He has no name. I remember seeing Tom Hanks on the Tonight Show talking about how that was a running joke.
Liv Tyler's character has to be one of the sweetest, prettiest, most lovely girls ever found on celluloid. Love this movie.
The band (and the song) took off once the new drummer joined. He was a much better drummer and dictated the tempo and feel of the tune. I'm sure the director wanted this to be obvious to the viewing audience, so the drums were brought forward. This is my guess for why, in this case, authenticity was not strived for.
I am in the minority here. I thought the movie was ehh! For a person who loves everything that this movie tries to do it just leaves me like- So! This should of been a film I love but it seems to be so obvious and derivative and taking the zeitgeist of the time to overblown stereotypical adventures that I get almost embarrassed. I cant believe how pretentious I sound but Im just trying to say that I am in the minority and think a contrary view is sometimes needed. Im not posting to treadcap or cause trouble. Im just a person who should of loved this film but cannot. Thanks for reading and I mean no malace to fans. John M.
Loved the tribute to Tom Hanks last night on the Kennedy Awards. There was an acapella rendition of some of the songs from the movie but with new lyrics praising Tom. It was pretty darn cool.
The 'modern' drum sound also served another purpose - they may have been aiming for a hit single tie-in to the movie, and they almost got it. TTYD reached #41 in Billboard.
I think it was because it was a 1996 movie, intended for 1996 audiences. The same flaw happens with The Idolmaker, an otherwise good movie where the music (particularly the rhythm tracks) sounds much too polished and "modern" because it was recorded and mixed in 1980 for 1980 audiences.
CBS last night, or was it the night before. I'm sure there are links out there somewhere. http://www.broadwayworld.com/videoplay.php?colid=899438#.VKSa-pV0zmg
Hmmm... sounds like another band from that era that got a much better drummer and dictated the tempo and feel of the tune and then went on to great success, but they weren't a one-hit one-der.
Not to keep pushing my views but I have an extensive musical background myself and I came to a different conclusion. Isnt this fun. Take care, John M.
It's interesting how much of a failure That Thing You Do was at the time. My observation was 1) average contemporary audiences generally don't give a crap about the personalities behind the music of the 1960s [with few exceptions], and 2) the overall story of the movie is a downer: the band crashes and burns after having their only hit, the a-hole lead singer goes on to more success, and the talented drummer -- basically the star of the movie -- has only a modest career in the years that followed. I think this is the kind of movie music fans can appreciate, but I don't see it as a mass-market success. I think there were a lot of bands that followed a similar path in this era but I didn't find it stereotypical at all. I also think director/producer/co-star Tom Hanks did this movie as a labor of love because he had great passion for the music of the 1960s and because he thought he could kind of present a microcosm of what it was like to live the life of a rock star, albeit briefly, during those years. I think the movie was well-done, but I think Fox always knew the movie would be a bomb, and they agreed to make it just out of respect to Hanks and his huge career over the past 25 years. The movie only cost $26M, which wasn't that much of a loss for the studio, but the film never broke even and got very mixed reviews. I think the fact that That Thing You Do and his second film as director, Larry Crowne, both did badly did not help his status or career as a director. But Hanks is still doing well as an actor, plus he's got quite a few successes as a TV producer.
I was 9 when the film came out & wanted to see it badly (my love for the Beatles had just kicked off that year). How bad did it bomb? Also I would've assumed it had made back it's budget since it's release, that isn't the case?
That Thing You Do cost $26M and made $34M, which ain't enough; it would've had to have made way north of $50M to just break even. You can look up the reviews all over the net. I think the movie had some very good moments, but in hindsight they should have made it as a $10M HBO movie -- if it were possible. There are a handful of autobiographical movies about famous 1960s music stars that made big money. One was Ray, which cost $40M and made over $120M; another was Walk the Line, which cost $28M and made over $180M (and won several major awards). But for every movie like that there's a film like Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, which cost $35M and made only $20M, or the very recent film The Identical, which cost $16M and only made $2M. I think fictional rock & roll movies are a very tough sell these days. And as the baby boomer audience ages, I think making films about 1960s rock stars will be an even tougher road to hoe, unless they're extremely famous.
I wasn't crazy about Pentatonix' take on "That Thing You Do" on the Hanks tribute (actually, the best moment on that show was Lady Gaga performing an absolutely incendiary version of Sting's "If I Ever Lose My Faith In You", but that's for a different thread). I knew they had to work it in somehow, so I'm at least glad it got performed. This movie has one of my top 5 favorite soundtracks. Yes, it's way too modern sounding-I'm ok with that. Of the many things to love about TTYD is how it gets actors playing instruments exactly right-because they actually rehearsed as a band before the movie was even shot. It's almost as if Hanks knew music lovers would be watching!
