Sunday’s movie was The Great Buck Howard about a law school dropout played by Colin Hanks and his experience working for a has-been “mentalist” played by John Malkovich. Hanks’ character is partially based on writer Sean McGinly’s own past dropping out of law school to become a writer and getting a job as personal assistant to The Amazing Kreskin, upon which Malkovich’s Buck Howard is based. Malkovich does a marvelous caricature of the magician carrying on past his prime. And while that storyline kept me interested, I never quite figured out the point of the film. It was about Hanks’ character, this was made clear by the narrative voice over by Hanks. But there were no dyamics with his character, there was no “aha!” moment.

Tom Hanks, whose company produced the film, is on screen for a few minutes as the younger Hanks’ father.

Writer/director Sean McGinly was on hand afterward for a short Q&A. This is where I learned that he also made the extremely low-budget film Two Days, starring Paul Rudd as a failed Los Angeles actor preparing to commit suicide, and by far a better film this new one.