Hanks vs. Gutt
Posted: January 14th, 2008 | Filed under: Pop Culture | 66 Comments »
First things first. A couple of commenters, including my Mother, have said that despite the early, bad buzz, I should give Rob Reiner’s The Bucket List a chance. And I was going to do that. Then I read this review by Roger Ebert. Yes the same Roger Ebert whose classic review of North (I hated, hated, hated this movie.â€) ended with the angry and yet hopeful: “North is a bad film — one of the worst movies ever made. But it is not by a bad filmmaker, and must represent some sort of lapse from which Reiner will recover — possibly sooner than I will.â€
You will note there is no such uplifting note placed on the end of The Bucket List review. I don’t always agree with Roger Ebert — but I find it almost impossible to believe I could like a movie he hates this much.
Anyway, today we discuss the odd late-blooming, Hoyt WIlhelm Hall of Fame career of Tom Hanks vs. the early promise Cesar-Cedeno-like career of Steve Guttenberg.
The fateful decision for both men seems to come in 1988. At that point, Steve Guttenberg was ahead of Tom Hanks in the Hollywood Hall of Fame Monitor. They were similar actors, similar ages, similar backgrounds, going for similar roles as the “likeable goofball.â€
But Gutt — I hope he doesn’t mind being called Gutt, he seems like a fine fellow — had a lead in 1988. He started off his career playing Mike Capelletti in the all-time great shmaltzfest “Something for Joey.†How could you not love that movie? True, he wasn’t John Cappelletti or Joey Cappelletti, but, hey, he was just a kid, and he was in that movie and that’s all anyone can ask. One year later, he had that strange turn in “The Boys From Brazil.†He was off and running — and this was years before Hanks even made his first appearance on The Love Boat.
Gutt then played Jim Craig in “Miracle on Ice.†Cappelletti AND Jim Craig. In 1982, he played in his first great movie — he was Eddie in “Diner.†You can’t get a lot better than that. Eddie was the guy who gave his fiancee the Baltimore Colts quiz (and temporarily called off the wedding after refusing to give her credit for the Alan Ameche question). What a great sports movie career.
Up to this point, Hanks had only done his Kip Wilson/Buffy Wilson turn in “Bosom Buddies,†which I watched religiously, but mostly because every so often on the show Hanks would make reference to the Cleveland Browns. Big advantage: Gutt.
Gutt then played in “The Day After,†a huge television event while Hanks was playing the disturbingly realistic drunk uncle Ned on “Family Ties.†Hanks does get some bonus points for his portrayal of the kid who started believing he was really living in a Dungeons and Dragons game in the TV movie “Mazes and Monsters.†I clearly remember watching this movie at the time. Before that movie I was always somewhat unnerved by the kids on the smoking patio playing Dungeons and Dragons during lunch. After that movie, I was flat out frightened, which I guess was the point.
D&D ASIDE: Remember when Dungeons and Dragons was like the cause for parents? Here we are now, ancient ourselves, complaining about the violence in video games, and yet when we were in high school we all knew those kids (maybe we were those kids) who were inventing (and inevitably drawing) bizarre and frightening characters for Dungeons and Dragons. I never really played Dungeons/Dragons — well, maybe once as an experiment — but I do know this: Just like Buck O’Neil used to say that the only reason players in his time didn’t take steroids is because they didn’t have them — the only reason kids of my time weren’t playing bloody video games is that we didn’t have them. All we had was that Atari football game where offensive lineman would hit defenders so hard, they would actually make them disappear.
In 1984, Gutt starred in Police Academy, which made a billion, jillion, shmillion dollars — and hooked him up with Kim Cattrall AND Bubba Smith. He was a bonafide superstar. Hanks also got his career going in 1984 with Splash AND Bachelor Party. The race was on.
Gutt made Cocoon, which was good, and Short Circuit which was OK, and Three Men and a Baby which made lots of money and numerous Police Academy sequels, which were all terrible but apparently were paying well. Gutt was big. He turned down Ghostbusters. He was that big.
