HERE - GO SEE THIS MOVIE!
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My wife Melissa and I had the opportunity last Saturday, Nov. 2, to catch a viewing of the new Tom Hanks movie Here.
Now, ordinarily, I most likely would have decided to dedicate most - if not all - of my regularly allotted space in my weekly newspaper column to a full-length, hopefully well-thought-out review of this latest collaboration between the Forrest Gump team of Hanks, co-star Robin Wright and director Robert Zemeckis (who, with Eric Roth, also co-wrote the screenplay - based on a graphic novel by Richard McGuire)… in part because it’s been awhile since I’ve been able to devote that kind of time and attention to a movie review, and in part because this is the first movie I’ve seen in some time actually worthy of that kind of time and attention on my part.
But between power outages due to the recent stormy weather, non-newspaper related obligations at home and the fact that I’ve been fully expecting to see our weekly Tuesday battles with the Deadly Deadline Doom made a little more deadly than usual because of Tuesday’s General Election…
...Well, as much as I hate to admit it, I just didn’t have either the time or energy to do it the way I would have liked.
So allow me a moment to at least offer up the following brief - but heartfelt - response to this movie:
It’s great!
No, scratch that - it’s GREAT!
In boldface and all caps. Just like Tony the Tiger likes to do it...
I told my wife after we left the theatre that night that I honestly could not remember the last time I felt so moved by watching a motion picture. (To which Melissa immediately replied “Are you sure?” before regaling me with her memories about the way I cried at the end of E.T. back in 1982… but that’s a story best left for another time.)
Seriously, here is the kind of movie we just don’t seem to get enough of anymore - funny, sad and thoughtful all at once, with a story that all of us can relate to in some form or fashion and a performance by two-time Oscar winner Hanks that proves yet again that this funnyman I first encountered on the silly TV sitcom Bosom Buddies in the 1980s has become the quintessential movie talent of our time, worthy of a place alongside the likes of Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart in the pantheon of Great American Actors.
Truth be told, the ONLY thing I’ve found disappointing about Here has nothing to do with the movie itself but, rather, the lack of support it seems to received so far - particularly from so many critics unfairly dismissing it as “cloying” or “ham-fisted,” or taking it to task because of the de-aging technology employed to make Hanks and Wright appear decades younger than their actual ages in some scenes.
Those critics claim that this technology - which, to my eyes, is light-years ahead of that used to similarly de-age Harrison Ford in his last outing as Indiana Jones and for Michael Keaton in the recent Beetlejuice sequel - distracts from the movie.
Don't listen to them. It doesn't.
Trust me... as a lifelong sci-fi nerd and special effects aficionado, I’m the guy who would be complaining - loudly - about having been distracted if these effects didn't work.
The simple truth is that this is a movie that deserves to succeed. Sadly, it probably will not... Between those idiot critics who can't look past a special movie effect long enough to appreciate the emotional depth of the story being told, and the younger audiences who will likely stay away in droves because there are no spaceships, spandex-wearing superheroes or explosions to be seen, it probably was destined to not succeed.
(For you Jurassic Park fans out there, there ARE a couple of dinosaurs... no spoilers, though.)
Don't get me wrong. I love a big silver screen chock full of spaceships, spandex-wearing superheroes and explosions as much as anybody - and I’ve got junk drawers full of old tickets to various Star Trek and Star Wars and Batman installments to prove it.
But there is also a place in my personal cinematic universe for softer, human stories such as this. And just as I have championed such films as The Notebook, Saving Mr. Banks and The Fabelmans before it, so too will I champion Here.
Because it deserves to be seen. It’s just that simple.
So what are you waiting for? Go see it, already!
(Copyright © 2024 by John A. Small)
In : Review
Tags: movies
John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996).
Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.)
John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something.
In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems.
He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.
