You've Got Mail

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

Description

Neigborhood bookstore rivals unwittingly become e-mail pen pals in this charming remake of The Shop Around the Corner

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary:Commentary with N. Ephron & L. Shuler-Donner
DVD ROM Features:N. Ephron Audio Bytes "Sounds of NY" (10:07) Interview Gallery - Individual Clips (12:00) Comparison Scenes (38:00)
Featurette:HBO First Look Special: "A Conversation with Nora Ephron" (14:39)
Other:DIscover NY's Upper West Side" - 11 Selectable Clips (15:00)

Customer Reviews:

Lovable Film!!!!.......2007-09-04

Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.... what's not to love? Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks as star-crossed lovers/bitter enemies who don't realize they are star-crossed lovers.... seriously. What's not to love?

This is a movie that eliminates any chance of a generational divide. You have a classic love story told in modern terms and circumstances... (i.e. the internet.)You have two of the world's best actors ever.... And you have Brinkley, the wonderful, beautiful and scene-stealing golden retriever.

In a world where nothing is what it seems, enemies truly can become friends... friends can become lovers and lovers can make an eternity together.

If you watch only one romantic comedy in your life, let it be this one... For the love of all that is holy, I beg you. Let it be this one!

More Nora Ephron cynicism, disguised as sentiment.......2007-08-20

Watching Nora Ephron movies is a trip in the wayback machine to the 1940's, when assertive, career-minded female film characters either (1) held on to their careers and lost the guy, or (2) dumped the career and won the guy. No other option existed. Think women have made progress since then? "You've Got Mail" may be all dressed up in technicolor and tricked up with a relentless pop score, but it's the same old story. Meg Ryan's bookstore owner has a dream, and that dream is smashed to bits by megachain-owing Tom Hanks. When she finally realizes he's the same guy she's fallen in love with online and off, instead of punching him in the mouth she cries and they embrace. Now she can go home and forget all about that bookstore.

Just in case Ryan might have been tempted to hang onto her dream, she has Parker Posey (playing Tom Hanks' fiancee) as a cautionary tale. Posey's character is a nasty, career-obsessed harridan, whose sole plot function is to lose Hanks to Ryan.

This is retro antifeminism at its worst, and it's difficult to understand coming from a woman whose mother, Phoebe, was a respected Hollywood screenwriter in her own right. And Ephron herself is a dedicated career writer, who undoubtedly would spit in the face of anyone who trashed HER career. So why does she write Meg Ryan into a world where the work-related dreams of women count for nothing?

Final note: I wish reviewers would stop comparing this movie to "The Shop Around the Corner". It may technically be a remake, but the two films are not the same league. Ernst Lubitsch had a sharp eye for human folly but he also believed in happy endings based on reality, not manipulative mush. And he respected all his characters equally.

You've got Mail.......2007-08-08

I always watch this movie twice - first, in its original format which is a good romance comedy and second, with the subtitle option of music only which is good background for doing computer work.

An all time favorite.......2007-07-29

If you have seen this movie before (at the theater, on TV, or on DVD), and you enjoy romantic comedys, then no doubt this has already become one of your favorites. Even today, I never get tired of watching it. If you haven't seen it - make a point to do so. It will make you smile.

You've got OSCARS!!!.......2007-07-03

I absolutely know why the academy went nuts over this one. It definitely graduated magnum cum laude in my opinion!!!

The chemistry between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan is out of this world! Sleepless in Seattle was good, Running in Circles was great, and You've Got Mail was phenomenal!!!

I loved that one part when Tom Hanks sells the dictionary to that one guy!!! It was so funny. I heard that most of this movie was unscripted... just a testament to these actors' abilities to light up the Silver Screen.

Before I write more about this movie, I think it would be a good idea JUST TO THANK these wonderful actors for their contribution. I heard that AOL didn't even exist until after this movie was made!! Talk about defining popular culture, huh?

So back to the movie. Greg Kinnear is in it.

RENT IT.

Average customer rating:

Turn out the lights..........
It all went up his nose, and we parted with our cash for this too!
Bright Lights, Big Sh*tty
Bright stars, small gem
Tedious

Bright Lights, Big City
Starring: Michael J. Fox , Kiefer Sutherland , Phoebe Cates , Swoosie Kurtz , and Frances Sternhagen
Director: James Bridges
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $7.49 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( B ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: B00009OWJR
Release Date: 2003-08-05

Amazon.com

Michael J. Fox plays the most sympathetic cocaine addict you've ever seen in the movie of Jay McInerney's popular novel Bright Lights, Big City, the book that famously chronicled the coke- and cash-fueled era of the 1980s. Jamie Conway (Fox) works as a fact-checker for a major New York magazine, but because he spends his nights partying with his glib best friend (Kiefer Sutherland), he's on the verge of getting fired. His wife, a fast-rising model (Phoebe Cates), just left him; he's still reeling from the death of his mother (Dianne Wiest) a year earlier; and he's obsessed with a tabloid story about a pregnant woman in a coma. Bright Lights, Big City doesn't have much of a plot, but in its meandering way it captures some of the glossy chaos of the time and of a man desperately trying to escape the pain in his life. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

