He is Spartacus!

I’ve been planning to watch That Thing You Do! (1996) for a while. Maybe Netflix suggested it after we watched Grace of My Heart - they kind of fit together, both exploring the 60s pop music scene.

It stars Tom Everett Scott, looking very much like this movie’s director, Tom Hanks. He lives in a small Pennsylvania town in the mid-60s, working in his father’s appliance store, dating Charlize Theron (looking very Tuesday Weld), and playing drums in the basement to jazz records. One day, some kids he knows need a drummer - the big battle of the bands is that night and their drummer (Giovanni Ribisi) broke his arm. They have a song they think is a hit - “That Thing You Do” - a slow ballad. When they get to the gig, Scott starts playing it uptempo and the band is forced to come along. And the crowd goes wild.

Let me just mention the band. The “leader”, singer and songwriter, is Johnathon Schaech, just a touch on the dark and brooding side. The bass player has no name in the script, just “T.B. Player” in the credits. He is played by Ethan Embry, looking somewhat Jim Parsons. But the best character is the guitarist, Steven Zahn. He’s the perfect small-town goofball, never taking anything seriously, especially the chance of fame and fortune.

Because that’s what is on order. There’s one more unofficial member - Liv Tyler as Schaech’s girlfriend and band mascot/mother. She named the band the “One-ders”, which everyone else pronounces “O’Needers”. They get talent scouted, go on the county fair circuit, and suddenly, they are in Los Angeles, with a new manager, Tom Hanks.

Then it all falls apart. Schaech acts like a prima donna and quits, and breaks up with Tyler. That leaves the band in breach of contract, dissolved with that one hit - the One-Hit Wonders. Still, Scott has gotten a late-night DJ gig from Clint Howard, and now he can profess his love for Tyler. It all works out for everyone in the end.

I've left out most of the funny stuff, including Kevin Pollak as an obnoxious DJ, the girl group singer that Player gets to bed, the beach blanket movie the Wonders play in, and Scott's meeting with his jazz idol, and the waitress who was trying to pull him before he got distracted. Also, a ton of goofy comments from Zahn, and Scott's catch-phrase "I am Spartacus!"

But who cares about all that? What about the music? First - you hear "That Thing You Do?" in part or full about a dozen times. And it's pretty good. I thought it might be a Marshall Crenshaw composition (which is high praise), but it was written by Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne. Hanks and Schlesinger wrote most of the music for this, and it's all pretty great. I can't honestly sign any of it now. But I never got tired of hearing any of it, and wanted more of a lot of it.

Maybe I liked this because I lived through it (I'm a little younger, but I had my dreams). Maybe it's just a good movie.