Episodes

  • Asteroid City (2023)

    Asteroid City (2023)
    Jun 5 2024
    Last summer, Tom Hanks teamed up with Wes Anderson for Asteroid City, and now it's time to talk about it on #HANX for the Memories! After a brief explanation as to why this episode is roughly one year late, we talk about the fact that this is the first Wes Anderson movie either of us have covered for a podcast, how COVID impacted and inspired this film, and how father and grandfather roles seem to suit Tom Hanks pretty well. We talk about how Hanks handles the specific requests and needs of a Wes Anderson movie and what we'd like to see if Tom Hanks was the true star of a Wes Anderson project. We ask: did this movie not hit as well the second time around? Does the artifice in Wes Anderson's movies work anymore? How does Wes Anderson compare and contrast with Tim Burton? We look ahead to upcoming Tom Hanks movies.
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    20 mins
  • A Man Called Otto (2022)

    A Man Called Otto (2022)
    Mar 7 2023
    Now that A Man Called Otto is available on VOD, we stopped kicking the can down the road and decided to watch it. After sharing our pre-conceived notions of the film (and whether or not it lived up to them), we talk about the depressing trend of Hollywood's continual remakes of European films and wonder whether a movie with those tone plays better there than it does here. We also wonder why the movie decided to both cast a young Tom Hanks AND digitally de-age him in separate scenes, whether or not Hanks will return to comedy (or at least to the types of movies we prefer), and what's holding Hanks back from making more exciting movies. We try to manifest his upcoming film roles and share ways we could make A Man Called Otto better -- or at least more interesting.
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    26 mins
  • Pinocchio (2022)

    Pinocchio (2022)
    Sep 28 2022
    #HANX for the Memories is back for a semi-surprise dump of Pinocchio (2022) onto Disney+, featuring Tom Hanks as Gepetto. It's not the longest episode we've ever done, because, well... it's a movie we've seen before. We dive into the "quest for content" on all streaming services, the many adaptations of Pinocchio that have released in the past few years, and whether or not Robert Zemeckis's version does anything truly new. We talk about Tom Hanks's portrayal of Gepetto, the character found in this movie but not in the original, and whether or not the ending is a cop out.
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    25 mins
  • Baz Luhrmann's Elvis (2022)

    Baz Luhrmann's Elvis (2022)
    Jun 25 2022
    It's a Viva Pod Vegas / #HANX for the Memories special crossover event as we talk about Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, the Elvis Presley biopic! We discuss Austin Butler's portrayal of Elvis (and how he is the movie), Tom Hanks's portrayal of Colonel Tom Parker (and why he took the role), and Baz Lurhmann's novel take on the biopic via a new POV. We talk about Hanks's makeover and his level of "going for it," the movie's frenetic pacing and structure, and how it navigates around some controversy. We also wonder if Riley Keough would have fit in the movie and try to picture Tom Cruise as Colonel Tom.
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    46 mins
  • Finch (2021)

    Finch (2021)
    Mar 14 2022
    After a brief hiatus, #HANX for the Memories is back and talking about Tom Hanks' most recent film, Finch! Available on Apple TV+, Finch tells the story of a dying man who builds a robot to take care of his dog after he's gone. In this episode, we talk about the complicated journey of bringing Finch to the big screen, the bizarre reality that this WASN'T filmed during the pandemic, the fairly outstanding performance turned in by Caleb Landry Jones, and our sort of frustration at a movie that we mostly liked but feel we should have loved. Also, we preview the (really, really) big year that Tom Hanks has coming in 2022!
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    28 mins
  • 064 News of the World (2020)

    064 News of the World (2020)
    Jan 18 2021
    Tom Hanks wasted no time in getting the year (and Phase II of #HANX for the Memories) started off right with News of the World! The film sees Hanks re-unite with Paul Greengrass, which now marks two team-ups where Hanks plays a captain: Captain Phillips and News of the World. In this episode, we talk about "western Hanks," the pacing and structure of the movie, and the sort of surprise (yet inevitable?) ending. Also, we talk about the difference between character-based and atmosphere-based westerns as we try to figure out which of those styles this movie tried to hit -- and whether or not it was successful.
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    35 mins
  • 063 The Woodies: The Tom Hanks Awards

    063 The Woodies: The Tom Hanks Awards
    Nov 13 2020
    At long last, the time has come to (once again) don our tuxedos and roll out the red carpet. Welcome to The Woodies: The Tom Hanks Awards! All podcast long, we've talked about our favorite (and least favorite) parts of Tom Hanks's movies and TV roles, and we announced our official selections for the best and worst of what Tom Hanks's filmography has to offer and opened the voting to the public. Now, your votes have been tallied, our very special guest Bob Fischer has verified the results, and it's finally time to reveal our picks -- as well as the fans' selection -- for each and every category. Live, from the internet, it's The Woodies: The Tom Hanks Awards!
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • 062 Ranking Tom Hanks's Movies

    062 Ranking Tom Hanks's Movies
    Nov 6 2020
    Before we tally up the votes for the Woodies (The Tom Hanks Awards), we've got one more task ahead of us: we've got to rank Tom Hanks's movies! As always, there's a weird alchemy here that doesn't quite make sense, as we combine the movie's "quality" with Hanks's performance, add a dash of how much we like him in the movie, and toss in some other hints and touches of things we can't quite articulate, and wind up with a comprehensive list of his films and roles in an order that only makes sense to us. 
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    45 mins