Hanks meanwhile made “The Man With One Red Shoe,†“Volunteers,†and “The Money Pit,†and I defy you to find any good actor who made three movies THAT BAD in a row. Any one of those should be enough to kill a career. He was touching in his own schmaltzfest “Nothing in Common,†which had an ancient Jackie Gleason playing a sort of Willy Loman type. That was a Garry Marshall movie — as we will see, the Marshalls saved Tom Hanks.
HECTOR ELIZONDO ASIDE: I can’t remember exactly when it was that I noticed it, but Hector Elizondo plays the exact same character in every Garry Marshall movie. Now, I can’t get that out of my head. It’s so weird — they’re like the Trammell-Whitaker of Hollywood. I started to go through the Garry Marshall movies in my mind.
Flamingo Kid: Elizondo played Matt Dillon’s gruff but loving father.
Nothing in Common: He played Tom Hanks gruff but loving boss.
Pretty Woman: He played Julia Roberts gruff but loving hotel concierge friend.
Frankie and Johnny: He played Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino’s gruff but loving diner boss.
Runaway Bride: He played some sort of gruff but loving guy.
Princess Diaries: Yeah, here too.
Princess Diaries II: Still gruff. Still loving.
How do you think that casting call is made? “Hey Hector, I’m making a movie.†“Yeah, you got a character for me?†“Yeah, I think so, hey, let me ask — you still kind of gruff? How about loving?â€
Garry Marshall, by the way, is one of my favorite all-time cameo actors. He was absolutely brilliant as the chocolate bar magnate in “A League of Their Own,†but he was even better as casino owner in “Lost in America.†“I like Wayne Newton. Are you saying I’m a schmuck?†One of the great scenes of all time …
So we go to 1988, and that fateful decision. Apparently, Penny Marshall’s people went to Gutt and asked him to play Josh in “Big.†It makes perfect sense, really. Hanks was flailing (he had just made Dragnet, which also sucked — the guy was grasping back then). Gutt was hot. He was box office. If you were looking for a mid-30s actor who has to play a grown-up kid, you would go to Gutt.
And it was this point that Gutt said no — apparently he was really wrapped up in Cocoon: The Return, which had NO chance. How would Gutt have been in Big? How would taking that role have changed his career? No idea. We’ll never know. In the end, we only know that Gutt’s inexplicable love for sequels — like Miguel Dilone’s quest for the long ball — would doom him.
DILONE ASIDE: In 1980, Cleveland outfielder MIguel Dilone hit .341 and had 61 stolen bases as a slappy, happy little hitter. You could make one heck of a career for yourself playing that way — heck, Ichiro has. Come on Miggy — keep on bunting, slapping, blooping. The next year, Dilone fell off a bit, but he was still reasonably valuable as a slappy, happy little hitter. In 1982, though, second game of a doubleheader, he hit a home run against Toronto — his second homer in a about a week for him — and (from the outside anyway) it appeared that something important snapped in Miguel Dilone’s brain. Suddenly, he was not the slappy, happy hitter anymore — he was a bopper. He swung for the fences and hit .223 the rest of the year. He hit .183 for three different teams the next year. It was more or less the baseball equivalent of playing in “Three Men and a Little Lady.â€
While the Big mistake definitely ended Gutt’s run, it wouldn’t be exactly right to say that Big alone righted Hanks career. There was still pain ahead. He was reasonably good in the remarkably hard to watch “Punch Line,†— what a strange and troubling movie that is, and not just because Sally Field is so unfunny. Then in the next two years he would play in “The burbs,†“Joe vs. the Volcano,†and “Bonfire of the Vanities,†— a trifecta just about retched as the earlier Red Shoe, Volunteers, Money Pit stinkburger. You know the career’s not exactly taking off when people are saying, “Well, Turner and Hooch wasn’t historically bad.â€
And then — Penny Marshall saved Hanks one more time when he was 36. She gave him the role of Jimmy Dugan in “A League of Their Own.†A little snappy dialogue, a little cross-training with Madonna and Rosie, one big “There’s no crying in baseball scene,†and Hanks found his speed. He hit big box office with Sleepless (my buddy and I talk all the time that it was either genius or pure luck to lump Hanks and Meg Ryan in another movie after the landmark crapiness of “Joe vs. the Volcano), then won his Oscar for Philadelphia, another for Gump, huge star turn in Apollo, and after that it was clear sailing to America’s most beloved actor and clear first-ballot Hall of Fame status.
