Tom Hanks

As far as historian Stephen Ambrose is concerned, the verdict is unequivocal: "Saving Private Ryan" is the greatest war film ever made. Not simply from an artistic perspective, although Ambrose has nothing but praise for the artistry of director Steven Spielberg. Not simply because Tom Hanks' portrayal of the enigmatic Capt. Miller is as good as it gets."Saving Private Ryan" is the greatest because it rings the truest, says Ambrose, who served as a consultant on the movie and accompanied Spielberg and Hanks on a trip to Washington last week.

The most important person in Ray Harryhausen's life was a monkey with a thyroid problem.The year was 1933, the monkey was named Kong, and the effect on 13-year-old Ray was profound -- and fortunate for a generation of filmgoers who grew up on the films "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms," "One Million Years B.C." and "Jason and the Argonauts," whose common link was the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen.The special effects he created were truly wondrous: the sword-wielding skeletons of "Jason," the snake-haired Medusa of "Clash of the Titans," the bridge-devouring octopus of "It Came From Beneath the Sea" (although budget restrictions limited the film's star to six arms)

The results are in. Lightning can't strike twice.Nora Ephron, who made the overpraised but widely adored "Sleepless in Seattle," has re-convened the magic couple of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan for the romantic comedy "You've Got Mail." The result may deserve top honors as this year's most egregious cinematic travesty. This ungainly remake of Ernst Lubitsch's 1940 romance "The Shop Around the Corner" commits the unforgiveable sin of attempting to improve on perfection. Indeed, between "Meet Joe Black," "Psycho" and now this, Hollywood obviously needs to be reminded of a timeless verity: it's the bad movies that need to be remade, you idiots, not the good ones.

John Frankenheimer doesn't see why more directors haven't split their time between movies and television. He has, with impressive results, including a string of Emmys and a handful of theatrical films that can legitimately be called classics.His latest entry in a career that extends over four decades is "Ronin," a post Cold-War thriller in which Robert De Niro leads a pack of leaderless mercenaries on a cat-and-mouse hunt through the narrow streets of southern France.Filled with the elements for which Frankenheimer has become renowned -- duplicitous spies, shadowy authority figures, intricate plotting -- "Ronin" is further proof that he is one of those rare directors whose work is truly timeless.

Much is being made of the first 25 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan," the new World War II drama directed by Steven Spielberg. The sequence, which depicts the landing of American troops at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, is swiftly attaining legendary status.The passage is a small masterpiece, a discrete set piece of power and terrible grace within the larger movie. Filmgoers may take or leave that movie, but they cannot deny the force of those 25 minutes. Spielberg isn't content merely to show us that blood was shed that day - he spurts it onto the camera lens.

HOLLYWOOD -- When it comes to the fans of the Oscars, the real winners are in the bleachers.That's where the luckiest fans get to sit, the ones willing to sleep outside a few nights, subsisting on the food they're able to carry in and enduring chilly L.A. evenings (Hey, in L.A., 50 degrees is chilly).Their prize: They get as close to the Oscars as the average fan can get. Last night they watched the stars arrive, snapped a few pictures, breathed the same air as the stars they adore.They also earned the envy of a couple thousand more fans who can't get that close, who are forced to flit around the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion like moths surrounding a flame, getting close but never actually getting inside.

Watch USA tonight and be reminded that Tom Hanks was making fine films even before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences began showering him with praise."

"That Thing You Do" is corny, slight and entirely too cute to be real -- but it's everything you want a one-hit wonder to be.The movie is a happy, engaging story about a one-hit wonder, the Wonders, directed and written by that many-hit wonder Tom Hanks.His first directing bout is a funny, frothy look at a little band from Erie, Pa., that hits it big with a single called "That Thing You Do." That's the whole story. It won't change your life, but it's lovable.Heading the list of attractive young stars in this flick is Tom Everett Scott as the smart and charming Guy, whose work in his dad's appliance store doesn't keep him from practicing on his drum set in the basement for hours each night, playing along with his favorite jazz records.

To me, the most amazing thing about "Apollo 13," the runaway hit movie, is that I have virtually no memory of "Apollo 13," the actual event.I'm not talking amnesia here.What I'm saying is that when it happened, it barely registered.This doesn't make sense, if you've seen the movie. Three guys are up in space. They're in trouble. They might not make it back. They might, well, die up there. The whole word should be holding its breath.But I don't remember any breath-holding.I remember -- or maybe I remember, I'm not sure -- thinking that the NASA science-geeks with the pencils and slide rules in the shirt pocket will get our boys back.

