The Man with One Red Shoe (1985)

Image courtesy of IMDB.com

This is one of those movies where I thought "Oh yeah, I've totally seen this before!"  No. I hadn't. I've never seen this before. Which is a shame, because what a silly adventure it was! To ring in our 4th Hanks movie, I made us come cocktails called The Red Shoe (which also contains a booze I've never had before) - Pisco, Campari, Vermouth, blood oranges, simply syrup, and some muddled Luxardo cherries, because everyone needs more Luxardo cherries in their lives.

The Man with One Red Shoe stars Hanks as Richard, a violin player who is randomly picked out of a crowd to be framed as a spy - it's kind of a weird plot. The entire movie consists of lots of unnecessary surveillance and a huge waste of government resources, and is peppered with an affair, subtle physical comedy, and dumb pranks. The cast is rounded out with eternally lovely and brilliant Carrie Fisher, and and the adorably obnoxious Jim Belushi. Hanks was quoted as saying, "Not a very good movie. It doesn't have any real, clear focus to it. It isn't about anything in particular that you can honestly understand." A bit harsh, I'd say! It's definitely not his best movie, but it had a lot of great moments - weirdly, some of the best involved no dialog at all. Others involved Hanks in tiny red briefs and Fisher in leopard print underthings. Just adorable.

Bachelor Party (1984)

Chicks and guns and fire trucks and hookers and drugs and booze!

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I love transitioning from the wholesomeness of Splash to the raunchiness of Bachelor Party! Two wildly different movies, but the same adorable, lovable, cheeky Tom Hanks. In this film he stars as Rick, a newly engaged and soon to be married (in a week and a half?!) young man with a ridiculous group of toxic friends. His costar, Tawny Kitaen, plays his fiance Debbie - who looks shockingly similar to Geena Davis! In an early scene, we watch Rick fumble his way through the kitchen, making Swedish meatballs (mystery meat), broccoli flambe (literally just broccoli that burst into flames), and potato salad (whole raw potatoes on lettuce leaves).

So naturally, I was inspired to make a proper meal of Swedish meatballs, roasted broccoli, and potato salad. Much of it seasoned with paprika. We also drank cheap beer. Because bachelor party.

Now, on to the film! While Debbie is being thrown a typical bridal shower, Rick is reluctantly attending a stag party thrown by his friends and brother. This movie has everything; Hookers, condom balloons, mentally unstable long lost childhood friend, boobs, bras on heads, bondage, dude butts, donkey show, donkey on drugs, dead donkey, kidnapping, fistfights, wife kicking cheating husband's ass, nuns, naked guy hanging out of a window by knotted sheets, department store dancing, big 80's hair, Japanese businessmen, an Indian pimp, and spoiler alert - a wedding! 

I was honestly expecting a lot more raunch and debauchery, and while it absolutely had those moments, it still managed to center around a decent guy, in love with his gal, and unwilling to do anything to hurt her. Tom Hanks, you made us fall in love with you AGAIN!

Image courtesy of IMDB.com

Splash (1984)

We're ready to dive into this one! (I make no apologies for my terrible puns)

Image courtesy of IMDB.com

Splash is the classic love story of a man who falls in love with a mythical fish woman and ya know. They make it work out. This is Hanks's first lead role in a movie, and the sprightly young age of 28. He stars in this with the always lovely Daryl Hannah. The cast is actually pretty amazing, being rounded out with John Candy and Eugene Levy. Looking into some trivia on this, Hanks was cast in this after a *lot* of other actors turned it down - Including Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, John Travolta, Michael Keaton, Burt Reynolds, Robin Williams, Christopher Reeve, and more. And honestly, I can't picture a single one of them nailing this role like Hanks did.

Image courtesy of IMDB.com

For our pairing tonight, I was inspired by the restaurant scene where Hannah is devouring a lobster. I read that during the filming of this, she was a vegetarian and refused to eat any real lobsters for the shot. So the crew took cooked lobsters, pulled out the meat, and filled the shells with some kind of tofu mixture. She cried between takes over the death of the lobsters. So in honor of Hannah and her dearly departed crustaceans, we're having vegan lobster rolls! They're made out of hearts of palm, which kind of taste like artichoke hearts. But that's not the point of this post.