As for Gutt? Like Pete Reiser and Herb Score, we’ll never know how much different it might have been. I guess he’s got five movies in the works … and even though on the surface Cornered!, Major Movie Star, Fatal Rescue, Making Change and Heidi 4 Paws do not sound like Oscar-winning entries (Major Movie Star actually stars Jessica Simpson, so there you go), hey, you can’t judge a movie by its title. Apparently from some quick Internet research, Gutt is doing a lot of charity work, he’s doing some theater, he’s writing a book. So maybe he’s happier than any of us.
Loading ...
“The Desert Inn has heart!”
Mr. Harvey (Garry Marshall): “Face it you’re still a name. You step out of the dugout and wave your little hat around. The people will love it.”
Jimmy Dugan: “Well how about I get a organ grinder and a pet monkey and do a little dance while I’m at it?”
Harvey: “If your knees are up to it, go ahead.”
To me the difference between to two is clear – Guttenberg was a second fiddle, Hanks wasn’t. Gutt was never THE star in anything but the Police Academy movies, and that’s nothing to brag about. Hanks, on the other hand, was always the star. His movies might have sucked for the most part, but at least he was the leading man. He was trying. He was Randy Johnson circa 1992, a guy with great stuff but no idea how to harness it. Someone who was going to be great once he figured everything out.
Gutt, on the other hand, was Frank Tanana. Pretty solid beginning, but always as the second fiddle to Nolan Ryan. Then something broke and he had to re-invent himself. The difference is that Tanana actually did reinvent himself as something with value, while Guttenberg reinvented himself as the guy who used to be Steve Guttenberg.
Hanks as Nolan Ryan is a pretty good comparison. Both are no-doubt HOFers with long, storied careers. Both started young and had to learn how to pitch/act. And upon further review, both have some definite flaws (Ryan’s W-L percentage; Hanks being in The ‘Burbs, Joe vs. the Volcano, Turner & Hooch, etc.)
Gutt may not be a HOFer, but his name was used in a Simpsons song (“Who made Steve Guttenberg, a star?”). Plus he co-starred with Bobcat Goldthwait. So he’s got that going for him.
you’re forgetting THE best hanks movie – the burbs.
spectacular.
Joe
Turner and Hooch IS historically bad.
Paul White’s wisdom is not limited to whether or not Jim Rice belongs in the Hall.
Please tell me you’re kidding about the “landmark crappiness” of Joe Versus the Volcano. It’s one of the most underrated comedies of the 90s. The mix of satire and goofiness always worked for me. I know I’m not alone, as Roger Ebert gave it 3 and a half stars.
The ‘Burbs was a great movie.
North? Was that the film about Ollie North’s senate campaign in VA in 1994? I doubt many folks (except political junkies) would want to watch it.
I actually enjoyed Dragnet, but it wasn’t the most sophisticated move ever. But “The Virgin Connie Swale” still gets a grin from me. I would not be at all surprised if someone’s using that as a Deadspin commentor name.
Joe vs. the Volcano I liked at the time, but I’m not sure if I would watching it again. It’s definitely a weird one.
Gutt was pretty good as the creepy baseball owner on Season 2 of Veronica Mars.
Then again, I’m 36 and still occasionally play D&D, so you probably don’t want to go by me.
Joe watched Bosom Buddies for the Cleveland Browns references. I watched for Donna Dixon. Advantage: Me.
