#HANX for the Memories: The Tom Hanks Podcast

Tom Hanks pulls quadruple duty on #HANX for the Memories, as he's the writer, director, producer, and leading man in Larry Crowne. Joining us to talk about the "explosion of benign, muted joy" of Larry Crowne is Michael Domanico (Not Her Again), a past guest of the TomTom Club and an expert in all things Julia Roberts. In this episode, we talk about Hanks's second effort from behind the camera, th...

Within a few years of the release of Toy Story 3, five more Toy Story, uh, stories were released in the form of Toy Story Toons and TV specials. In this episode, we're working our way through three Toy Story Toons (Hawaiian Vacation (2011), Small Fry (2011), and Partysaurus Rex (2012)), as well as two Toy Story TV specials (Toy Story of Terror (2013) and Toy Story That Time Forgot (2014)). Mike wo...

How many Toy Story movies will wind up atop our list of favorite Tom Hanks movies? That's up for debate today as Cara Gael O'Regan (Wistful Thinking) joins us to talk about Toy Story 3. In this episode, we try to do the impossible task of comparing this to previous installments in the series, which came out 11 (!) and 15 (!!) years before this, while also looking ahead to the next sequel, which wo...

Get ready for an adventure! We haven’t clawed our way through history in a few weeks, which means it’s about time to cover Angels & Demons! We’ve once again re-assembled our religious historical fiction team of John Brooks (Hard to Believe) and Jess “Montez” Collins. In this episode, we gain access to the Vatican Archives so that we can talk about the truths, half-truths, and lies of Angels & Demo...

Colin Hanks began his movie career with a cameo role in That Thing You Do!, but The Great Buck Howard is our first full-blown Colin Hanks vehicle on #HANX for the Memories! While Tom may not have a lot to do in this one, The Great Buck Howard is notable for the podcast because he and Colin (real-life father and son, in case you didn't know; thanks, IMDb trivia!) play father and son in the movie. I...

Are politics fun? Or would anything fueled by cocaine and attractive women fawning over your every move seem fun on screen? That's probably not *the* core question at the heart of Charlie Wilson's War, but it's one of the many we're tackling on today's episode of #HANX for the Memories. In this episode, we're joined by Tobin Addington (The Contenders) to talk about all the Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts...

Tom Hanks is an actor known for playing an incredibly diverse array of roles, but across all of his films, only Sheriff Woody pops up more often than Robert Langdon, the intrepid hero of Dan Brown's books and Ron Howard's movies. Even though The Da Vinci Code was not the first Robert Langdon story, it was the most popular book in the world at one point, and it serves as our entry point into the wo...

There's no better time for a Christmas movie (like The Polar Express) than a Friday in May when we're all stuck in quarantine! Joining us on this nonstop train to the North Pole (a train that's out of season and out of time) is Dan Hayden, who used to be our "Year 2000 Action Movie Expert," but is now our... mid-2000s animated children's movie about believing in Santa Claus expert? In this episode...

Is The Terminal the strangest Tom Hanks movie we've covered so far in #HANX for the Memories? It just may be! But is that a bad thing? Since we've completed Hanks's "golden mile," we've bounced from one strange project to the next. To help us make sense of The Terminal, we're joined by returning guest Zack DeZon. In this episode, we talk about finding love in an airport terminal... as well as scav...

We're all in agreement on two things about The Ladykillers: Tom Hanks is the best part about this movie, and this movie is the worst Coen Brothers movie. (But that's not a bad thing!) In this episode, we're joined by Bob Fischer (Tub Talk) and Dan Colon to take a deep dive into the first Tom Hanks movie to release since his "Golden Mile" of movies ended. We talk about the similarities found in all...

After weeks and weeks of podcasts spanning Tom Hanks's best movies, Catch Me If You Can marks the end of the "golden mile" on #HANX for the Memories. Things may be about to take a downturn, but at least we're going out on a high note! While Catch Me If You Can isn't quite a "Tom Hanks movie" as much as it is a showcase for Leonardo DiCaprio's endless charm, it marks one of his best films to date a...

It's been the better part of a decade since one of our guests, Kyle Reinfried (Foodie Films), told Mike to watch Road to Perdition. At long last, the time has come. Joining Kyle on this episode is Jessica Collins, who's with us as we all go back in time to 1931 and find a new type of role for Mr. Tom Hanks: mob muscle! In this episode, we discuss whether or not Hanks continues his streak of being...