Turn out the lights.................2006-10-30

The only Michael J. Fox film that is worse than "Bright Lights, Big City", is "Light of Day" with co-star Joan Jett. Fox gives a good performance considering, but I would call both of these films "duds". Every actor has to make a few appearances in bad films, to pay their dues, so to speak, to acquire name recognition within the industry. This film was made before Fox's career really starting taking off. He came off running good in "Back to the Future", but "Bright Lights, Big City" was nothing more than a stumbling block to his career, in my humble opinion. This film was not well written, poorly directed, distasefully done. It is boring and the subject matter goes way overboard into the drug scene. I felt it gloried a lot of disgusting things. I was not at all impressed. The acting was good, casting was good, good cinematography, but just a very poor screenplay to begin with, for which there is no resurrection. Not something I would recommend. There are many other movies to choose from that are entertaining, and well done. This is not one of them.

It all went up his nose, and we parted with our cash for this too!.......2006-02-05

Michael J Fox stared in a few movies in the 80s about being a yuppie in New York. While in The Secret of My Success he was a lovable yuppie scum from Kansas, here he is a not so lovable yuppie scum from Kansas who is absorbed in the heady nightlife of cocaine and all that was New York in the 80s. He is in despair, as his job is going downhill, his wife has left him, there are no friends to be found, and it's all falling apart.

It's hard for me to feel sympathy for someone like this. He made choices to live this way. His use of drugs was not the result of abuse, desperation or being forced into doing something he didn't want to do, it was the result of his own choices. His wife left him because she doesn't want to watch him go down. His friends are not really his friends, and he is loosing footing with his job. "What? Me? Get up and go to work? I don't like the way you said that, I'm not going." And the coke straw says "You know you're right." Michael J Fox seems to be someone who has had a lot of advantages in life and he is throwing them away for the next high. I've watched many friends ruin their lives with this, and none of them are my friends anymore because of their choices. I choose to live in happiness, to be in the light, and to be responsible enough to support myself. Guess what? That's cool and they're not.

Why not one star? In terms of a cinematic achievement, they were able to capture the paranoia and upset that is cocain addiction so the audience is able to experience it for themselves. A few movies have been able to achieve this, such as Good Fellas and Boogie Nights, and this movie for that alone has fallen into the slush pile. Michael J Fox had his own addictions he was able to overcome, I wonder what happened to a lot of those people this movie was about from the 80s.

Bright Lights, Big Sh*tty.......2005-09-09

Some people may think it's difficult to watch a movie where the lead spends almost the entire film being a jerk and snorting his paycheck - but stick with this one and you witness Michael J. Fox reaching his (sort of) salvation. The score is outstanding 80's, especially the Donald Fagen version of the title song and the closing number.
Watch for a great cameo by Jason Robards and the painful reward given to Keefer Sutherland.

Bright stars, small gem.......2005-08-08

James Bridges (Urban Cowboy) directs Michael J. Fox (Back To The Future), Phoebe Cates (Fast Times At Ridgemont High), and Keifer Sutherland (The Lost Boys, Stand By Me) in this overlooked 80's movie about a man's struggle with a dark past and the overwhelmingly hysterical cocaine-driven nightlife of New York City.

Fox plays Jamie Conway, a struggling writer and editor in a small time magazine, who has just been dumped by his big shot model wife Amanda and is still mourning the death of his mother from cancer a year ago. He's also concerned with a newspaper article following the tragic events of a pregnant woman in coma simply because it reminds him of the last conversation between him and his dying mother about how painful it was for her to give birth to him because he "didn't want to get out".

The events of the movie pursue Jamie on his manic pursuit of Amanda and the fact that he feels used and terribly upset with the way she left him, and his dreadful shortcomings at work that cost him his job. The main focus of the movie however is how addicted Jamie gets to cocaine and the negative results it has on his health. Keifer Sutherland plays Aligash, a suave businessman who joins Jamie in the crazy nightlife scene and ends up hooking him up with a woman that seems to be what Jamie was looking for for a long time.

Although the movie might seem plotless, it captures a certain vibe that you can't seem to pull away from. It's also very interesting to see Fox play a character that totally defines the complete opposite of what Marty McFly is.

Bright Lights, Big City features cameo appearances by high profile actors like John Houseman, Sam Robards, and Dianne Wiest.

Recommended

B

Tedious.......2005-02-21

Man! They call people today self-absorbed! This movie felt so repetitive (how many times do we need to see the main character bolt for a bathroom stall to get high?) and forced. I ended up leaving it on as background noise while doing better things with my time than continue watching. The only thing powerful about this movie was how powerfully self-important and tedious it was!