In a blink, the world's most profitable and popular idiot is back. Forrest Gump.You know him, you love Tom Hanks as him, and you rented the movie over the weekend -- although you saw it twice in the theater last year. And you probably bought Winston Groom's book of the same name and then the spin-off, "Gumpisms: The Wit and Wisdom of Forrest Gump."We have bought it all.Now comes Mr. Groom with "Gump & Co." (Pocket Books, $22), which will be available in bookstores Wednesday. The book is the speedy sequel or "extension" to his "Forrest Gump," which has sold about 2 million copies (Japan ate it up)

You know him, you love him - Tom Hanks!" said David Letterman on Monday night as he called the Everyman superstar to the stage. But how well do we know him? What makes Tom Hanks run? That question races through your mind during the technologically phenomenal yet otherwise middling antics of Angels & Demons, the sequel to The Da Vinci Code. Although it's come out second, it's based on the first Dan Brown thriller to center on Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, an academic with a habit of butting heads with zealots.

Starring Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks, Kurt Russell Directed by Ron Howard Universal Home Video $39.98 *** 1/2 Ron Howard is far from Hollywood's most consistent director. He can be awful, as in 2000's charmless The Grinch. But when he's on, he's very on. This four-film, eight-disc collection, filled with deleted scenes, documentaries and other extras, brings together two of his best, 2001's A Beautiful Mind, which won a Best Picture Oscar, and 1995's Apollo 13, which should have. It includes the middling Backdraft (1991)

The leading man is a short, bald, pot-bellied lawyer with a passion for reading Latin and a habit of making enemies. The leading lady quotes Shakespeare, dresses modestly and seldom looks like she's having fun. The opening hour unfolds against a backdrop of mud, snow and the endless gray of a New England winter. And all seven hours are filled with talk in historically accurate English accents about big ideas from the 18th century like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is not exactly the stuff of which TV miniseries are usually made.

Critic's Pick -- Unauthorized to enter the U.S., a European man (Tom Hanks) begins living in a N.Y. airport in The Terminal (8 p.m., WMAR, Channel 2).

When it's really bubbling, Charlie Wilson's War brings Broadway fizz to D.C., Houston and Cairo cocktail parties. It keeps you curious and amused for 97 minutes. But like many a cocktail party, it has an upside and a downside. It might refresh you after ponderous events or "event films" - but still leave you longing for more long-lasting experiences. It stars Tom Hanks, almost back to loose, wisecracking form, as a sybaritic East Texas congressman who uses his connections and committee positions to wangle funding for the Afghan rebels during the Soviet invasion.

WHAT DID the 11 members of the jury in the Princess Diana inquest learn from their trip to Paris and visit to the Alma tunnel? They stayed inside for 15 minutes looking at the gouged-out notorious 13th pillar, which still has chunks of concrete missing and shows the steel rods underneath. That's where Diana's Mercedes hit. They also walked farther up the tunnel and looked back to the entrance, seeing the famous "black spot" as the road curves into the tunnel. This may have contributed to chauffeur Henri Paul losing control of the limousine.

Critic's Pick -- Tom Hanks is among the narrators as the documentary The War recounts the attack on Pearl Harbor (8 p.m., MPT, Channels 22/67).

I'm not going to lie: a key factor in my decision to come to college in Baltimore was the movie Sleepless in Seattle. Annie, Meg Ryan's character, is a Baltimore Sun reporter who inexplicably falls in love with a complete stranger - played by Tom Hanks - whom she hears on the radio. Convinced she's losing her mind, she seeks the advice of her brother, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University portrayed hilariously by David Hyde Pierce. Because of the movie, I came to the Johns Hopkins University and became an intern at the Sun. Sleepless in Seattle aside, I knew little else about Baltimore when I moved here four years ago. My first introduction to it was hardly as endearing as the film.

Capsules by Michael Sragow and Chris Kaltenbach, except where noted. Full reviews at baltimoresun.com/movies. Akeelah and the Bee -- follows a formula, one of the oldest in all of fiction: an underdog, struggling against the odds, seeks fame, fortune and - most importantly - self-respect. But this is one of the most winning movies of 2006 in its abundance of great intentions. (C.K.) PG 112 minutes B+ An Inconvenient Truth -- is more than a documentary of Al Gore's dynamic traveling slide show about global warming.

Tom Hanks' latest movie, The Da Vinci Code, opened May 19, a day before Jimmy Stewart's birthday. (Stewart was born in Indiana, Pa., on May 20, 1908.) Entertainment writers have often called Hanks today's Jimmy Stewart. That comparison has never looked shakier than it does right now. Stewart's most famous suspense films were obsessive and erotic fables for Alfred Hitchcock, leagues away from Ron Howard's stodgy, cautious The Da Vinci Code. Indeed, throughout his career, Stewart drew inspiration from a score of strong, diverse directors, from Ernst Lubitsch to Otto Preminger.