https://loveliveshereintheusa.com/
Posted on 11/18/2019 10:05:52 AM PST by a little elbow grease
Hollywood’s living saint playing America’s one true hero: What we can learn from the Hanks-Rogers niceness summit in the new film “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”
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(snip) -- Directed by Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) and out Friday, it’s a sensitive portrait of an unlikely friendship. Lloyd doesn’t get the whole Mr. Rogers schtick. But spending time with him, being a direct, in-person benefactor of the icon’s surprisingly workmanlike investment in other people’s well-being, he’s convinced. They forge a bond that is nothing short of profound.
Along the way the film illuminates some truths that are just generally good life advice. Being unhappy doesn’t make you more interesting. Being unforgiving doesn’t mean you’re strong. It may be easier to motivate people by appealing to their fears rather than their love, but it isn’t as productive. Feelings are manageable.
By virtue of the film’s existence in this form—about Fred Rogers, at least in part, and starring Tom Hanks—it is inherently, too, a film about niceness and what that means to us today, if it means anything at all.
Part of the brilliance of Junod’s Esquire article is how it made the point that yes, Mr. Rogers is a hero, but a hero is also just a man. In the film, when Lloyd’s wife learns of his assignment, knowing his penchant for taking the piss out of the people he profiles, she pleads, “Oh lord, Lloyd. Please don’t ruin my childhood.”
Rogers was so sincere, without a shred of irony, that people would wonder whether a person that sincere could possibly exist today. But Hanks, to most, is actually that person, which is what makes this such great casting. A certain skepticism, the fear that Lloyd’s wife voices, accompanies that. Journalists have spent Hanks’ entire career spelunking for juicy gossip, desperate for a “gotcha” that would expose some grave evil or scandalous vice that’s been lurking beneath Hollywood’s Nicest Guy all along, as if it would somehow be more comforting to know he was a misogynist or a lousy drunk or something.
They’ve all come up short, as Taffy Brodesser-Akner discovers in her recent New York Times magazine profile of Hanks, which cannily checks the same boxes Junod’s profile of Rogers did. He really is that friendly, civil, generous, and kind. In fact, a publicist at one point even relays concern that yet another story about how nice Tom Hanks is could be bad press, that something so boring and expected would hurt the film, or diminish the accomplishment of the excellent acting and transformation he pulls off.
Wait till they find out Mr. Rogers was a Republican.
Yeah but then Hanks turned around and signed-on to campaign for the Democrats in 2020. So even this has been politicized.
lol
Worse, wait till they find out he was an ordained Christian minister (graduated from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary).
He was pretty much as he was seen on television.
Since he had a habit of walking around the block after midnight on summer nights, and I had a habit of arriving home after midnight ....... from time to time we met and talked. We went into the back yard of my grandmother's house (where I was living on the third floor), sat down on a beautiful old stone bench and talked.
He was a very comfortable man. Those were some good old days and nights.
“the guy was EXACTLY the same in real life as what you saw on your TV screen”
He was a regular on one of the local college campuses. That’s exactly what they said, the same guy as on the screen.
https://loveliveshereintheusa.com/
Sick of Tom Hanks.
And suspicious they will make this all about how “tolerant” he was of homos.
I forget where I saw that he was (a Republican), but I agree that he transcended politics.
One of my co-workers had a chance encounter with him on the streets of Pittsburgh one day, and says he spoke and acted exactly like he did on TV.
Tom Hanks could indeed do a good job playing the role of Mr. Rogers
I don’t recall giving him permission....
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LOL ... see post # 7.
I think that you can save your suspicions for something else.
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.............. which street -- Hastings, Denniston, Shady Ave.?
What a puff piece. Color me skeptical on this film and Hanks playing Fred Rogers. Hollywood wants tear everything down and that includes Fred Rogers. I want to see the reviews and feedback before commenting further.
+ 10
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I breathlessly await your review.
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