Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)
Directed by John Patrick Shanley
Before Shanley was the Pulitzer-winning playwright of Doubt (but after he was the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Moonstruck), he wrote and helmed this big-budget comic-fairy-tale curiosity, whose narrative plays out like Woody Allen’s filmmaking evolution in reverse: it starts as smart, existential black comedy and ends in broad, zany caricature. Seemingly so insecure directing the Doubt movie 18 years later, with its attention-seeking camera angles and soaring musical cues, Shanley here is a confident cinematic master; it’s an Allenish film not just in tone but also in its sophisticated, superwidescreen cinematography (by Stephen Goldblatt), as terrible a victim of pan-and-scan as Manhattan. The excellent cast features not just Tom Hanks at his youthful best and classic character actors in bit parts (Dan Hedaya!) but also Meg Ryan, in three roles in three hair colors in three acts as three love interests. Her versatility will impress even a jaded New York cinephile who long ago wrote her off as romcom bullshit. Henry Stewart (Feb 4, 8pm, at IFC Center’s “Celluloid Dreams,” with Shanley in person)