Tom Hanks

Throw Back

Catch Me If You Can has loads of action, but the story's a little thin.

Some Nouns, Some Verbs and 9/11

Bald eagles will weep for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

Pop Rocks: And Now, Your Worst Movies of 2011

As 2011 draws to a close, the natural tendency is to reflect on events of the past 12 months. Did we accomplish everything we'd hoped? Did we end the year in a better place than we started? Did that terrifying rash all over our genitalia clear up on its own, or should we finally see a doctor? For ... More >>

Pop Rocks: The Worst Movies of 2011

As 2011 draws to a close, the natural tendency is to reflect on events of the past 12 months. Did we accomplish everything we'd hoped? Did we end the year in a better place than we started? Did that terrifying rash all over our genitalia clear up on its own, or should we finally see a doctor? For ... More >>

The Five Best Talk-Show Guests, Ranked

The new Tom Hanks movie Larry Crowne was a bland bomb, but that's okay: He did publicity for it, and that means showing up on (just about any and all) talk shows as a guest. What makes a good talk-show guest? Someone who understands the dynamic -- you're not having anything close to a real conversa ... More >>

White Man's Lament

It's hard out there for an employed, middle-class, white-collar male in Horrible Bosses.

Middle of the Road

Tom Hanks ages into mid-life obsolescence in the middling Larry Crowne.

Pop Rocks: Non-Transformers Robot Movies We'd Like to See

​I have nothing against robots, per se. Some of the greatest antagonists in sci-fi have been fearsome automatons like those found in Fred Saberhagen's Berserker series, or the Terminator, or the...Battle Android Troopers (B.A.T.s) from G.I. Joe. I guess. And although robot offerings in recent ... More >>

Oscar Night 2011: The Live Blog!

​We are only less than three hours out from bringing you live-blogging coverage, right here, of this year's Academy Awards, and we are more than excited to take you through the night for every win, loss, awful dress, awesome dress, foible, and foul-up Hollywood throws our way.

Is A Hit Rap Song The Texans' Key To The Super Bowl?

​Want a worthy Super Bowl pick? In the words of Wesley Snipes in 1992's Passenger 57, "Always bet on black," ... and yellow. Don't thank Rocks Off for that profitable betting tip. Thank Wiz Khalifa, who is going to bring glory back to his frigid blue-collar hometown of Pittsburgh. It's only ... More >>

Upcoming Events

​Taking place on Monday will be the long-awaited Chefs Under Fire competition, in which five area chefs compete for a spot in the state-wide Chefs Under Fire Finals to be held in Austin on October 25. So far, the chefs from Dallas-Ft. Worth and the Austin-San Antonio region have already been c ... More >>

For Inception: Bad Dream Sequences In Good Movies

Inception is getting good reviews as a dream-based thriller, but there are plenty of examples of perfectly good movies or shows being ruined, or at least temporarily harmed, by dream sequences.Among them:1. The Sopranos with that damn Kevin Finnerty Tony gets shot and then the wheels come off. We g ... More >>

Pop Rocks: Why You Should Be Watching The Good Guys

​We're in the doldrums, people. Nothing but baseball until August, craptastic "blockbuster" movies for the next two months...hell, even the World Cup is a bore now unless you're lucky enough to have an ancestral connection to one of the remaining teams (go Germany!). What we need is a decent s ... More >>

For Memorial Day: Five Best Graveside Scenes

Memoral Day is the time we honor those who gave their lives for their country, and families everywhere will be going to graves to leave something for the young boys who "never saw gray hair."Hollywood has always been fond of graveside scenes, of course, especially for war movies. The web is full of ... More >>

The Week In TV: Mad About Mad Men Barbie Dolls

The Barbie version of Joan appears to have just escaped from Dachau.​I have no idea what day it is, my veins run thick with taquitos, and I took my shirt off in public. This was the week in TV Land: • I'm a little amazed at the amount of TV I was able to watch this past week considering I' ... More >>