Average customer rating:

A real clunker
Cute, fun, funny!!!
One of the best gay romance movies ever!
Teen Romance
Under the Superficial Fluff Lies a Sensitive Tale

Formula 17
Starring: Tony Yang , Duncan Lai , Chin King , Dada Ji , and Jimmy Yang (II)
Director: Yin-jung Chen
Manufacturer: Strand Releasing
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Art House & International | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

Gay & Lesbian | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

( F ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

General | Foreign & International | Stores | DVD | Video

ASIN: B000BB18WW
Release Date: 2005-11-29

Description

A young and innocent 17-year-old boy goes searching for love and adventure in the summer heat of Taipei, but finds himself attracted to the biggest playboy known to mankind. Will he be able to change this playboy into a stable boyfriend? FORMULA 17 is the cool recipe for a hot summer!

Customer Reviews:

A real clunker.......2007-08-01

The longest movie I have seen, even though it lasted only 93 minutes. A lousy clunker in every way. Why do people tolerate such awful movies just because they are gay? The plot, the script, the acting, and practically every aspect of the movie are as bad as I have seen in recent years. I also find the broad brushstrokes the movie uses to paint every single man in it as a flighty, silly, sex-crazed creature of the old stereotype extremely offensive.

Cute, fun, funny!!!.......2007-06-28

Love this movie!!! It is silly, touching, fun, funny. Just what i needed. And of course filled with hot guys!

One of the best gay romance movies ever!.......2007-06-01

This movie really got to me. The plot summary doesn't tell you what the movies REALLY about. Bai isn't really a playboy, Bai has a phobia for relationships. In dire fear of having his heart broken he ends up only having one-night stands and which leads to everyone thinking he's a cold hearted playboy. When he meets and falls deeply in love with Tien he has to face his fears before he breaks Tien's heart and loses him. Don't worry its a happy ending! :)

Its so rare to find a good gay movie that isn't a total comedy or tragedy. I highly recommend this to anyone just looking for gay romance without the tragedy or dumb jokes. A++ ;)

-ksha2222

Teen Romance.......2007-03-26

"Formula 17"

Teen Romance

Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride

From Taiwan comes this delightful romantic comedy. Homosexuality is a taboo subject in Taiwan but "Formula 17" has a wonderful sensitivity and the treatment of the issue is wonderful.
Seventeen year old Tien (played by Tony Yang) moves to Taipei to live with Yu (Chin King), a friend who bartends at a gay bar. Tien, who knows nothing about sex, is a virgin and plans to stay that way until he finds true love. (How wonderfully idealistic). Yu is involved in a long distance relationship that is taking is toll on him and is determined to bring Tien into the Taipei gay scene and have him lost his virginity. Yu even arranges a liaison with a really hot plumber but Tien is attracted to a 30 year old businessman who is notorious for liking one nighters. Bai, the businessman and Tien eventually hook up but Bai avoids Tien the next day. Tein's friends go out looking for Bai to make their pal feel better and what results is a scene that is so madcap that it is hard to believe.
"Formula 17"is a very funny movie. It is simple and this is probably what makes it so delightful. There are no nudity nor sex scenes per se but even so, the Taiwanese government banned the movie in Singapore.
In some ways, the film is somewhat amateurish but the characters are well developed and I cold not help falling for some of them. The actors seriously persuaded their roles with relish and what could have been stereotypical becomes touching and sensitive. It is a satirical look at the way so many people live their lives and it ropes you in during the first few minutes and you find yourself enjoying every moment. There is a great deal of heart here and it deals with issues that the gay community has always faces--fidelity and honesty and friendship. "Formula 17" is one of those movies that you can sit back and just enjoy without thinking or attempting to unravel a plot with twists and turns. It is just a good time.

Under the Superficial Fluff Lies a Sensitive Tale.......2006-04-10

'Shi qi sui de tian kong' (FORMULA 17) is a very fine first venture into film making by two young Taiwanese women - Yin-jung Chen, director and Rady Fu, screenwriter - who are unafraid to take on a taboo subject in Taiwan and find some excellent talent and ideas that suggest that there will be more films from them in the future. Though the central theme and two characters of the story are excellent, the movie drifts into wide-eyed burlesque with its supporting cast, and thus the three stars rating instead of four.

Tien (Tony Yang) is a naive seventeen-year-old from the provinces who comes to Taipei to live with his old friend Yu (Chin King), a bartender in a gay bar, for a summer. Tien is gay, a virgin, and intends to stay a virgin until he is in a meaningful love relationship. Yu is suffering from a relationship that is tainted by distance, but he sees the need to introduce Tien into the active gay life in Taipei - and to put an end to Tien's virginity. Together with Yu's friends (way over the top flamboyant kids) Tien is introduced to gay bars, is set up with hunks, but he holds to his values - until he eyes 30-year-old playboy Bai Tieh-nan (Duncan Lai), a lothario famous for his one night stands. We gradually learn that Bai is a sensitive hunk with issues who is afraid to fall in love, hence his one night stand rule. The story at the core of this film is how the two ultimately fulfill each others' ideals and needs.