Both of these guys were made by Home Box Office. As kids, like most of us growing up in the 80s, we would watch pretty much anything that was on TV (I saw the film Legal Eagles far more than I would care to mention, for example). This isn’t to say that we never went outside, or didn’t participate in things like Cub Scouts or Little League or whatever. We did all of those things. But, when we weren’t doing all of those things, we were watching TV. HBO ruled cable for movies, along with Cinemax/Showtime/The Movie Channel a little later, and was the only possible avenue to movies that at least entertain us, and at best might piss off our parents. I can remember nearly going blind trying to see Daryl Hannah’s anything during the opening underwater scenes to Splash, for example; or when we counted the number of times that Eddie Murphy said “fuck” during Raw. Or seeing Porky’s with my older cousins. There was literally a sort of physical high for films with a PG rating. R ratings were overwhelming to our systems, and caused literal panic and the need for constant vigilance at the threat of being caught with the R rating on the screen. But, from time to time, it’d slip past our parents, or there’d be the basement TV at 2 a.m., or whatever, and we’d get to watch movies for adults.
The point of all of this is, Tom Hanks movies were on all the time. Every day. Forever. And it seemed that Tom Hanks starred alongside a lot of attractive actresses. Sure, we all watched Police Academy, and sure we all knew who Steve Guttenberg was, but he didn’t have the movies Hanks did (though, in his defense, Short Circuit, The Police Academy Series, and Cocoon were on a lot). To some extent, my generation grew up with Tom Hanks in a lead role. I can’t speak for every kid on this one. I’m sure there were some mega-smart kids out there, and kids who were more sophisticated than we were. But, it didn’t make any difference at all whether the movies Tom Hanks starred in were actually good. Hey, we loved Turner & Hooch! Loved it. Awesome dog slobber jokes. I mean, I don’t think Hanks is even acting in those (and from the goofy, aren’t these takes funny clips during the end credits, it seems to be true)! I think they just kept the shots where the dog slimed him in the grossest manner, and he reacted in the funniest manner, and worked those into the film. We watched all of those movies many, many times. And then we grew up. And then Tom Hanks did Philadelphia, and a certain portion of us were moved. And then Tom Hanks did Forrest Gump and it just seemed that all of us trusted it (though I will say that I personally hate that movie more than any other). And the rest is history. And, yeah, The Burbs is pretty good.
I’m going to have to second (or fourth or wherever we are) the ‘Burbs love and take offense to its inclusion in retched trifecta HOF.
I want to kill everyone; Satan is good; Satan is my pal.
Gutt apparently wasn’t smart enough to be Hanks. Passing up Big? He’s like those script reading assistants that don’t pass Casablanca along.
I saw Steve Guttenberg get into a car with a woman one time in Pacific Palisades, between LA and Malibu. Before they pulled out, another car crashed into theirs. Gutty, as I call him, jumped out of the car and said to my friend and me, “You saw that, right? You saw that!” but didn’t ask for our contact information. That’s how I’ll always remember him.
I’ll always remember Tom Hanks doing a stiff-legged walk/slide down the front stairs of his neighbors’ just-exploded house in The Burbs.
Joe has made reference to smoking patios twice in one day, and I still have no clue what a “smoking patio” is. That is the most pressing question I have faced all day.
The ‘Burbs was a solid movie. Bruce Dern falling off the roof is comic gold. Dragnet is also pretty good, although the reason is mostly Dan Akroyd.
Hanks probably has enough great movies to make first ballot, but he’s started making absolute clunkers again. The Ladykillers. Catch Me If You can. The Terminal. At some point, he’s going to kill his chances at first ballot.
His hair in Da Vinci Code alone might squelch his first ballot status.
Please don’t think that you can just slip in a casual reference to “my buddy and I talk all the time” about Sleepless in Seattle without having your masculinity questioned. Even worse is the shorthand reference to the movie as “Sleepless.” When you start tossing in references to “Four Weddings” or “Romy & Michelle” we may have to stage an intervention.
Last week, I watched Short Circuit again for the first time in about 20 years. Holy hell was it bad. Gutt was awful. I’m now wondering whether he was any good to begin with. He was that bad. He was almost as bad as Fisher Stevens with a shoe-polish-darkened visage spewing lines in an offensive pseudo-Indian accent. Really, a terrible film all the way around.
The only thing I can say Gutt did all right with was his recent turn as the Mayor of Neptune on the second season of Veronica Mars, which is a really great show.
