August 11, 2005     eSLASHculture

Where to Now , Tom Hanks?

    Tom Hanks, the two time Oscar winner and one of America's most respected actors, now presides over a film career that is as dead as a doornail.  Long gone are the crowd pleasing hits like "You've Got Mail" and "Saving Private Ryan" replaced by carefully polished duds like "The Ladykillers," "The Terminal," and "The Road to Perdition."  Hanks is now well down the road to insignificance, but we at eSLASHculture believe that there is still hope for America's favorite pudgy, balding, painfully sincere everyman to resuscitate his career.  In a rare display of unsolicited kindness and generosity, we here at eSLASHculture have marked out a pathway for Tom Hanks' revival.  Although middle-aged America loves Tom, it is their teenaged and younger children who buy the vast majority of movie tickets now.  Our extensive market research reveals that nine out of ten people  under  the age of twenty couldn't pick Tom Hanks our of police lineup.  Unless he wants to spend his twilight years pitching Mr. Coffees and Postur-pedic mattresses to old timers, we recommend Hanks use his still considerable sway in Hollywood to immediately put into production at least two or three of the following proposed movies:

Philadelphia 2: Harvest of Blood  Tom Hanks is back as sensitive AIDS victim Andrew Beckett but with a difference.  Rising from his premature grave, Beckett goes on a violent, supernatural rampage of revenge against the law firm that fired him before his agonizing death.  With evil head partner Charles Wheeler dead from a stroke, the grotesque, horrifying specter of Beckett sets out to exterminate the evil lawyer's children and wipe out his bloodline.  Wheeler's sexy, sultry twin daughters Corrina and Katrina played by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson are on a Spring Break vacation in Cancun with their classmates from Vassar when death stalks their circle of friends.  Audiences will thrill as a new, aggressive Tom Hanks as they've never seen him before takes his revenge in an explosive orgy of blood, killing scantily clad teenaged girls with machetes, axes, nail guns, and - in one deeply troubling sequence - a necklace of razor wire.  Kids love horror, and they'll love Philadelphia 2: Harvest of Blood.  Insufferable pop star Pink has already committed to be the first celebrity corpse, dying over the credits.

Poppin' Fresh Grooves: The Pillsbury Doughboy Movie  With that pasty complexion, that flabby, poke-able paunch, and those big, watery blue eyes, Tom Hanks is the Pillsbury Doughboy in this live action mix of hip hop music, body rockin' moves, and fresh baked fun.  Big-eyed adorable waif-of-the moment Dakota Fanning's birthday wish comes true as the Pillsbury Doughboy comes to life and helps her pursue her dream to become a platinum selling gangsta rap star.  Adorable felon/cuddly rapper Snopp Doggy Dogg takes the whiter-than-white duo to kick it on the mean back streets of the 'hood in Long Beach.  While they soak up the local flava, bust mad rhymes, and work on their flow, music mogul Biggie Pantz, played by music mogul Jay Z, spots Poppin' Fresh and Dakota break dancing, and the Hova signs them immediately to his hot new label Street Crime Records.  With visions of the painfully white pair becoming the next Eminem and Christina Aguillera for the Pampers and pull-ups set, Jigga grooms them for stardom by staging a big show to raise money for dyslexic ghetto kids.  Hanks raps!  Hanks break dances!  Hanks cuts off his fingers and bakes them into tasty crescent rolls for disadvantaged Boyz and Girlz in the Hood.  Tell the Wiggles to move over, there's a new playa on the block!

Turner and Hooch 2: Hooch in Heat  Tom Hanks is back as Detective Andrew Turner, and he's bringing Hooch, that slobbering, slovenly hound dog with a nose for crime, along with him.  In this action-packed sequel, Turner and Hooch leap back into action to track down the killer of their old police chief Reginald Veljohnson.  The only witness to the crime is sassy, sexy, blind, internationally renowned, British dog breeder Tara Mountwell, played by Hillary Duff.  Turner and Hooch go undercover with Tara to the Westminster Dog Show.  With death stalking the plucky, voluptuous blind girl at every turn, romance blooms as pudgy, weak-chinned, we-always-thought-he-was-gay Turner falls for a woman less than half his age.  Meanwhile, Hooch while trying to sniff out the killer finds himself in Hound Dog Heaven indiscriminately humping roaming packs of purebred poodles, pit bulls, pointers, petite basset griffon verdens, pulis, and Polish lowland sheepdogs.  Yes, Turner and Hooch are back and The Heat Is On!

Forrest Gump Is A Dirty Old Man  Returning to the scene of his greatest triumph, Tom Hanks recaps thought-impaired everyman Forrest Gump, but this time with a difference!  Decades later Forrest is now sad, penniless, and living alone in his decaying, old mansion in the now seedy heart of Baltimore's red light district.  Then out of the blue - as so often happens to Forrest Gump - Fate steps in as brassy, fun-loving, life-affirming madams Oscar winners Mira Sorvino and Marissa Tomei move in and set up their whorehouse in Forrest's home.  The Bubba Gump Bordello and Knocking Shop brings new joy and excitement to Forrest's quiet life.  In the bustling, busy bedrooms full of lusty, life-loving whores, our hero takes soulful-yet-haunted young street hooker Lindsay Lohan under his wing.  He explains to her that "life is like a box of chocolates."  She shows him a maneuver called "the three legged whippet."  Audiences will delight in watching as shy Forrest Gump indulges his every graphic and life-affirming sexual fantasy with his trademark wide-eyed joy for life while bedding girls of every age, sex, and race.  Don't miss Johnny Depp's moving turn as plucky transsexual street dominatrix Lotta Letme whose death at the hands of an angered client teaches Forrest valuable lessons about life and love.  It will be Oscars all around again for Forrest Gump Is A Dirty Old Man.

P.S.  You can thanks us later, Mr. Hanks.