 THAT THING YOU DO! TOM HANKS’ EXTENDED CUT Studio: 20th Century Fox Original Release: 1996 Theatrical Version Length: 108 min Extended Cut Length: 148 min Genre: Comedy Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 widescreen enhanced Colour/B&W: Colour Audio:
Subtitles: English, Spanish U.S. Film Rating: PG Canadian Film Rating: PG |
Release Date: AVAILABLE NOW Rating:  / Starring: Tom Everett Scott (Guy Patterson), Liv Tyler (Faye Dolan), Johnathon Schaech (Jimmy Mattingly), Steve Zahn (Lenny Haise), Ethan Embry (T.B. Player), Tom Hanks (Mr. White), Charlize Theron (Tina) Written by: Tom Hanks Directed by: Tom Hanks In every life there comes a time when that dream you dream becomes that thing you do. The first question that you may ask even before you start reading this review could be “Is the Director’s Cut of That Thing You Do! worth it?” Let me put aside your questions and tell you outright: YES! Having caught this film on TV many times over the years (but never actually seeing the whole film in one sitting), I liked the charm of the characters and the seemingly innocence of the early ‘60s music era. The Beatles were all over the charts and as such were the many one hit wonders who tried to repeat their success. This is a story of boys from Erie, PA who had a band, made a record, and learned about life and each other on the road. The story centers on Guy Patterson the drummer, the one who really pushed the band into stardom by chance. If it weren’t for Guy’s up-tempo reworking of Jimmy’s song (the writer and the talent of the band), “The Oneders” (renamed “The Wonders”) would still be playing in their garage. Like most bands they became hits with local fans, recorded a demo/record and managed to get some local airplay – from this Mr. White from a major record labels signs them and tours with them, and become pop sensations with a limited lifespan. The director’s cut is just over 40 minutes longer than the 108 minute theatrical version. Footage is edited seamlessly back into the film minus a few jumps here and there. I wasn’t always sure what was new footage and what was old because nearly all of it felt like as if it was meant to be included the first time around. Some of the footage is funny (such as all of Tina’s scenes with the dentist affair), and others are rather lengthy parts on tour. I felt these scenes gave a better insight as to what touring was like with other bands, while still fictional for the film’s sake, I’m sure there is some truth to it. I didn’t feel that these scenes made the film drag on because the performances of the actors were top-notch for the written material, but we do hear that song “That Thing You Do! many more times so that can be a bit repetitive. I guarantee that by the end of the film you’ll have that song in your head for days. Having watched this title the other week, I’m still singing in my head as of this writing.  Both theatrical and extended versions are on a DVD-9. Never did I see problems with compression. I found this title to be a lot better looking than Big in terms of DVD authoring. For DVD, it was very clean around all of the edges even on an 8 foot screen. All colours appear spot on; in fact I loved the colours in this film. When the band was playing outdoors, the blues really came out the most without looking oversaturated. Image contrast is excellent as well. Indoor scenes were rendered very nicely and detail is retained. The image doesn’t appear at a loss with detail – be it image detail or resolution available for this DVD. Skin tones appear accurate and give each musician a special look of their own. The image is correctly framed at 1.85:1. Black bars are spaced evenly on the top and bottom on a screen with 0% overscan and proper vertical positioning. The soundtrack is a 5.0 presentation so don’t be surprised when your subwoofer isn’t putting out if all of your channels are set to “LARGE” like mine. While extra thump from the drum pedal would have been nice during the live portions, the bass in the main channels is enough to satisfy. The soundtrack never quite achieves a sensation of experiencing live music in your home theatre (but that’s the sound design chosen for this film), but it attempts to be somewhat powerful. Surrounds are active in varying amounts, and as you’d expect mostly during the live performances. I was expecting the sound to collapse to mono during many of the dialogue moments in the film, but all channels seemed to be utilized in one way or another many times. I will give this sound mix a relatively good score for effective use of channels and sound placement. Being almost ten years old, the sound mix doesn’t sound too dated when comparing it to current soundtracks. |
Extras still look pretty good to me. I'm curious in the extended footage and will be picking it up.
