Radio Flyer

The production woes of RADIO FLYER could themselves form the basis for a movie, what with the firing of writer-director David Mickey Evans, the replacement of Rosanna Arquette with Lorraine Bracco, the rewriting of the screenplay, the twice-delayed opening and the deposing of Columbia studio head Frank Price after production was completed. The resulting film is like a travesty of a Spielberg paean to childhood innocence--an uplifting fantasy about child abuse and suicide.

Two young boys are arguing over a toy airplane when their father (Tom Hanks) puts a stop to the fight by intoning, "History is all in the mind of the teller. Truth is in the telling." He then r...