And right on, Andrew. Hanks has made a string of unforgiveable garbage.
Hmmm…I’ll agree that “The Ladykillers” was pretty lousy, but I actually liked both “Catch Me If You Can” and “The Terminal.” Thought Hanks was good in both, though his accent was a bit over the top in Catch Me. Haven’t seen “The DaVinci Code.” I work in a bookstore and was so sick of seeing that damn book on the bestseller list every week for years on end that I have vowed never to see it.
I’ll agree that “The Burbs” isn’t a bad movie. Not one I’ll ever buy, but I’ll watch it if I’m flipping around on TV and see that it’s on…as long as there are no better options;-)
It’s been too long since I’ve seen “Joe vs. the Volcano” to have much of an opinion there. I remember liking it at the time, but I was about 14 years old.
Come on, Joe. Steve Guttenberg’s career crashed because of the declining influence of the Stone Cutters. EVERYONE knows that.
Minda, I know it will seem hard to believe now, but in the ’70s/early ’80s quite a few high schools (both that I went to, for example) had outdoor smoking areas for students, smoking patios.
Credit where it is due, it appears that Paul White is not, in fact, wrong about everything. While one might quibble certain details of his Hanks/Gutt theory, it appears to me to be pretty sound. Still wrong about Jim Rice and Ron Howard, though.
That out of the way, let me add that I also liked The ‘burbs, Joe vs. the Volcano and Catch Me If You Can.
Joe, my son informs me that his step-aunt (is that a real thing, his stepfather’s sister?) currently forbids her children to have anything to do with D&D and was trying to impart the same message to his half-brothers, until his mother told her to stop feeding her kids rubbish. Weirdly, they aren’t even fundamentalists, they’re Jewish trust-fund kids. So, apparently the anti-D&D parents still exist.
Joe said: Hanks meanwhile made “The Man With One Red Shoe,†“Volunteers,†and “The Money Pit,†and I defy you to find any good actor who made three movies THAT BAD in a row.
Exhibit #1, your honor: May I present to you three movies that Oscar-winner Cuba Gooding, Jr made in a row in 2001-2002: “Rat Race,” “Snow Dogs,” and “Boat Trip.”
You may argue that Cuba is no longer a “good actor” but that’s a string of stinkers that can hold up again Hanks’ three movie run anyday.
How can you call Volunteers a bad movie? “Fight, Fight, Fight, for Washington State!”
Simon Oliver Lockwood Says:
January 15th, 2008 at 2:48 am
How can you call Volunteers a bad movie? “Fight, Fight, Fight, for Washington State!â€
AMEN
You know this is probably because I was young in the 1980’s and didn’t know any better but I enjoyed “The Burbs”, “Volunteers”, “The Money Pit”, “Turner and Hooch”, and “Joe vs. The Volcano”… I think the earlier comment about Hanks being funny and able to be watchable even in mediocre at best movies is very true… even if the script was lacking he himself seemed to always be funny and likable…. and thus even in bad 80’s movies he made them worth watching on HBO13 or TBS or whatever…
gogiggs,
Thank you! I had been wondering about that.
I thought “Catch Me if You Can” was clever.
While Volunteers is an undeniably crappy movie, it does have an inordinate number of random funny scenes. “It’s not that I can’t help those people, it’s that I don’t want to.” is great line when faced with a petition. Also, as an Intelevision fan, I’m a sucker for George Plimpton.
“Credit where it is due, it appears that Paul White is not, in fact, wrong about everything.”
Gee, thanks gogiggs. I’ll have to hate you a bit less now.
I think.
Rodney
Good call on Cuba Gooding, Jr. His Oscar is looking more and more like Brady Anderson’s 50 HR season.
i don’t always agree with ebert either, but he has a special way with trashing a bad movie. he’s even got a couple of good books of his best pans:
i hated, hated, hated this movie
and
your movie sucks.
the latter is named after the last three words in the greatest movie review i’ve ever read:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050811/REVIEWS/50725001
# Oddibe Kerfeld Says:
January 14th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
North? Was that the film about Ollie North’s senate campaign in VA in 1994? I doubt many folks (except political junkies) would want to watch it.
