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Comment by fractallyte | Hacker News Reader

It's a shame he distanced himself so completely from, arguably, one of his best movies: Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099892/)

Hanks: 'Rubicon No. 3, the critical reaction to it—which is a version of the vox populi. Someone is going to say, “I hated it.” Other people can say, “I think it’s brilliant.” Somewhere in between the two is what the movie actually is.'

JVtV is extremely polarizing: people either love it, or hate it. But there's no 'in-between' here - a lot of people just don't 'get it'. John Patrick Shanley made a very personal, quirky movie, full of metaphor and wisdom - and it's great!

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About 15 years ago I worked at an e-commerce website and answered the phones. One day a guy called in, gave his name (which sounded vaguely familiar to me), wanted to do an order over the phone, and have it shipped to an address in lower Manhattan.

I thought the address was weird because it had no apartment number, it was just like 144 E 13th Street or something. So I asked if it was a business because we got a lower rate for shipping to commercial addresses and he says something like, “Uh no, it’s my home.” So I kinda knew he had to be somebody to have that address.

Then a lightbulb went off in my head and I go, “Didn’t you write Joe vs. the Volcano?” And it definitely caught him by surprise and he was very gracious as he accepted both my praise and offer of free overnight shipping.

Another time, a co-worker there got a “don’t you know who I am?” from Seth Godin when they refused to bend over backward to fix an order he placed.

> Another time, a co-worker there got a “don’t you know who I am?” from Seth Godin when they refused to bend over backward to fix an order he placed.

Why on Earth would a real-life meatspace person have any idea who he is? This is what happens when people don’t touch grass often enough.

It was so funny. I heard her half of the conversation getting into an argument with him and she goes, “No, I don’t know who ‘Seth Godin’ is and I don’t care.” I guess he threatened to write about how bad her customer service was on his blog.

To be fair our customer service was terrible. When a customer asked for our manager, I had a fake email address that I’d give them that I was in charge of. I probably fired myself about a half-dozen times.

> When a customer asked for our manager, I had a fake email address that I’d give them that I was in charge of. I probably fired myself about a half-dozen times.

Might be all that HN exposure turning me cynical, but I kind of assumed this is what everyone does.

Listen. If you don’t know who I am, and you think I shouldn’t think you should know who I am, then you clearly don’t know who I am!

What type of merchandise were they selling?

We sold Brookstone-style massagers and some yoga/exercise equipment. At the time we ranked well for a lot of massage/yoga search terms and did pretty brisk business for a tiny website run out of a random guy’s garage.

What industry are you in now?

Arguably one of the deeper comedies I've seen. Few films almost immediately get to the business of reminding you that everyone in a movie is a person in their own right, down to the luggage salesman. You can sense The Toby's frustration with being forbidden to be the offering himself, and his disgusted sorrow that none of his people will volunteer. The long-undersold Amanda Plummer features as the gloomy but driven Dagmar, who seems to be harboring some unspoken of fixation of her own.

Hank's naif fully embraces that the world may seem to be entirely absurd, new, even explicable as he breaks from his his soul/sole-killing rut into his new role. ("I'm not arguing that. I'm not arguing that. I'm not arguing that with you. He can get the job ... but can he do the job? I'm not arguing that ...") Even if he is The Fool, on a fool's quest, he can still learn and grow from what he experiences along the way.

I've always found the film a slightly cautionary tale about the wonder (tinged with a little sympathetic horror) about taking a long look around you with fresh eyes: what you see can loom as large as the Moon on a landless Pacific horizon.

I'm in that first group too. JVtV has been my all-time favorite movie for decades. I still quote it on a regular basis.

I couldn't find anything on Hanks distancing himself, what's the story there? I did find that Roger Ebert liked it: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/joe-versus-the-volcano-19...

I'm sorry I don't have any references, but I recall reading a long time ago that Hanks was embarrassed about the movie and avoided talking about it.

Any analysis you would recommend of JVtV? Does the volcano represent that Joe has to overcome the imagined fears that is preventing him from growing in life?

Does it need to? The whole premise is that he hates his “relatively” cushy factory management job enough to think jumping in a volcano is a better use of his life.

I wonder if there is a worse way to go? I mean even getting your skull crushed in car accident seems lights out in less than a second. Jumping into a volcano I can imagine you stay alive for some 10 seconds or so before you obviously pass out but not before tasting lava in your stomach.

That's not remotely the premise.

I guess I should explain.

For starters, he quit his job before the volcano opportunity came up. He choice was never "keep working or jump into a volcano."

He quit his job because he'd just been told he had just a few months to live, and didn't want to spend them like that.

Finally, he didn't have much money. He could either scrape by in his apartment for a few months, or go on a grand adventure and die just a little earlier than he would have anyway.

There is no symbolism. It’s just a fun quirky movie.

I think this is why the movie is so polarizing! It's full of symbolism and metaphor - check out the movie's trivia on IMDB (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099892/trivia/).

What does the over-sized luggage/boxes represent in the end? His new self emptied of the fears and misconceptions he had?

This is a pretty good analysis of the movie's themes: https://crossingthethemes.wordpress.com/2020/03/13/film-anal...

Thanks. This analysis really show me how I didn't understand the movie despite enjoying it on a superficial level. It's even better than my first impressions.

It's just a really great film. My family loves it and frequently will quote the memorable lines.

The movie has the weird literalness that is unrealistic. I really enjoy it

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