartbreaking to learn she has passed away since filming her scenes for the film.

Oh, yeah. The Giuliani sequence? Far more horrifying than the news is letting you believe, and not improved at all by the fact that America’s Mayor may not know how old Tutar is supposed to be.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

Director: Marielle Heller 

Cast: Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys, Susan Kelechi Watson, Chris Cooper

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: But the fact that I haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it’s not going to reach for every ounce of familiar comfort that it can get its hands on.

I’m legitimately torn about the casting of Tom Hanks. He looks nothing like the real Mr. Rogers, and in fact can’t realistically look like anyone other than beloved movie star Tom Hanks*. Then again, there would be no other credible star of a major film who would look like Rogers. Then again, again, if they were wanting anyone with enough positivity to have any hope of channeling Rogers’ essence, I can’t think of anyone better suited.

And the fact that I spent so much time while watching the film running through that line of thinking may indicate an issue with the film. It’s a pretty fascinating portrait of Rogers, wrapped in an otherwise unremarkable family drama. I got a much better tap into the man Rogers was, and felt more viscerally the kind of things Rogers would want us to feel through last year’s comprehensive documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

With one notable exception. At various points of the film, streaks of possible anger or at the very least less-than-total-perfection lying within Rogers are hinted at. It’s not meant to bring his stature down (there’s even a moment where the long-held urban legend maintaining that Rogers was either a Navy SEAL or sharpshooter), but to actually give the rest of us mere mortals a chance at reaching for his nigh-saintly nature. Even Rogers maintains that he feels angry at times, before delineating what he does to work through those feelings.

In the film’s final scene, Rogers watches the last take of the day on his TV show, and the production wraps. Everyone else in the studio leaves, and Rogers goes to the piano to tinkle the keys. He then pounds the low notes as the film ends, just as he told Lloyd Vogel (Rhys) he does when his temper gets the best of him. It’s a poignant movie to wrap things up, and man, do I wish I could have seen Rogers himself done the same thing.

*I suppose Polar Express (2004) is a fair exception, but even Woody the Cowboy Doll sort of looks like Hanks.

Toy Story 4 (2019)

Director: Josh Cooley

Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts, Tony Hale

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Honestly wasn’t even sure I wanted to see it. I mean, the story ended with Toy Story 3 (2010), right?

Did I Like It: I’m absolutely baffled by the realization that—without this story—the story of Sheriff Woody (Hanks) would be tragically incomplete.

I’ll do you one better than that and issue an even more bold statement about this movie:

Woody’s odyssey is the single greatest Buddhist story since Groundhog Day (1993). Think about it. Really, the Toy Story series up until this point is about being locked in a cycle of suffering. Woody and company are in danger of becoming lost. Through their own cleverness, and by defeating some kind of dark heavy (in the guise of Sid, Stinky Pete, or Lotso) are once again back in the arms of a kid, and once again left to contemplate their inevitable planned obsolescence.

It’s always thrilling and more often than not heart-warming, but it is inevitably destined to repeat itself. Even the transfer from Andy to Bonnie that got the characters a new lease on life only begins the cycle again.

It is only when Woody is able to let go of his attachments that he is able to find any sort of evergreen peace and happiness. He even let’s Buzz take the lead role with Bonnie nee Andy’s toys, a prospect that drove Woody to attempted murder in years past. It’s a profound emotional journey that would be impressive in any film, much less the fourth entry in a franchise twenty-five years old. And it is the men this time that are afforded what might have in a previous era been the more feminine emotional (or at least more sensitive) journey. Even Buzz (Allen) who gets comparatively little to do is trying to find his inner voice, paying some comedic dividends. It’s the women who are the action heroes. Even the supposed heavy in Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks) isn’t thoroughly a villain and gets to enjoy the fruits of a world that was never really a zero sum game.

Instead of being an afterthought, this (now we can all say final, right?) entry in the series is perhaps the most thought-provoking animated film I’ve ever seen.

Although I’m a little miffed that my super-duper special complete toy-box blu ray collection of the first three films is going to have to find someway to get along with a copy of this movie on my shelf. A minor complaint.

The Green Mile (1999)

Director: Frank Darabont

Cast: Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan, Bonnie Hunt, Sam Rockwell

Have I Seen it Before: Several times, but not nearly as much as that other prison-set Frank Darabont-directed movie based on a Stephen King story.

Did I Like It: I think it’s objectively a depressing movie, so why do I always feel a little uplifted by it the end. Must say more about me than about the movie itself.

There is—to my mind—only one problem with this film. I don’t for one second believe that Dabbs Greer is an elderly Tom Hanks. That being said, somewhere out there in the multiverse is a version of me who watches this film and wishes that they hadn’t put Tom Hanks in old age makeup. So, in the end, art is often about living with imperfections.

Beyond that, the film is great. A year before Patrick Stewart relented to play Charles Xavier in X-Men (2000), Michael Clarke Duncan had the rare distinction of being born to play a particular role in John Coffey. Hanks is Hanks, which may sound like slightly damning praise, but who doesn’t want to watch Tom Hanks in a movie. The rest of the cast is perfection, right down to the slimy Doug Hutchinson playing the odious Percy Wetmore. Between this film and Galaxy Quest being released in the same year, I am struggling to find a one-two punch that introduced a screen persona more efficiently than Sam Rockwell.

A well-cast movie is one thing, but in truth not much of anything if the writing and directing aren’t there. See Justice League (2017) (minus the tag scene) for a pretty good example. Here, Frank Darabont’s skills are unassailable. It’s a shame that he hasn’t directed a movie since The Mist (2007). It’s an even bigger shame that he was fired as showrunner on The Walking Dead after its first—and only watchable—season. It’s yet a bigger shame still that George Lucas relegated Darabont’s draft for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of The Crystal Skull (2008) to the scrap pile. 

It’s a pretty miraculous film that deals with the guards of death row, and still make me want to somehow know these people in real life. They are decent, and in a time with little decency to show for it, that is uplifting, even in the face of tragedy.

Also, and on a slightly unrelated note: I think this book informs this first season of Castle Rock more than any other King work. At press time, there are still a few more episodes left to air. Let's see if I'm right.