Much of the film dawdles in stereotypical situations and poorly acted and directed excursions into the bar scenes, but the work of Duncan Lai and Tony Yang makes the film credible and well worth watching: both men are handsome, talented actors who develop a fine screen chemistry. For all its weak points, FORMULA 17 is a film with a big heart and a gay film that manages to deal with some important issues of fidelity and honesty instead of focusing on merely the superficial. In Mandarin, Cantonese, English with subtitles. Grady Harp, April 06

You've Got Mail (Mother's Day Gift Set with Card and Gift Wrap)

Average customer rating:

A great chick flick

You've Got Mail (Mother's Day Gift Set with Card and Gift Wrap)
Starring: Tom Hanks , Meg Ryan , Greg Kinnear , Parker Posey , and Jean Stapleton
Director: Nora Ephron
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

Urban | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $9.99 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( Y ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: B000E8N9EM
Release Date: 2006-04-18

Description

Neigborhood bookstore rivals unwittingly become e-mail pen pals in this charming remake of The Shop Around the Corner

Customer Reviews:

A great chick flick.......2007-04-04

I've watched this film dozens of times and it still makes me cry.

Charlie Rose with Joseph Rotblat; David O. Russell; Jay McInerny; Noah Adams (May 10, 1996)

Average customer rating:

Charlie Rose with Joseph Rotblat; David O. Russell; Jay McInerny; Noah Adams (May 10, 1996)

Manufacturer: Charlie Rose
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Description

First, Physicist Joseph Rotblat was the only scientist to leave the Manhattan Project before the A-bomb was tested. Ten years later, he signed the historic Russell-Einstein Manifesto. It called for the end to all nuclear weapons and was the beginning of Rotblat's fifty year fight for total nuclear disarmament. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 and tonight he talks to Charlie about his cause. Then, filmmaker David O. Russell discusses his new film, Flirting With Disaster. It is about a young father's search for his biological parents, which sends him on a cross-country trek. Also, author Jay McInerny's 1984 debut, Bright Lights, Big City chronicled the excess of the 1980s and made him an overnight success. More than a decade later, he talks to Charlie about the dawn of a new century and his latest book, The Last of the Savages. Finally, Noah Adams, host of National Public Radio's All Things Considered, talks about his experience learning the piano at age 51 and the book it led to, Piano Lessons: Music, Love and True Adventures.

Average customer rating:

Turn out the lights..........
It all went up his nose, and we parted with our cash for this too!
Bright Lights, Big Sh*tty
Bright stars, small gem
Tedious

Bright Lights Big City
Starring: Michael J. Fox , Kiefer Sutherland , Phoebe Cates , Swoosie Kurtz , and Frances Sternhagen
Director: James Bridges
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: Video
Binding: VHS Tape

Cates, Phoebe | ( C ) | Actors & Actresses | VHS | Video

Fox, Michael J | ( F ) | Actors & Actresses | VHS | Video

Gurwitch, Annabelle | ( G ) | Actors & Actresses | VHS | Video

Hickey, William | ( H ) | Actors & Actresses | VHS | Video

Houseman, John | ( H ) | Actors & Actresses | VHS | Video

Kurtz, Swoosie | ( K ) | Actors & Actresses | VHS | Video

Lundy, Jessica | ( L ) | Actors & Actresses | VHS | Video

Lynch, Kelly | ( L ) | Actors & Actresses | VHS | Video

Pollan, Tracy | ( P ) | Actors & Actresses | VHS | Video

Robards, Sam | ( R ) | Actors & Actresses | VHS | Video

Schlatter, Charlie | ( S ) | Actors & Actresses | VHS | Video

Sternhagen, Frances | ( S ) | Actors & Actresses | VHS | Video

Sutherland, Kiefer | ( S ) | Actors & Actresses | VHS | Video

Wiest, Dianne | ( W ) | Actors & Actresses | VHS | Video

Bridges, James | ( B ) | Directors | VHS | Video

General | Drama | Genres | VHS | Video

All Deals | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: 6304286481
Release Date: 1997-01-07

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Turn out the lights.................2006-10-30

It all went up his nose, and we parted with our cash for this too!.......2006-02-05

Bright Lights, Big Sh*tty.......2005-09-09

Bright stars, small gem.......2005-08-08

Tedious.......2005-02-21

Average customer rating:

Turn out the lights..........
It all went up his nose, and we parted with our cash for this too!
Bright Lights, