That Thing You Do!

After winning a talent show, a young band from Erie, PA find themselves on a whirlwind tour through the music industry that takes them all the way to Hollywood and the top of the charts. Tom Hanks’ directorial debut, That Thing You Do!, is an endlessly charming look at the rock and roll dream circa 1964. Impeccably well cast from the leads all the way down to the minor characters, That Thing You Do! oozes charisma. The key, of course, is the titular song, “That Thing You Do.” It’s fun and catchy and never gets grating over time, which is important because it gets played a dozen times over the course of the film. The fast pacing propels the movie, which is especially noticeable if you watch the extended cut. Nearly forty minutes longer, the extended cut is not necessary viewing but makes for a fun companion to the original theatrical cut.

Theatrical Cut
Rating: 80%

Extended Cut
Rating: 75%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Brood

Despite having seen and enjoyed David Cronenberg's The Brood, I'm having a hard time coming up with a competent synopsis for the film. It revolves, somewhat, around an unconventional psychotherapy practice called psychoplasmics, wherein a patient's negative emotions and traumatic memories can be channeled into physiological changes to their body. One patient somehow uses psychoplasmics to give birth to little demon faced children in snowsuits who beat people to death. While that's the plot of the film, more or less, it doesn't really tell the whole story. There's also a custody battle arc, some detective procedural elements, the classic Cronenberg body horror component, and killer children who are occasionally killed. And while I'm not sure I've made much of a case for this movie, it remains a worthy entry in Cronenberg's filmography and a uniquely original horror film.

Rating: A Bad Day At School%

(Image at impawards.com)