—
actually, that ollie north movie was “a perfect candidate” and i just watched it (via netflix) a day or two ago. a good one, to be sure.
if you liked that, you’d probably like “street fight” which was about cory booker’s first (and unsuccessful) run for mayor of newark, nj.
Volunteers was great! My sister was in the Peace Corps in Africa and when I went and visited her I was hoping she was living in a place like Loon Ta. Sadly she wasn’t.
Chung Mee: Opium is my business. The bridge mean more traffic. More traffic mean more money. More money mean more power.
Lawrence Bourne III: Yeah, well, before I commit any of that to memory, would there be anything in this for me?
Chung Mee: Speed is important in business. Time is money.
Lawrence Bourne III: You said opium was money.
Chung Mee: Money is Money.
Lawrence Bourne III: Well then, what is time again?
What happened to Matthew Modine, anyway?
I liked Joe Versus the Volcano and the Burbs…does that make me a bad person?
Hanks meanwhile made “The Man With One Red Shoe,†“Volunteers,†and “The Money Pit,†and I defy you to find any good actor who made three movies THAT BAD in a row.
Dakota Fanning. Granted, she’s not old enough to drive, so we can blame her parents, but it’s also that much more impressive that she’s a good actor … especially given the material in “Cat in the Hat”, “Man on Fire”, and “Hide and Seek”. Not just awful movies, but movies that together show a RANGE, a VARIETY of awfulnesses that I don’t think Hanks ever matched.
Not, obviously, that your real point doesn’t stand.
Saying Cuba Gooding, Jr. was a good actor to begin with is being generous. There are very few Oscars won that were less deserved than his for Best Supporting Actor in Jerry Maguire. Maybe Denzel’s for Training Day (no way was he better than Tom Wilkinson in In The Bedroom)? Crash for Best Picture? Ray Milland for The Lost Weekend (I have an irrational hatred for all things Milland)? Art Carney for Henry and Tonto (over Nicholson in Chinatown and Pacino in The Godfather, Part II)? Or Walter Brennan having won for anything (let alone three times)? It’s a fairly short list of undeserving winners, but Cuba’s win over Edward Norton in Primal Fear or William H. Macy in Fargo is criminal. An Academy Award cannot be an undisputed measuring stick for excellence unfortunately.
I liked Hanks in “Road to Perdition”. Way out of type, very deliberate and badass. A good flick. The kid is real good too. Gutt I never got. Never actually drew the parallel of he to Hanks either until Joe pointed it out. Similar look too. Interesting. But Gutt is not in the same league.
I grew up — sort of — watching Hanks and Gutt. Where I’ll disagree is Hanks always had “something” that made him interesting to watch. No matter how bad the film, he would raise it up one level. The Money Pit, which was not a good movie, was more than watchable to me because of Hanks. Gutt never had that, so no matter what he did, he never would have been as big a star as Hanks. Sorry, Gutt. You’re just going to have to live off those milions from Police Academy. Hey, whatever happened to that side kick in the movie? Can’t remember his name. I think he used to play football.
Any list of undeserved Oscars that doesn’t include Titanic and Gladiator winning Best Picture is worthless.
Snowman, I could have gone on forever, but that would’ve been longer than Joe’s blog entry, which was pretty long to begin with.
I think a similar compare could be done with Michael Keaton… I’ve always wanted to see a buddy picture with Tom Hanks and Michael Keaton — City Slickers without the cattle, or The Bucket List without the suckitude. Keaton was freaking BATMAN, for goodness sake… and now the good work that he does is too low profile (Live in Baghdad, the unfortunately timed Game 6, the voice of Chick Hicks in Cars) to outweigh the highly visible bad stuff (White Noise, Herbie Fully Loaded, Jack Frost, First Daughter).
Not to mention that Hanks and Keaton in their primes were some of the best guests Letterman ever had. I think it was the last show on NBC that Hanks told the Slappy White story… “YOU’RE BENDING THE SHAFTS!!! STOP BENDING THE SHAFTS!!!”