House of Enchiladas

​Deep in Friendswood (it isn't that far away, people) is an establishment that has ballooned into an enchilada institution. It's called La Casita (18043 County Rd. 127), and Tom Hanks ate here during the filming of Apollo 13 at Space Center Houston. It's also the local dive of a recent Bachelo ... More >>

The Five Worst Movies Being Shown On The International Space Station

​Maybe this has come out before -- the list seems to be a year old -- but we noticed today a story in the British paper The Guardian about the list of DVDs NASA has provided to the International Space Station.The actual list is here, released under the Freedom of Information Act. Movies are appare ... More >>

Spacefest: 40th Anniversary of the Moon Landing

Houston, we have a celebration

Angels & Demons with Tom Hanks

Another treat for whacked-out male conspiracy theorists

For 4/20: Five Classic Stoners From The Movies

April 20 is National Pot Smoking Day, because if there's anything America needs, it's a holiday encouraging us to be more apathetic than we already are. But rather than get bogged down in arguments for legalization or debates about the merits of medicinal marijuana, let us simply commemorate this o ... More >>

Guilty Of Medicaid Fraud? Depends

If you're going to try to defraud the government, please -- for your own self-esteem -- choose a more glamorous plan than one involving adult diapers.When the announcement came in from the US Attorney's Office headlined that a local company owner had been "INDICTED IN ADULT DIAPER FRAUD CASE," we co ... More >>

For Valentine's Day: The Five Worst Romantic Comedies

With Valentine's Day approaching, tbe best most of you poor single bastards can hope for is to get through the night with your bank account relatively intact. Married folks are better off, as all they're really expected to come up with is a perfunctory gift and maybe an evening spent watching a drea ... More >>

Highest-Ranking NASA Woman Ever Prepares For Re-Entry To Private Life

Shana Dale, the highest-ranking woman in NASA history, is leaving the agency after three years as second-in-command.NASA's press release on the subject said she announced the decision today, but readers of her blog were tipped off about it last week. (Clearly, we were not readers of her blog.)Dale s ... More >>

Charlie Wilson's War -- Over A UT Chair

Six Degrees of Charlie Wilson’s War

Houston, We Have an Unoriginal Headline

Hitchcock on Holiday

DVDs

When the Stars Came Out

Cracked Code

Da Vinci's leap to the screen leaves no room for surprise

They're in Tune

Pretty Girls Make Saves

As video games go indie, Wack imagines a few likely pairings

Second Run

Celebrating the overachieving, underhyped movies of 2004

Monster Makeover

Van Helsing explodes movie legends with hip upgrades

Big Deal

A good idea grows up into a missed opportunity

No More Wussies

Or, why Tom Hanks isn't Steve Guttenberg

Suth'n Comfort

The Coens score big with Ladykillers -- thanks to Hanks

The Year of Living Dangerously

Cinema 2002 counterbalanced a treacherous world

Catcher in the Sky

Spielberg gets caught up in the thrill of the chase

Best Laundromat

Graustark Laundry

One-Way Ticket

Tom Hanks and Paul Newman are on the bloody, brilliant Road to Perdition

Special Delivery

With Cast Away, Robert Zemeckis unearths the part of Tom Hanks we've been hoping to find: His brittle humanity

E.T. on Death Row

Director Frank Darabont gets metaphysical in The Green Mile

Return Mail

Ephron offers an appealing update of a classic charmer

Combat Reality

Spielberg desanitizes WWII with the powerful Saving Private Ryan

Pop Sensation

Tom Hanks shows how it feels at the top of the charts

The Year in Film

Though not great, 1995 still produced some movies worth seeing (and reseeing)

Moonstruck

Both corny and inspiring, Apollo 13 is about more than a space mission

The Age of Innocents

With Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks shows, again, that it's a gift to be simple

The Silence of the Lambs

Hollywood emerges from its AIDS innocence to produce the engaging, but predictable, Philadelphia