Sing-Along Saturday

Tom Hanks is delightful. I'm not the first or last person to write that sentence.

Starring in endless amounts of movies that have become entwined in each of our lives, like Big, Forrest Gump, The Green Mile, the Toy Story trilogy, Catch Me If You Can and beyond, has made Hanks an "American Sweetheart". I don't care if that title is always given to women, Hanks can pull off the official sash.

It should be no surprise then to anyone that T. Hanks would show up dancing and lip-synching in a music video.

Wait, what? No, that still came out of nowhere.

When Carly Rae Jepsen released her latest video recently, there was Hanks, mouthing along to the words of her song as he grooved through his morning routine and then moved out into the street signing autographs. This is glorious, with the obvious witty nature amplified because Hanks, a grown man, is speaking the words to a catchy pop song that is being sung by a thirty year old woman. The time honored opposite gender lip-sync will always kill - it's consistently funny!

After being totally enamored by this video from beginning to end, my first thought was how did Jepsen pull it off? How did she land this star? Sure, she's had a couple hits, but this is one of the biggest actors of all time.

According to CNN, Hanks is friends with Jepsen's manager, so their connection at  least makes sense now. How it happened doesn't matter, because what fun! Hanks - more lip-synching please.




Discovering that video yesterday made my afternoon for more reasons than one. With the idea of celebrities who appeared in music videos swirling around in my mind, it sparked a memory of an all time favorite.

Over the years I'll take anything that cues me to watch a really simple and gorgeous video, which stars Robert Downey Jr. doing his best smouldering gaze [**fanning myself**].

The video for Elton John's lovely song, "I Want Love" (circa 2001), is just a camera following around Downey Jr. as he mouths the words and wanders from room to room in a grand empty mansion. It was the first of three Elton John videos to feature prominent figures acting out his music. [Justin Timberlake, Mandy Moore, and Elizabeth Taylor starred in the other two.]

Mr. John/whoever came up with this concept, you genius!  Gird your loins, people.





Until next time.