"WILSON!" We've entered a new decade, a new century, and a new millennium in #HANX for the Memories, but Tom Hanks is still out here, acting his little butt off and winning awards for Cast Away. Joining us on this FedEx plane to the middle of nowhere is returning guest Zack DeZon. In this episode, we talk about the film's many set-ups and pay-offs, whether or not we could survive on a desert islan...

It turns out that Tom Hanks has acted in a lot of really, really long movies. Not only does The Green Mile mark one of Hanks's longest movies to date (or maybe ever!), but it's also one of his best. To help us break down the three-hour-plus epic, we welcome in Dan Colon, a big Stephen King fan and self-admitted Green Mile sobber. In this episode, we talk about another Tom Hanks trip back in time,...

Is Toy Story 2 the best Toy Story movie? Is Toy Story 2... the best Tom Hanks movie? It's time to figure out where Tom Hanks's first sequel ranks! Joining us on this episode of Woody's Roundup is John Brooks. We're talking about the leaps in animation from the first movie, all of the new characters, and the perfect series of heists and rescue missions that make up Toy Story 2. We also talk about t...

We've still got miles to go before we sleep on #HANX for the Memories, but we've reached the third and final (for now, anyway!) Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan pairing in You've Got Mail. We're joined by Cara Gael O'Regan of Wistful Thinking and Liam Underwood to head back in time to an era where waiting for your dial-up modem to connect brought with it a sense of breathless anticipation. In this episode, we t...

What better way to follow-up the poppy joy of the Oneders on That Thing You Do than with the gritty brutality of war in Saving Private Ryan? (Get your neckbrace ready for even more tonal whiplash between episodes, too, as we're heading to You've Got Mail next episode.) To talk about all the tactical maneuvers of Saving Private Ryan, we're bringing in our Year 2000 Action Movie Expert, Dan Hayden,...

Two years ago, we did a deep dive into the world of That Thing You Do! for our Charlize Theron podcast, Watch The Theron. We learned that there was a director's cut -- especially noteworthy here, as this movie was written and directed by Tom Hanks! -- that added nearly 40 minutes of new footage, specifically around the "before she was mega famous" Charlize role. It didn't make a ton of sense for t...

You've got a friend in us! This week, on #HANX for the Memories, we're headed all the way back to talk about the first appearance of Sheriff Woody in Toy Story. Joining us to try to frame this movie within the proper contexts (in Hanks's career, in this franchise, and in the history of animation) is Zack DeZon. In this episode, we discuss the heady philosophical questions that the Toy Story movies...

This week on #HANX for the Memories, we look to the night sky and hope we don't run into any issues as we cover Apollo 13! Joining us to talk about all things Hanks and outer space is Tobin Addington of The Contenders podcast. In this episode, Joey tries to figure out why he didn't quite connect with this movie, we all heap tons and tons of praise upon Ed Harris, and we wonder whether or not Ron H...

Life is like a box of... well, you know how the rest of that line goes. The time has come, at long last, for Forrest Gump: the movie that Joey and Mike have been dreading since the launch of #HANX for the Memories. Joining us is Austin Wolf-Sothern of Cinema Stories on YouTube as we discuss whether or not we were right to be wary of this movie, whether or not Forrest Gump should be held in high es...

The Golden Mile of #HANX for the Memories continues with Philadelphia, the first of back-to-back movies where Tom Hanks would score an Academy Award win. In this episode, we’re joined by Brian Rodriguez of High School Slumber Party to talk about Hanks’s performance, the performance from Denzel Washington that’s nearly as dynamic, and the importance of Philadelphia within a historical context, both...

Our run through the golden era of Tom Hanks's movies continues with our second Hanks/Meg Ryan (and our first Hanks/Ryan/Nora Ephron) team-up: Sleepless in Seattle! We're joined by Cara Gael O'Regan of Wistful Thinking (who watched this twice in two days!) to talk about this cozy blanket of a movie that none of us had ever seen before. In this episode, we talk about Sleepless in Seattle as the Rose...

There’s no crying in podcasting! The war is on and we’re taking to the field with the rest of the Rockford Peaches to talk about A League of Their Own! To field out the rest of our lineup, we’re joined by Cara Gael O’Regan of Wistful Thinking, as well as Dan Hayden. In this episode, we talk about why grumbly Hanks is angry all the time, celebrate a wonderful Geena Davis performance, and count up t...

We are so close. We're so close, you guys. In just one episode, we're going to cover A League of Their Own, which kicks off a run more than a decade long that is exclusively filled with unimpeachable Tom Hanks classics. (Or, so we think for now. We'll see!) Before we get there, though, we have to take to the skies (to avoid our fathers?) in 1992's Radio Flyer. We spared our friends the confusing p...