Marc Israel Having just watched "A Hard Days Night", and realizing the separation of good music and fine film making, I went on line to have "That Thing You Do" delivered home to share with my daughter the wide spread cultural effect of the Beatles on America. Having been born in '62, my implanted memories are antedoctal at best only having individual discoveries through the blue and red best of albums.We start off fast with a quick change of tempo from our drummer and "The Oneders" are off to the world of one-hit wonders! It's the expected arc of a band story, so not much there, but the little vignettes of each next stage launch reminds you of director Tom Hanks previous movie Apollo 13, launching into space, they great unknown.The higher end of teh music world was so closely tied to TV and film that, now, "The Wonders" made it to West Coast and all its fun in the sun Hollywood charade. All teh while our band mates solidify their stance in what they are after. Our talented songwriter/guitarist, Jimmy, is clamoring for artistic merit, Our other guitarist/clown, Lenny, is there for the party, our bassist is constantly sidetracked by his military ambitions, while our obvious hero from teh start, drummer/jazz enthusiast and older member Guy, is trying to make the most of it all while remaining positive while it slowly begins to fall apart. Once we understand the importance of Jimmys' tag along girlfriend Faye, its obvious that the movie has as much to do about the love of their music and what they all bring as a five person unit, as it does about the story line in itself.Tom Everett Scotts' Guy exudes the young directors charm and resemblance and the serious Johnothan Schaech brings to Jimmy are equally important. It may have been Fountain Of Waynes' Adam Schellengers' song (title track) but you wouldn't think twice about that until reading the trivia section of IMBD. Liv Tylers' Faye is more band glue that girlfriend/fan and their last band manager Mr White (Hanks) knows it. At least enough to put the whisper in the ear to set up our ending.

taylorhammons Hear me out. I know so many people will tell me it's crazy to list this cheesy movie as one of my favorites. And in a way I agree. With so many phenomenal movies out there, why pick one like this? The answer: because it's fun. I love serious movies. Some of my favorites are very serious. But the main goal of a movie is to be entertaining, and if I just want to watch something that's going to let me have fun and escape the world for two hours, I rarely have to look further than this often overlooked masterpiece. We've all come to expect greatness from Tom Hanks, and in his directorial debut, he certainly delivers, both onscreen and behind the curtain. I firmly believe that Steve Zahn is a comedic goldmine, worthy of far more accolades than he gets, and this is his best work. The songs are catchy and reminiscent of the 60s charm they are intended to represent. It's just a great movie to have fun and sing along to. I maintain that some movies don't need to be any more than that.

SnoopyStyle It's 1964 Erie, Pennsylvania. Drummer Guy Patterson (Tom Everett Scott) chases flirtatious Tina Powers (Charlize Theron) and unhappily works at the family appliance store. Faye Dolan (Liv Tyler) is the girlfriend of Jimmy Mattingly (Johnathon Schaech) who leads a band with Lenny Haise (Steve Zahn), T. B. Player (Ethan Embry), and Chad (Giovanni Ribisi). They get Guy to join after Chad breaks his arm and come up with the name "Oneders" (supposedly pronounced Wonders). Guy's fast beats force the band to change their song "That Thing You Do" during a competition. The guys sign with manager Phil Horace living out of his camper. They go to Pittsburgh. Mr. White (Tom Hanks) signs them to Play-Tone Records and promptly changes the spelling of their name to The Wonders.This is very much the personification of the Tom Hanks and his sunshine personality. It is fun, mostly happy, deliberately light even when the movie touches on darker issues, and has a catchy tune. It's good that the song is catchy because the movie plays it a lot. The visual is immaculately perky 60s. This is a happy Disney version of an one-hit-wonder rock group. The actors are beautiful. This is not to say this is a blindly perky film. It doesn't dig too deeply in the darker corners.

Sergeant_Tibbs In the mid-1990s, Tom Hanks was on the top of the world. He had just won two Oscars in a row and starred in the innovative phenomenon Toy Story. Frankly, he could do just about anything he wanted. So he went ahead and made his directorial feature film debut, a love letter to an adored era, the explosion of pop music in the 1960s. That Thing You Do is a pretty routine but charming flick like an alternate Beatles fame tale. However, the story takes a pretty straight trajectory. It rises, rises, rises, keeps rises without much interruption, then there's the fall, then soft landing then credits. It suffers from lack of meaningful conflict, instead just showing the cracks til the inevitable explosion within the band. It's okay for mild entertainment, just a little bland. Wish he chose a better lead than someone who just looks like him. Steve Zahn is the only zany highlight who livens the picture up. But it all hinges onto its title song, which is very catchy, if quite 90s. The disappointing thing about the film is it doesn't explore the joy of discovery in this early pop music. Instead, kids just nod when things feel right. It needed much more energy and confidence, but it's a generally inoffensive film.6/10