The point is HANKS! He was so adorable and charming in this movie. And does it get any cuter than Daryl Hannah? My husband's review: "Pretty epic. Kind of like an urban Little Mermaid, but with the roles reversed." Has he seen the Little Mermaid? She was a girl looking for dong. Kiiiinda similar plot line. But instead of our mermaid keeping her legs, she somehow swims off into Atlantis with her human beau...who doesn't have to worry about breathing underwater? Whatever, this isn't the kind of film where you get into logistics, you just enjoy the silly ride. And we thank you for it, Hanksyboo!

He Knows You're Alone (1980)

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And we're off!

Starting with Hank's first appearance in a film, we have He Knows You're Alone. It's a 1980 slasher flick about a serial killer who murders soon-to-be brides (and the people around them). Being a home baker, naturally I had to make a little 80's inspired wedding cake to go with the movie. If you've never seen 80's wedding cake trends, do yourself a favor and google image search that shit. My mini cake is complete with strawberry blood splatter. Because duh.

A fresh faced Tom Hanks (24) makes his appearance looking weirdly like a curly-haired Woody. Hanks plays Elliott, a character that our lead (Amy) meets after her friend flirts with him while jogging in the woods. As you do. The original script has Elliott on the chopping block along with several of the other people surrounding Amy, but apparently he was so charismatic that they changed their minds. They saw the magic of Hanks right away, didn't they?

Photo courtesy of IMDB.com

Like any classic slasher movie, it follows some of the usual rules - Promiscuous young woman? Murdered. Boob shot in a shower? Murdered. Innocent bystander who has very little connection to the lead character? Murdered and leaves a clue. Hot shot cop whose fiance was killed on their wedding day and has been trying to find the killer for years and eventually tracks him down in Amy's town? Murdered. It was terrible, slow moving, horribly shot, and a lot of fun to watch!

Hanks: The List

We thought it would be a good idea to post the list of Hanks movies we'll be watching. He's due to release 3 more movies this year, so those will be added as they come out. Keep em coming Hanksyboo! The world needs you!

#1	He Knows You're Alone
#2	Splash
#3	Bachelor Party
#4	The Man With One Red Shoe
#5	Volunteers
#6	The Money Pit
#7	Nothing in Common
#8	Every Time We Say Goodbye
#9	Dragnet
#10	Big
#11	Punchline
#12	The Burbs
#13	Turner and Hooch
#14	Joe Versus The Volcano
#15	The Bonfire of the Vanities
#16	Radio Flyer
#17	A League of Their Own
#18	Sleepless in Seattle
#19	Philadelphia
#20	Forrest Gump
#21	Apollo 13
#22	Toy Story
#23	That Thing You Do!
#24	Saving Private Ryan
#25	You've Got Mail
#26	Toy Story 2
#27	The Green Mile
#28	Castaway
#29	Road to Perdition
#30	Catch Me If You Can
#31	The Ladykillers
#32	The Terminal
#33	Elvis Has Left the Building
#34	The Polar Express
#35	Cars
#36	The Da Vinci Code
#37	The Simpsons Movie
#38	Charlie Wilson's War
#39	The Great Buck Howard
#40	Angels & Demons
#41	Toy Story 3
#42	Larry Crowne
#43	Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
#44	Cloud Atlas
#45	Captain Phillips
#46	Saving Mr. Banks
#47	Bridge of Spies
#48	Ithaca
#49	A Hologram for the King
#50	Sully
#51	Inferno
#52	The Circle
#53	The Post
#54	Toy Story 4
#55	A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Welcome!

 After my husband and I caught the speech that Tom Hanks gave at the Golden Globes tonight, we dried our cheeks and decided we not only need, but owe it to ourselves, to watch every film that Tom Hanks has ever done. Let's just state the obvious here - Tom Hanks is a national treasure and possibly the best thing that's happened to America (at least in recent history). He is a blessing on the world and we just can't get enough of him.

We've always been big fans of Hanks (or Hanksyboo as he is sometimes called in our house) and we own quite a lot of his movies. However, after scrolling his filmography on IMDB.com, we realize there are a lot we haven't seen. Some that we've never even heard of! So like any obsessive compulsive person would do, I made a color-coded spreadsheet of all his movies in chronological order, to be checked off one at a time. As I looked at the list of 55 movies, I realized the obvious - That's roughly one movie a week for an entire year. Time to start a blog!

So every week, this blog will be updated with what movie we watched, our review/comments, and probably some kind of adorable food/drink pairing to go along with the movie because that's how freaking cute I like to roll.

Hopefully someone other than our parents will read this, and enjoy the journey with us as we Thank T Hanks for all his amazing work.

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Written by Kate and her husband Dushan from their cozy couch in Milwaukee, WI