Companion review for Top 10 Tom Hanks Films 1984 – 1989
Big (Penny Marshall, USA, 1988)
Dir. Penny Marshall; starring Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins, Robert Loggia, John Heard, Jared Rushton, David Moscow, Jon Lovitz, Mercedes Ruehl
Although not chiefly a body-swap movie in the traditional sense, Big has long-since been the poster child of the genre. 1976′s Freaky Friday set the idea alight with its depiction of a mother and daughter mysteriously switching bodies – the teenager having to deal with the trials and tribulations of adult life, the adult having to re-enter …

Companion review for Top 10 Tom Hanks Films 1984 – 1989
Punchline (1988)
Dir. David Seltzer; starring Tom Hanks, Sally Field, John Goodman, Mark Rydell, Kim Griest, Paul Mazursky, Damon Wayans.
Punchline could be noted for the first cinematic meeting between Tom Hanks and Sally Field. It’s more interesting because here in 1988 the pair play a couple of disillusioned stand-up comics who find an attraction in each other that would make their later incarnation as mother and son in Forrest Gump shamefully obscene. But in Punchline, Field’s older and wiser mother of …

Companion review for Top 10 Tom Hanks Films 1984 – 1989
The Man With One Red Shoe (Stan Dragoti, USA, 1985)
Dir. Stan Dragoti; starring Tom Hanks, Dabney Coleman
Before Tom Hanks got Oscar-happy after Philadelphia and he moved into much more dramatic roles, he was like an 1980′s version of Groucho Marx, just stripped of that singular originality and as superficial as the period.
Certainly, his direction change wasn’t unwelcome because as an actor in the nineties he’s delivered some of the most iconic films of the period, excelling with some truly great …

Companion review for Top 10 Tom Hanks Films 1984 – 1989
Bachelor Party (Neal Israel, USA, 1984)
Dir. Neal Israel; starring Tom Hanks, Adrian Zmed, William Tepper, Tawny Kitaen
Bachelor Party was Tom Hanks’ follow-up to the smash-hit fantasy romance Splash. Both films were released in 1984. The film tracks the exploits of Hanks’ Rick and friends as they organise a drug-fuelled, sex-filled send-off for their best pal before getting hitched to town beauty Debbie (played by then newcomer Tawny Kitaen). Hanks, of course, is the bachelor for which the party is intended …

Companion review for Top 10 Tom Hanks Films 1984 – 1989
This labour of love for producer Brian Grazer, who wrote the story for Splash, is quite clearly shown in the very male fantasy of the undeniably beautiful woman coming out of nowhere and telling you she’s in love with you. Actually, she comes out of nowhere and has sex with you in a car, a lift, the bedroom and on top of the fridge – is that the male fantasy or is there love in there somewhere? Regardless, it seems …

Companion review for Top 10 Tom Hanks Films 1984 – 1989
During the Writer’s Guild strike in the summer of 1989, Joe Dante was beginning to film his then latest offering, The Burbs. The film was jeopardized by the strike and ‘Dante’ speculated that the original script changed over the course of the shoot because of it. Whether the original vision was affected or not, it came as no surprise that the Gremlins director brought the eventual film to bizarre life, with homage paid to classic horror films of yesteryear; fun …

Companion review for Top 10 Tom Hanks Films 1984 – 1989
Is a dog, man’s best friend? Well, Tom Hanks doesn’t think so – at first that is. Turner and Hooch is certainly lightweight entertainment that goes about its business with a clean spirit and a lack of any pretensions, retelling the buddy-cop story with one of the buddies being substituted by a big, hairy mutt. This is pre-Oscar-winning Tom Hanks, phoning in a performance with the relative idiosyncrasies that made him a comic star in the early eighties, all present …

Companion review for Top 10 Tom Hanks Films 1984 – 1989
A disaster movie that involves nations falling to their knees is epic, dramatic and sentimental; a disaster movie that involves two people moving into the house from hell is either nail-biting horror, or unadulterated, unsentimental hilarity; here, it is the latter.
This is eighties comedy at its best, a disaster film that doesn’t feature flag waving heroism or grandiose styling, but locates itself in the simple surroundings of a couple’s new home and watches as the disaster takes place – the …