Joe vs. the Volcano is a good movie, it’s just not good the first time you see it. My wife and I rented it, watched it, and didn’t like. But then I saw it on cable a couple of years later and thought it was better. I got my wife to watch it again, and we both now like the film.
Plus, you leave out Splash! That probably gave Hanks enough goodwill to keep getting roles, just like Rick Cerone’s 1980 season gave him enough goodwill to have a long major league career.
Gogiggs wins the Sylvia Slowinska “Backhanded Compliment of the Day” Award, which I named after one of my 8th grade classmates who signed my yearbook back in 1993 with “When I first met you I thought you were a big dork, but after I got to know you this year, you turned out to be okay. KIT Sylvia”
I’ve been fascinated by the Gutt phenomenon for some time now. And by “fascinated”, I mean “mildly interested”, and by “phenomenon”, I mean “phenomenon”. I think one of the over-looked turning points in his career came in the mid-90’s when he did that movie with the Olsen twins. That should have been his “Ellis Burks signs with the White Sox” moment that got his career back on track. It had Rebecca from Cheers AND the Olsen twins. Even if the movie royally sucked, he had to think it would have made him some money and led to better projects in the future. Instead, it led to a TV movie about Casper the ghost. Oops.
I just wonder how anyone who watched Frank Tanana in his prime could call him 2nd fiddle to anyone. He was the best young pitcher I ever saw and he was better then Ryan by quite a large margin from 75-77, and they both fell to earth in 78/79.
From age 21 to 23 Tanana had an ERA+ of 134, 136, 151
Ryan during the same time period 102, 99, 141
Second fiddle my ass.
For what it was, White Noise was not that bad, Concerned Citizen. It was certainly enjoyable enough to maintain my attention while on a ferry from Liverpool to Dublin after getting screwed over travel-wise by those London “bombers” a year-and-a-half ago, and I was pretty distracted by how much I was having to drop to get back to Dublin.
And Keaton’s 1980’s were way better than either Hanks or Gutt. Man, what wasted talent. Someone needs to give him the Tarantino resurrection treatment. Oh, wait. That already happened.
Too bad he wasn’t in the awesome Jack Frost that came out around the same time as his did. I always loved seeing them next to each other on the new release wall at the video store.
“I just wonder how anyone who watched Frank Tanana in his prime could call him 2nd fiddle to anyone.”
Maybe it’s because the second fiddle comment wasn’t intended as a literal performance evaluation as much as it was intended as a funny comparison of how neither Guttenberg nor Tanana had to carry the star-power burden since they shared the spotlight with much more well-known stars.
But if you want to truck on down the literal road, more power to you.
Gutt apparently wasn’t smart enough to be Hanks. Passing up Big? He’s like those script reading assistants that don’t pass Casablanca along.
I love thinking about trades that were rumored and never made, and in the same respect, I like thinking about acting roles that were offered but never made.
James Caan passed over Han Solo in “Star Wars” and the lead in “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.” He had a solid career, but he could be in HOF territory with those roles under his belt.
Molly Ringwald turned down the lead in “Pretty Woman” and doomed herself to becoming an 80s icon.
Eric Stoltz was fired as Marty McFly in “Back to the Future”
Tom Selleck turned down a chance to be Indiana Jones.
What could have been!
In Gutt’s defense, he did have a nice turn on the late, lamented “Veronica Mars” as the owner of the local minor league team.
I don’t think you can lump Keaton into this. After Batman, Michael Keaton pretty much relaxed. He knew he could pick his projects, and that’s what he decided to do. Granted, most people would say he chose crappy projects.
As for North, I’ve been wanting to post this, so I will. Early in the movie, North’s original parents, George and Elaine, er Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, are driving him crazy.
Then Jason Alexander lets loose one of the best bad lines in a bad movie of all time:
“I saw some blood in my stool this morning.”
How that never caught on as a catchphrase, I have no idea.
Couple of points:
(a) Biggest mistake turning down a movie role in history? Burt Ward (AKA Robin from the TV Batman) rejecting the lead role in The Graduate on the advice of his agent.
