Ep. 121: Tom Hanks – Top 6 Movies

January 21, 2024 Peter Jans

Intro

Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.

I’m Jans your Mnemonic Man and today's episode will be on the omnipresent, amiable and down to earth actor Tom Hanks.

Beginning his acting career with shows like ‘Bosom Buddies’ and ‘Happy Days’, Tom Hanks rocketed to stardom with the movies ‘Splash’ in 1984 and ‘Big’ in 1988.

From there he has been the hardest working man in Hollywood appearing in well over 100 movies in approximately 45 years. Just to give you an idea of how prolific and diverse this list is I will run through just a few of the better-known movies Tom Hanks has been in.

Splash, Bachelor Party, The Money Pit, Dragnet, Big, The ‘Burbs, Turner & Hooch, Joe Versus the Volcano, A League of their Own, Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, Forest Gump, Apollo 13, Toy Story, That Thing You Do!, Saving Private Ryan, You’ve Got Mail, The Green Mile, Cast Away, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Road to Perdition, Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal, The Polar Express, The Da Vinci Code, Charlie Wilson’s War, Angels & Demons, Captain Phillips, Bridge of Spies, Sully, and Elvis.

Along with this Hanks has directed and produced various films, series and television.

Today’s mnemonic is on Tom Hanks top 6 movies.

So, with that being said, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Hanks_2016.jpg

Wikipedia Summary

Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for both his comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, and is regarded as an American cultural icon.[2] Hanks' films have grossed more than $4.9 billion in North America and more than $9.96 billion worldwide,[3] making him the fourth-highest-grossing actor in North America.[4] He has received numerous honors including the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2002, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2014, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the French Legion of Honor both in 2016,[5][6] as well as the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2020.[7]

Hanks made his breakthrough with leading roles in a series of comedy films which received positive media attention, such as Splash (1984), The Money Pit (1986), Big (1988), and A League of Their Own (1992). He won two consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actor for starring as a gay lawyer suffering from AIDS in Philadelphia (1993) and the title character in Forrest Gump (1994).[8] Hanks collaborated with film director Steven Spielberg on five films: Saving Private Ryan (1998), Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Terminal (2004), Bridge of Spies (2015), and The Post (2017), as well as the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010), which launched him as a director, producer, and screenwriter. He has also frequently collaborated with film directors Ron Howard, Nora Ephron, and Robert Zemeckis.

Hanks' other films include the romantic comedies Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You've Got Mail (1998); the dramas Apollo 13 (1995), The Green Mile (1999), Cast Away (2000), Road to Perdition (2002) and Cloud Atlas (2012); and the biographical dramas Charlie Wilson's War (2007), Captain Phillips (2013), Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Sully (2016), A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), News of the World (2020) and Elvis (2022). He has also appeared as the title character in the Robert Langdon film series, and voiced Sheriff Woody in the Toy Story film series (1995–2019). Hanks directed the comedy That Thing You Do! (1996), followed by the romantic comedy Larry Crowne (2011), both of which he acted in.

In 1998, Hanks launched his production company Playtone which has an exclusive television development deal with HBO. For his work on television, Hanks has also won seven Primetime Emmy Awards for his work as a producer of various limited series and television movies, including From the Earth to the Moon (1998), Band of Brothers (2001), John Adams (2008), The Pacific (2009), Game Change (2012), and Olive Kitteridge (2015). He made his Broadway debut in Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy (2013) earning a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play nomination.[9]

Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hanks]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hanks-medal-2016.png

Mnemonic

Tom Hanks – Top 6 Movies Mnemonic - CAST as Forest Plump

(Picture Tom Hanks cast as the slightly rotund Forest Plump in the sequel!)

1. Catch Me If You Can (2002)

2. Apollo 13 (1995)

3. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

4. The Green Mile (1999)

5. Forest Gump (1994)

6. Philadelphia (1993)

Five Fun Facts

1. Tom Hanks has a brother that looks remarkably like Tom Hanks. So much so that his brother Jim Hanks stepped in and played one of the scenes of Forest Gump running. The boys didn’t spend much time together when young, as after their parents divorced Tom lived with his dad and Jim with his mother.

2. During the shooting of Forest Gump Tom Hanks paid out of pocket for two scenes the studio refused to fund due to budgetary restraints. One of these scenes was the little jog across America. The studio was happy with this, but in return, they had to share a larger portion of the profits. This worked out okay for Tom who earned an estimated $65 million from Forest Gump which was $10 million more than Paramount’s production budget of $55 million!

3. Tom Hanks has a fetish, and that fetish is typewriters. He owns hundreds of them and started collecting them at age 19. Tom says and I quote “They’re brilliant combinations of art and engineering.” He even takes them when he travels … not sure how he chooses which ones to take. However, in recent years he has started to give them away, and in the end, he wishes to keep just one.

4. Tom Hanks was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2013. Since that point it has given him a little wakeup call and as a result, he has started a healthy habit of doing an hour’s exercise on a daily basis.

5. With the plethora of movies Tom Hanks has appeared in, it has given many opportunities for his family members to appear in. Elizabeth Hanks his daughter played the girl on the school bus in one of the scenes in Forrest Gump where she gestured Forest away with a head shake.
In the movie, That Thing You Do!, his wife, son, and daughter all made appearances. Elizabeth Hanks portrays the “Bored Girl in the Dress Shop.” His second wife, Rita Wilson, plays a small part as Marguerite, the waitress at The Blue Spot jazz club. While Hanks’ son, Colin Hanks, escorts a character named Faye from her car to her seat.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22La_ligne_verte%22_Tom_Hanks_et_Michael_Clarke_Duncan.jpg

Three Question Quiz

Q.1. What was the subtitle to the movie “Sully” where Tom Hanks played pilot Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger?

Q.2. Which two movies did Tom Hanks win an Oscar for?

Q.3. Who did Tom Hanks portray in ‘Apollo 13’?

Bonus Q. Name two movies that Tom Hanks was paired with Meg Ryan?

Mnemonic Recap

Tom Hanks – Top 6 Movies Mnemonic - CAST as Forest Plump

(Picture Tom Hanks cast as the slightly rotund Forest Plump!)

1. Catch Me If You Can (2002)

2. Apollo 13 (1995)

3. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

4. The Green Mile (1999)

5. Forest Gump (1994)

6. Philadelphia (1993)

Three Question Quiz Answers

Q.1. What was the subtitle to the movie “Sully” where Tom Hanks played pilot Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger?

A. Miracle on the Hudson

Q.2. Which two movies did Tom Hanks win an Oscar for?

A. Philadelphia in 1993 and Forest Gump in 1994

Q.3. Who did Tom Hanks portray in ‘Apollo 13’?

A. Astronaut Jim Lovell

Bonus Q. Name two movies that Tom Hanks was paired with Meg Ryan?

A. Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, and Joe Versus The Volcano

Now apparently, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan also made a version of ‘You’ve Got Mail’ specifically for the blind. Now according to all sources because frankly not too many people saw it, they named it ‘You’ve Got Braille’!

Word of the Week

aplomb

[ uh-plom, uh-pluhm ]

noun

imperturbable self-possession, poise, or assurance.

Example

Captain ‘Sully’ handled the emergency situation with the plane and the subsequent landing of the aircraft on the Hudson River with aplomb.

Extracted from: [https://www.dictionary.com/]

https://www.themnemonictreepodcast.com/

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https://open.spotify.com/show/3T0LdIJ9PBQMXM3cdKd42Q?si=fqmaN2TNS8qqc7jOEVa-Cw

References