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intereact!Director: Nora Ephron
Actors: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey, and Jean Stapleton
Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Retail Price (not our price): $12.98
Release Date: 1999-05-04
Theatrical Release Date: 1998-12-18
Studio: Warner Home Video
Run Time: 120 minutes
Format: Array
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Discs: 1
Editorial Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
1) Product Description
Neigborhood bookstore rivals unwittingly become e-mail pen pals in this charming remake of The Shop Around the CornerRunning Time: 119 min.System Requirements:ACTORS Jane Adams Reiko Aylesworth Michael Badalucco Heather Burns David Chappelle Dabney Coleman Elwood Edwards Kate Finneran Tom Hanks Hallie Hirsh Greg Kinnear Parker Posey John Randolph Meg Ryan Katie Sogona Howard Spiegel Jean Stapleton Steve Zahn LENGTH 2 hrs RATING PG ComedyFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: UPC: 085391695424 Manufacturer No: 169542) Amazon.com essential video
By now, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan have amassed such a fund of goodwill with moviegoers that any new onscreen pairing brings nearly reflexive smiles. In You've Got Mail, the quintessential boy and girl next door repeat the tentative romantic crescendo that made Sleepless in Seattle, writer-director Nora Ephron's previous excursion with the duo, a massive hit. The prospective couple do actually meet face to face early on, but Mail otherwise repeats the earlier feature's gentle, extended tease of saving its romantic resolution until the final, gauzy shot. The underlying narrative is an even more old-fashioned romantic pas de deux that is casually hooked to a newfangled device. The script, cowritten by the director and her sister, Delia Ephron, updates and relocates the Ernst Lubitsch classic, The Shop Around the Corner, to contemporary Manhattan, where Joe Fox (Hanks) is a cheerfully rapacious merchant whose chain of book superstores is gobbling up smaller, more specialized shops such as the children's bookstore owned by Kathleen Kelly (Ryan). Their lives run in close parallel in the same idealized neighborhood, yet they first meet anonymously, online, where they gradually nurture a warm, even intimate correspondence. As they begin to wonder whether this e-mail flirtation might lead them to be soul mates, however, they meet and clash over their colliding business fortunes. It's no small testament to the two stars that we wind up liking and caring about them despite the inevitable (and highly manipulative) arc of the plot. Although their chemistry transcended the consciously improbable romantic premise of Sleepless, enabling director Ephron to attain a kind of amorous soufflé, this time around there's a slow leak that considerably deflates the affair. Less credulous viewers will challenge Joe's logic in prolonging the concealment of his online identity from Kathleen, and may shake their heads at Ephron's reinvention of Manhattan as a spotless, sun-dappled wonderland where everybody lives in million-dollar apartments and color coordinates their wardrobes for cocktail parties. --Sam Sutherland
Customer Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5
1) Hanks and Ryan Shine in a Slick But Charming Internet-Based Romance Ten Years Later in a Deluxe Edition DVD [Rating: 4 out of 5]
A 10th Anniversary DVD seems a bit vaunted for this familiar 1998 romantic comedy since it continues to play repeatedly on TBS and other cable outlets. It's no wonder since Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan have the kind of ingratiating rapport that makes it easy to slip into one of their movies no matter what part you find yourself watching. Directed by the acerbic Nora Ephron, who helmed 1993's Sleepless in Seattle with the same pair, this movie gleams with the same kind of good-natured, Hollywood-style gloss that made the previous outing a hit. However, the pieces fit a little too perfectly for me, so much so that it feels packaged for maximum audience appeal. It really takes the combined skills of Hanks and Ryan to make this palatable, even likable, but it's not without its challenges.As with Sleepless in Seattle, Ephron, along with her sister Delia as co-screenwriter, attempts to update a tried-and-true film classic, this time Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner (1940), about two people who are concurrently in an antagonistic professional relationship and also anonymous pen-pals fantasizing who the other may be in real life. The novelty this time is that the story takes place at the dawn of the Internet age when people automatically set up AOL accounts with incognito screen names. E-mail and instant messaging have replaced the need for the postal system to exchange anticipated love