War in Iraq? Check. War in Lebanon? Check. Glaciers melting worldwide? Check. So what does the New York Times want to write about? Tom Hanks’ production company, Playtone, of course. In a long, worshipful article, the Times pays homage to His Squareness (left, shown examining adulthood in Big). The piece is accompanied by two hilariously artsy illustrations that the Times wouldn’t let me reproduce, including one that shows Tom with steam coming out of his head, more or less, and the other a “multimedia” piece (so-called because it gets bigger when you click on it).
As for Tom himself, he turns out to a definite aw, shucks dude. “Mr. Hanks was initially reluctant to be interviewed for this article. ‘Why would I want to , so I could see my name in the paper tomorrow?’ he joked. ‘I get my name in the paper when I go out and buy socks. I go to Gray’s Papaya in New York and I’m on Defamer.com.'”
The Times notes cattily that while dozens of actors have production companies, “many … were little more than vanity projects, places for stars to hang their Kangol hats and pretend they were movie moguls.” Furthermore, two of the companies that have been successful, “George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh‘s Section 8 and Brat Pitt and Jennifer Aniston‘s Plan B , are dealing with aftereffects of divorces of the professional and personal kind.”
At the end of the article are ads for Judy Garland ringtones and diet secrets of the stars. Nothing but class!