(b) If you recall, there were 4 movies in ‘87-’88 about people switching ages. Big, Like Father Like Son, Vice Versa, and 18 Again. Perhaps Gutt thought that Big would be a bust considering that it was overkill, although one can argue that Big is the best of the lot.
Joe Vs. The Volcano may be the best romantic comedy of the 80’s, but I think most people don’t get it the first time they see it, because it’s unconventional, whimsical, a fairytale of a movie. Most romantic comedies are ridiculous anyway (wealthy Richard Gere falls for the hooker with a heart of gold that happens to look like Julia Roberts but isn’t addicted to drugs or saddled with a violent, thuggish pimp? Really?), but Joe Vs. The Volcano revels in its ridiculous plot, winking at the audience. Tom Hanks finds the perfect note to play a character who wanders through the story with innocence and integrity, while Meg Ryan has never been more versatile or more desirable. JVTV is a postmodern romantic fantasy that deserves an open mind and a second chance.
ToyCannon, agreed, although I see PW’s point. Gutt as a actor was never the equivalent of Frank Tanana the pitcher. A HOF career lost by early arm abuse!
I must’ve seen Turner & Hooch at the right (or wrong) time because I think it’s pretty funny.
“Why he didn’t even break the skin! That dog LOVES you!”
It’s a great satire of the cop-buddy movies of the 1980s.
That said, it’s not like Tom Hanks writes or directs these movies. He just acts. Why blame him if he’s in a stinker of a movie? Especially in his early career, when he needed the work.
It’s like saying, “If Mark Teahen played in Fenway Park, he’d hit .320 with 50 doubles. He’s an idiot for playing in Kansas City.” Wait… Why blame Teahen?
The Slappy White story on Letterman is one of the greatest stories ever told. “You’re bendin the shafts.” Has become the punch line to just about every joke my friends and I tell. It’s enough to get Hanks elected to the hall of fame.
Steve Guttenberg never told a story like that.
You underestimate the acting contributions of Hector Elizondo. Perhaps gruff but loving was exactly what those roles called for and he was the actor to deliver it.
To me, his role as hotel concierge is the definitive “gentleman” in every sense of the word.
Another great Hollywood profile. Hanks’ career U-turn is truly epic, probably unrivaled in the history of film.
Another terrific Frank Marshall bit part of the same ilk you mentioned was in “Soapdish”, a reasonably amusing movie with a very amusing cast.
I think folks are a little hard on “Joe Vs. The Volcano”. It has a couple good moments, and any movie with Abe Vigoda as an aboriginal chief can’t be all bad. Meg was a total hottie in that flick, too.
Forgot to mention, “Sleepless In Seattle” is a heaping pile of dung as far as I’m concerned, and it also commits the crime of obscuring viewer’s memories of “When Harry Met Sally”, a similar and vastly superior film. That said, the scene in “Sleepless” where Hanks leads a few male friends in a weepy recalling of the end of “The Dirty Dozen” is priceless. Doesn’t make the rest of this dreck worth sitting through, but taken by itself, it is a great scene.
I love YouTube… you may want to watch the whole Hanks interview in Parts 3 and 4 of the same show, but the Shafts are here in Part 5:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RhIh90HVY50
What, a discussion of Tom Hanks movie career and no mention, in forty-some odd posts, of Saving Private Ryan? I can think of 3 or 4 other actors who wouldda been better in that role.
Hanks is just a little too Alan Alda-ish for my tastes – but he’s still been in some pretty good flicks. And, oh yeah, what about Cast Away? Kinda like that flick too.
And Joe, here’s another Cleveland-centric factoid. Hanks’ early career include a three year stint at the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland. He would often go to the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium and watch the Kuiper/Manning/Ekersley era Tribe play second division ball. It appears he’s something of an officianado of bad Cleveland baseball – another plus.
The ‘Burbs is a GREAT movies! I’m stunned at how this never gets discussed. I watch this movie at least 2-3 times a month.
My favorite Hanks movie!
Turner and Hooch is a role tat most actors could not play. Anyone can play a dumb guy who goes through history, including Gutt.
[...] [...]