Larry Crowne

Tom Hanks really should stick to acting. He co-wrote and directed this one, with Nia Vardalos, and it just sort of lies there, gasping for breath, like a beached catfish. He is the best worker a mega-store ever had, so naturally they fire him. He looks for work, downsizes his house, and eventually decides to go to a small community college, where he is the oldest student by far. There he meets burnt-out teacher Julia Roberts, and if you don’t know their rocky relationship will lead to love in the last reel, you’ve never gone to the movies. Also unlikely is the gang of … what do you call them? Scooterheads? They all drive really hot wheels like Vespas, tooling around L.A. like a teeny tiny version of The Wild One. Really pretty dumb. The chief attraction here for us was the locations, including the Tam O’Shanter restaurant in Glendale, where we once enjoyed a great meal with family members.