letters. The story focuses on Joe Fox, one of the wealthy owners of a mega-bookstore chain called Fox Books, a doppelganger for Borders or Barnes & Noble. On Manhattan's Starbucks-saturated Upper West Side, he is opening one of his monstrous stores in the vicinity of The Shop Around the Corner, a specialty children's bookstore owned by Kathleen Kelly.Much of the movie has to do with her attempts to defend her antiquated turf and ward off the inevitable cannibalization of her small business. I actually found this part of the movie entertaining with nice tweaks in the verbal interplay on corporate greed. I especially liked the sharply scripted scene in the coffeehouse when Kathleen succinctly puts down Joe's business intentions. The other side of the film is the burgeoning love story between Joe and Kathleen on AOL where under their screen names `NYC152' and `Shopgirl', they find themselves bonding and falling in love. Similar to what occurs in the original movie and the Judy Garland musical remake, In the Good Old Summertime, Joe finds out who `Shopgirl' is before Kathleen realizes that he is `NYC152', allowing for an extended courting sequence from Kathleen's sickbed through the Union Square Greenmarket and other locales.Hanks is a more avuncular presence as Joe and not as manically funny as usual except for a funny scene where he attempts to hide his identity in her bookstore. As Kathleen, Ryan is sometimes on twinkle overdrive, but she manages to come back to her innate malleability as an actress, a quality not all that common among the subsequent generation of rom-com heroines (for example, Kate Hudson in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or Hilary Swank in P.S., I Love You). Most importantly, even when the material feels like retread, the pair has definite chemistry. The supporting cast is adept and filled with strong players - Parker Posey as Joe's self-obsessed book editor girlfriend Patricia, Greg Kinnear as Kathleen's intellectually pompous boyfriend Frank, a young Dave Chappelle as Joe's colleague Keith, Jean Stapleton as Kathleen's eccentric partner.The 2008 Deluxe Edition DVD maintains all the features of the previous 1999 DVD, specifically an entertaining commentary track by Ephron and producer Lauren Shuler Donner, a brief HBO short with Ephron, a music video of Carole King's "Anything at All", a music-only audio track, and an interactive tour of the filming locations in New York's Upper East Side. Unfortunately, there are no deleted or expanded scenes offered in either the old or new DVD releases. The print transfer on the new DVD is clean and vibrant, and there are two new featurettes offered as part of the package. The first is "Delivering You've Got Mail" where Hanks and Ryan - both looking good but not overly engaged - reminisce about the filmmaking experience a decade later. The second, "You've Got Chemistry", is really more about romantic comedy as a genre rather than anything particular about this production.2) The Dog [Rating: 4 out of 5]
He steels the whole movie, being animal lover. Hanks and Ryan are great!But the dog is good too.3) If you look at the facts, it's not so cute. [Rating: 3 out of 5]
My wife really likes this movie for all the reasons the producers intended it to appeal to her. I thought it was cute, but from a more objective perspective sad.Person A has a live-in girlfriend. Person B has a live-in boyfriend. Persons A & B do not love the person they are sleeping with, so initiate an emotional relationship with each other via email, lying to their respective lovers to keep it hidden from them. Person A discovers the identity of Person B and realizes it is someone he hates in real life, nonetheless, he lies to her and continues the email relationship. Eventually, by telling many more lies, he orchestrates circumstances to make Person B like him and then revels his identity as her email pen pal. Best quote: Person B "I was hoping it was you" (cries). Yep, that's the foundation for a really strong relationship. I guess after the movie gets over they're going to move in together. Hope they decide to disconnect AOL...4) Delightful remake of an old movie [Rating: 5 out of 5]
Hanks & Ryan did a masterful job in recreating the fime, "The Shop Around the Corner." I enjoy it each time I watch it, which is often.5) Interesting and Enjoyable Movie [Rating: 5 out of 5]
I bought this DVD for my wife because she already has the VHS version (without the extras), and I knew she would enjoy the DVD more. She has thoroughly enjoyed it. The extras were a big hit. She especially likes to quickly go to whatever scene she wants to watch.Guys, if you want to score some points with your wives, buy this DVD for them. You may have to sit and watch it with them at least once, but you shouldn't find it an unpleasant experience. It's a very enjoyable movie. As for me, I'd watch it again.