Sleeping with Tom Hanks

Yes, that\'s correct boys and girls - Christmas is upon us, descending faster than a cock-eyed bird of prey on some poor carcass in the hot Nevada sun. \nChristmas, that neopagan holiday celebrating materialism, our most holy lords Old Navy and Ikea. Christmas, that elevation of consumption to its most high and glorious throne. \nScholars of antiquity believe the term Christmas derives from the "Chris" in Holy Scripture, believed by many to be actor Chris O'Donnell of "Batman and Robin" fame. As the phrase runs, if the shoe fits...\nChristmas -- time of the holiday blockbuster.\nIt\'s not to be confused with the summer blockbuster, which is generally more nihilistic and violent. Not nihilistic in the sense that it doesn't affirm the moral order. No, the good guy always triumphs in the end. Justice is served, the drug smuggler gets shot in the face at point blank range and the camera fades as our hero rides off into the sunset. \nNihilistic in the sense that there's seldom a plot. The poor screenwriters must not get paid enough, or all be dyslexic or something.\nThe summer blockbuster doesn't need a plot at any rate. It's all about the CGI -- the computer generated image. \nSo a nuclear weapon vaporizes a large city. Even if the filmmakers have national security clearance, it's a rather expensive stunt to stage, one studios might not throw their dollars behind. Also, it eliminates a perfectly good market.\nSo instead a virtual air strike annihilates millions of innocent people who only exist in a computer chip somewhere. Ditto with a comet or meteor, since not even Steven Spielberg is an omnipotent god who can exercise his will over the vast universe. Beyond all that, wholesale slaughter doesn't get good press, which is needed for that all-important opening weekend.\nNo sir, no indeed, the holiday blockbuster is a different beast altogether.\nIt's sappy, it's feel-good. It warms the cockles of your heart. \nThrough the most conniving sort of manipulation, you can bet your eggs.\nLet's briefly look at this year's dismal lineup. \nWe have "102 Dalmations," the cleverly titled sequel to "Spartacus." We watch Glenn Close play a colorblind and eccentric designer. She makes her living designing fur coats, the morally reprehensible monster. \nShe is oblivious to the fact that she is in a Disney movie, with a bunch of anthropomorphized animals, at once cute and endearing. Animals that look nice on McDonalds soft drink cups and children's pajamas.\nOf course, the ever so subtly named Cruella De Vil ends up getting her comeuppance, being subjected to all sorts of "Home Alone"-inspired malarkey. We all leave the theater with a very valuable lesson -- it's OK that a person be tortured and humiliated in madcap fashion so long as harm doesn't come to a single puppy. After all, puppies are cute.\nAnd then we have a movie in which Tom Hanks plays a castaway. It's called either "Castaway" or "Lethal Weapon 6," I forget which.\nIt's not a sappy film, like "102 Dalmations." It's a sappily inspirational film, like the Olympics. Or better yet, the Special Olympics.\n"So Tom Hanks is stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere," you might say. "Well, good."\nBut no, Tom Hanks isn't just revisiting the emotional maw of "You've Got Mail," that movie that showed us all that we can find true love without any actual human interaction. In his latest flick, he's showing us that the human will can persevere, tough out the bleakest situations. I'll bet there wasn't even any Evian on that island.\nThank you Tom Hanks, thank you for giving meaning to my otherwise monotonous and arid existence. Thank you for brightening time I'd otherwise have to spend with my family. The debt I owe to you.