loaded question: what’s the best-ever pop-culture product placement?
I’m going with FedEx in 2000’s Cast Away, which works on multiple levels.
Tom Hanks
loaded question: what great comic actors have turned out to be even better dramatic actors?
Who are your favorite comics turned serious actors? Who has most memorably made such a transition?
#DailyStream weekly roundup
The #DailyStream is a once-per-day, single-movie-only streaming recommendation that appears both at my Substack and Patreon, and in truncated forms across my social media. They are free for everyone.
A Man Called Otto movie review: a rare misfire for Tom Hanks
With cowardly mildness, this white-bread mush misuses its star’s likability. Tom Hanks trying to be grumpy yet endearing has the opposite impact. He’s somehow less endearing than he’s been before.
weekend watchlist: is it good to be the queen?
Plus a teenage con artist, a skewering of late-night comedy, and more… (First published September 18th, 2022, on Substack and Patreon.)
Greyhound movie review: Tom Hanks goes a-LARPing
How very kind of Tom Hanks to lend his gravitas and inescapable likability to a bunch of WWII naval reenactors on their weekend-getaway “crossing the north Atlantic in 1942 dodging U-boats” campaign.
my picks for tonight’s 92nd Academy Awards (the Oscars for 2019’s films) (winners indicated)
I correctly guessed 10 out of the 24 categories, which is at least a little better than last year.
AWFJ 2019 EDA Awards winners announced
And we have winners!
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood movie review: the importance of radical kindness (LFF 2019)
This wonder of a film wrecked me. In the best possible way. It directly confronts cynicism and misanthropy, and asks us to let them go if we can. I really needed its message. The whole world does now.
Toy Story 4 movie review: recycled playthings… again
The series’ saving grace is that, with humor and heart so beautifully wise and stunningly rendered (CGI pun intended), even as returns diminish, a new chapter is still warm and smartly entertaining.
