Punchline | Through the Shattered Lens

Who doesn’t love Tom Hanks?

Tom Hanks celebrated his birthday this week. Here’s a few of his films that you can find online.

Directed by Clint Eastwood, Sully (2016) features Tom Hanks in the role airline pilot Chesley Sullenberger. The film not only recreates Sullenberger’s famous landing in the Hudson but also the subsequent attempts by the government to scapegoat Sully for the incident. This film features one of Hanks’s best performances, bringing humanity to a man who, on cultural level, was viewed as being almost a mythological hero. Hanks is likable and, this being an Eastwood film, the government is portrayed as being both corrupt and incompetent. What’s not to like? Sully is on HBOMAX.

When it comes to Tom Hanks, it’s hard to pick his best performance. I would probably go with Captain Phillips (2013), featuring Hanks as the captain of a boat that is taken prisoner by modern-day pirates. Like Sully, this film is based on a true story and, as he did in Sully, Hanks brings to life a character based on a real-life person. The final scene is devastating and features some of the best acting that I’ve ever seen from anyone. Somehow, Hanks was not nominated for Best Actor for his performance here. Captain Phillips can be viewed on Netflix.

Punchline (1988) is a bit of an oddity. Sally Field is miscast as a housewife trying to make it as a stand-up. That said, Tom Hanks gives a strong and dramatic performance as a self-centered and self-destructive comic. Punchline can be viewed on Tubi.

It’s Summer!

It’s summer! I just got back from my vacation. (I took it a month early because I needed to be back here to start my summer job of covering Big Brother for the Big Brother Blog.) If you can’t get to the beach this summer, you can at least watch both Beach Party (1963) and Bikni Beach (1964) on Tubi and discover how people used to celebrate the summer months. Yes, both of these films are undeniably dated and a bit corny but who cares? Sometimes, it’s fun to watch something from a more innocent era. Beach Party and Bikini Beach are both on Tubi.

If you want a slightly racier beach party, The Beach Girls (1982) is a Crown International production that features all of the nudity (male and female), raunchy humor, and drug jokes that you could hope for. That said, it also features a very likable and energetic cast. It can be viewed over at the Internet Archive.

If you’re looking for a slightly more sinister vacation, Last Summer (1969) features Richard Thomas, Bruce Davison, and Barbara Hershey as three rich kids and Catherine Burns as the insecure girl who tries to hang out with them. Hershey and Burns both give outstanding performances and the end result is a creepy and disturbing coming-of-age story. It can be viewed at the Internet Archive.

Odds and Ends

Enter The Ninja (1981) features my man, the one and only Franco Nero, as a ninja! This is a film that represents everything that made Cannon great. Plus, how can you resist Franco, literally winking at the camera? Enter The Ninja is on Prime.

Skatetown USA (1979) is the greatest film that “ever rolled!” Okay, maybe not the greatest but can you resist Patrick Swayze cracking a whip while rolling around on roller skates? Skatetown USA can be viewed at the Internet Archive.

Finally, if you want to see just how strange fame can be, check out Ringmaster (1998), a film that “celebrates” Jerry Springer. (Jerry appears as a version of himself.) Bizarrely enough, this film does feature two truly good performances, from Jaime Pressly and Molly Hagan as a trailer park mother and daughter who appears on Jerry’s show. Ringmaster is on Prime.

Click here for last week’s recommendations!

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

Last night, if you were up at 12 midnight and couldn’t get to sleep, you could have turned over to Movies TV and watched the 1988 film, Punchline.

Sally Field is Lilah, a New Jersey housewife who, in between getting her children ready for school and helping her husband (John Goodman) throw dinner parties, is pursuing a career as a stand-up comedian. Everyone says that she has a lot of stage presence but she struggles with her material. She’s even resorted to buying jokes from a seedy man who hangs out in a grimy diner.

Tom Hanks is Steve Gold, the youngest member of a family of doctors. When we first meet Steve, he’s getting kicked out of medical school for cheating on an exam. That’s probably for the best, though. Steve doesn’t want to be a doctor. He wants to make people laugh! Every night, he performs at a comedy club known as the Gas Station. Audiences love him almost as much as he hates himself.

Together … they solve crimes!

No, actually, they don’t. I wish they had but they don’t. Instead, in the tradition of A Star is Born, Steve ends up mentoring Lilah and helping her develop her own voice as a comedian. Lilah attempts to balance her loyality to her family with her friendship with Steve. It’s not always easy, largely because Steve isn’t exactly emotionally stable. On stage, Steve may be in control but offstage, he’s frequently selfish and self-destructive. Complicating things is the fact that, even as he watches her talent threaten to eclipse his own, Steve thinks he might be falling in love with Lilah.

Punchline is an uneven movie, largely due to the fact that, while one role is perfectly cast, another one most definitely is not. Not surprisingly, Tom Hanks is believable as a stand-up comedian. It’s not just that he’s obviously comfortable on the comedy club stage. Hanks also shows that he knows how to tell a joke. To put it simply, he has good timing. As played by Tom Hanks, you can look at Steve Gold and imagine people actually paying money for him to make them laugh.

But then you’ve got Sally Field. At no point is Sally Field believable as a stand-up comedian. That’s not so much a problem at the beginning of the film when Field is supposed to an inexperienced amateur. But, as the film progresses, we’re asked to believe that Lilah could conceivably win a spot on television over Hanks and there’s nothing about Field’s performance that suggests that would be possible. When we laugh at Sally Field’s jokes, it’s because she’s Sally Field and she’s talking about multiple orgasms. However, the comedy club audience doesn’t know that she’s Sally Field. Instead, they just know that she’s a comedian who has absolutely no timing.

Much like The Comedian and the Showtime TV series I’m Dyin’ Up Here, Punchline is one of those films that really goes overboard with the audience reaction shots. The only thing worse than listening to an unfunny comedian is then being assaulted by a shot or the sound of an audience dying of laughter. If someone’s not funny, showing some random guy doing spit take isn’t going to help. One thing that directors rarely seem to take into account is that laughter is rarely neat. It’s rare that a huge group of people both start and stop laughing at the exact same moment. There’s usually a stray chuckle or two to be heard, both before and after the punchline has been delivered. Even Tom Hanks, who actually is funny in the movie, is sabotaged by one scene where a group of patients at a hospital are way too amused by his act.

The film’s a bit too long and it takes its dramatic moments way too seriously but it’s almost worth watching for Tom Hanks. Hanks plays a real bastard in Punchline but you still care about Steve because he’s a likable bastard. As you watch the film, you hope Steve becomes a star even if he doesn’t really deserve it. I mean, he’s Tom Hanks!