{"id":36655,"date":"2017-01-02T15:30:37","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T23:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/?p=36655"},"modified":"2017-01-02T15:30:37","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T23:30:37","slug":"challenge-week-51-joe-versus-the-volcano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/challenge-week-51-joe-versus-the-volcano\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenge Week 51: Joe Versus the Volcano"},"content":{"rendered":"

What a goofy, weird little comedy. When my cousins were deciding what films to give me, Kevin scoffed at this suggestion from his wife, a movie she has a soft spot for and he apparently thinks is trash. Heh. I’d been meaning to see it for a while as I went through a major Meg Ryan phase for a while but somehow skipped this one, so I encouraged her to go through with the recommendation, and I’m glad I did.<\/p>\n

While I probably didn’t love it like she does, I did quite enjoy its quirks. Tom Hanks is an employee in the epitome of dystopian office jobs – hundreds of glum employees shuffling to a dark, dank box of a building to do boring, pointless jobs and then shuffle back to their tiny, dank apartments. Hanks is a hypochondriac on top of that, and soon hears from his doctor that he’ll die of a mysterious condition within a few months. Then a mysterious man shows up at his apartment and offers him unlimited funds to enjoy (leading to a great section as Ossie Davis drives him around the town and helps him buy a new wardrobe) and a cruise to the South Pacific, but the catch is at the end of his vacation, he’s got to sacrifice himself to appease the island gods of the volcano.<\/p>\n

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I certainly didn’t expect anything as dark or satirical as the dystopian sections, which brought to mind stuff like Brazil<\/em> or The Trial<\/em>, and then you just kind of have to give yourself over to the absurdity of the rest of the story, as Hanks interacts with three women played by Meg Ryan in various degrees of outrageous disguise, gets shipwrecked, and finally arrives to pay his debt to the volcano gods. This last bit is the most ridiculous but I mean, by this point, why not just go with it?<\/p>\n

Meg Ryan plays three roles, as I said – the main love interest for most of the film, but also two earlier women, and not knowing that going in made for a pretty weird sensation. I kept thinking “is that Meg Ryan? It kind of looks like her, but also not…” It was really confusing, but once I read that she played all three, kind of awesome that she did that and went for such fun, over the top characterizations.<\/p>\n

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Perhaps strangely for such a slight film, it actually asks some deep questions regarding self-sacrifice and keeping your word even when you’re lied to, and that theme is treated fairly seriously. When I looked up John Patrick Shanley, I was a little taken aback to see that his only other directorial credit is 2008’s Doubt<\/em>, a film entirely dissimilar from this in tone, but maybe Shanley’s interest in Catholicism (a subject he deals with more often in his main job as playwright) is pulling in themes like this even when the surface seems totally absurdist.<\/p>\n

Stats and stuff…<\/h3>\n

1990, USA<\/em>
\nwritten and directed by John Patrick Shanley<\/em>
\nstarring Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Abe Vigoda, Dan Hedaya, Ossie Davis<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m ranking all my Challenge films on Flickchart (as I do all the films I see), a movie-ranking website that asks you to choose your favorite between two movies until it builds a ranked list of your favorites. Just for fun, I will average out the rankings and keep a running tally of whose recommendations rank the highest. When you add a film to Flickchart, it pits it against films already on your chart to see where it should fall. Here’s how Joe Versus the Volcano<\/em> entered my chart:<\/p>\n

Joe Versus the Volcano<\/b> > Flags of Our Fathers
\nJoe Versus the Volcano < Lovely to Look At<\/b>
\nJoe Versus the Volcano<\/b> > Ikiru
\nJoe Versus the Volcano<\/b> > The Illusionist (2010)
\nJoe Versus the Volcano<\/b> > A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop
\nJoe Versus the Volcano < Fantastic Mr. Fox<\/b>
\nJoe Versus the Volcano < Manhattan Murder Mystery<\/b>
\nJoe Versus the Volcano < House on Haunted Hill<\/b> (1959)
\nJoe Versus the Volcano < Topsy-Turvy<\/b>
\nJoe Versus the Volcano < 3 Women<\/b>
\nJoe Versus the Volcano < The Host<\/b> (2006)
\nJoe Versus the Volcano < Brotherhood of the Wolf<\/b><\/p>\n

Final #1052 out of 3740 (72%)<\/p>\n

It is now my #1 John Patrick Shanley film, my #8 Tom Hanks film, my #2 Meg Ryan films (this is inaccurate as I haven’t gotten to many of her films on my rerank project and they should be higher), and my #8 film of 1990.<\/p>\n

Joe Versus the Volcano<\/em> was recommended by my cousin Beth.<\/p>\n

A Few More Screencaps…<\/h2>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a goofy, weird little comedy. When my cousins were deciding what films to give me, Kevin scoffed at this suggestion from his wife, a movie she has a soft spot for and he apparently thinks is trash. Heh. I’d been meaning to see it for a while as I went through a major Meg […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3027],"tags":[3284,3285,78],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/tf-feat-joevsvolcano.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":204,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/01\/tom-hanks-is-bond-james-bond\/","url_meta":{"origin":36655,"position":0},"title":"Tom Hanks is Bond. James Bond.","author":"Jandy","date":"January 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Dude, this is an awesome trailer mash-up. The voice-over's a bit weak, and you kind of have to pretend that Tom Hanks looks the same age in all the clips, but wow. Of course, the idea of Hanks being Bond scared me for a second... I couldn't catch all the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":35505,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/2016-challenge-debrief\/","url_meta":{"origin":36655,"position":1},"title":"2016 Challenge Debrief","author":"Jandy","date":"March 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, it's been almost three months since my year-long movie challenge officially completed, and it's taken me that long to decompress, rerank everything, and generally get ready to post a recap of the year. The short version: it was awesome! I watched a ton of movies I really liked, very\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/crop-400-Blows-watching.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36659,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/challenge-week-51-far-from-the-madding-crowd-2015\/","url_meta":{"origin":36655,"position":2},"title":"Challenge Week 51: Far from the Madding Crowd (2015)","author":"Jandy","date":"January 2, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Lately if you ask me whether I'm into costume dramas and period films, I'd say nah, not really. And then something like this comes along and reminds me that actually, I am. I watched quite a bit of this kind of thing as a teenager - films based on Jane\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/tf-feat-maddingcrowd.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":159,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/recut-trailers\/","url_meta":{"origin":36655,"position":3},"title":"Recut trailers","author":"Jandy","date":"December 8, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Recutting movie trailers seems to be all the rage these days. Here's a few of my current favorites (I'm not really choosing all the ones that take comedies and romances and turn them into thrillers and horror films...that what most everyone is making): Office Space as a psychothriller: Sleepless in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36496,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/challenge-week-44-the-color-of-money\/","url_meta":{"origin":36655,"position":4},"title":"Challenge Week 44: The Color of Money","author":"Jandy","date":"November 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"It's honestly been so long since I've seen The Hustler that I don't remember the details all that well, but I don't think it really mattered going into this much-later sequel. Now Fast Eddie Felson (Newman) is retired from the pool circuit, instead doing very well as a liquor salesman.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/tf-feat-the-color-of-money.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35527,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/challenge-week-6-tommy-boy\/","url_meta":{"origin":36655,"position":5},"title":"Challenge Week 6: Tommy Boy","author":"Jandy","date":"February 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I predicted that this week I might have the first film of the challenge to drop below the halfway mark on my chart, and while I was right about that, I want to stress that I did enjoy Tommy Boy more than I actually expected to. 1990s buddy comedies have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/tf-feat-Callahan-factory.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36655"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}