A postpartum review of That Thing You Do! Okay, here's the deal. Every once in a while, a movie comes out that you see the opening weekend, and while you're watching it, you are utterly convinced that this is gonna be a smash hit and will make boo-coo dollars. You run out of the theater on a three-story high, lovin' life and counting the days 'til you can afford to see it again. You start calling your friends, telling them how fabulous this movie made you feel, and insist that they run right out for it. Then, Monday rolls around, and the paper prints the weekend's Top Tens. Wait a second. Your newfound fave is a measly ninth, and negative reviews are starting to filter in. Joel Siegel's even distancing himself from the film, and before you know it, your newfound fave has been replaced in a week or two by a Van Damme kick-em-up. This recently happened to me with a little movie called That Thing You Do! And, unless I'm the only person on the planet who thinks this movie was worth a look, I want to encourage it to find its second wind on video. I'd like to hope that maybe it can find a new life on HBO or something, rather like Eddie & The Cruisers did a decade ago. It certainly deserves more attention than it got during its big-screen run. That Thing You Do! was written and directed by Oscar®-Boy Tom Hanks. Call it a fairy tale, call it a fable, whatever. This movie is just dang wonderful. It chronicles the brief life of a fictional '60s rock group known as The Wonders. It tracks them through their meager start-up, a talent show triumph, their professional discovery, their flash of stardom, and their breakup and subsequent fade back into obscurity. In many ways, That Thing You Do! is a small miracle. It's the kind of movie that doesn't get made much anymore. It's a feel-good, uptempo PG-rated flick that the whole family can watch, without getting the feeling that you've just spent two hours sacrificing your soul for sipping Kool-Aid with "Barney the Dinosaur." That Thing You Do! is amusing. It's wistful. But most importantly, it's rockin'. The soundtrack is a must for any fan of retro pop-n-roll. Amazingly, Hanks and Company have managed to create a wholly formed pantheon of authentic sounding '60s music, without trotting out those same old-same olds that now appear as the soundtrack for every Baby Boomer product advertised on network TV. My favorite tune from the flick (other than the irresistible title track) is "Mr. Downtown." It's like some dead-cool lovechild of "Secret Agent Man" and "Peter Gunn." The cast is a group of virtual unknowns, with the exception of Hanks himself, playing the record executive Mr. White, whose job it is to escort The Wonders to stardom. Well, you might recognize the lovely young lass Liv Tyler (recently in Empire Records and often seen shaking her money-maker in her daddy's Aerosmith videos) or Steve Zahn (played the gay guy in Reality Bites.) Good performances abound from these young-uns, especially from Tom Everett Scott, playing Guy Patterson, the band's drummer and "backbone." The script is lick-skillet quick and chock full of the kind of snappy one-liners that harken back to an earlier era. There's no elaborate message or memorable moral quotient, but it makes some points about the price of fame in its own delicate way. Zahn, as Lenny the guitar player, gets all the best lines, and there are times when you can just imagine Hanks trying out the quips aloud while pecking on his keyboard. When I saw TTYD! the first time, in a theatre, I had a blast watching it, and at one point, I even found myself dancing in the aisle. (Fortunately, folks around our town know my passion for films, and aren't surprised when they catch me doing unusual things in the moviehouse. You don't wanna know what happened when me and Lulu Catspaw went to see sex, lies and videotape.) Best of all, Hanks does an outstanding job of recreating a bygone era and putting a spotlight on a purely American pop music phenomenon -- the one-hit wonder. I can only hope that Tom Hanks keeps his head up, despite the cool box office and mixed criticism. He made a movie for everybody who ever played air guitar in their bedrooms, lip-syncing to 45's and dreaming of being a "world-famous rock star." It pulls you in quick, hugs you tight, and lets you go, now content in the knowledge that only a few people were meant to be huge celebrities. The rest of us were meant to enjoy the music, and dream that, maybe, we could still make it to the stage one day. WEBMASTERS: Support this alternative opinion and help make That Thing You Do! a born-again video hit. Grab this graphic and put it on your homepage. You can link back to this site if you like with the following URL: http://www.stairwell.com/doc/ Get "reel" soon, Dr. V. B. Daniel See past Alternative Medicine columns: A Christmas Story | To Kill A Mockingbird | I Wanna Hold Your Hand | Kingpin | Joe Versus the Volcano | The Commitments | Indian Summer | The Big Lebowski | Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man | The Texas Chainsaw Massacre | Empire Records | That Thing You Do! | The Ten Commandments | The Third Man | Waiting for Guffman

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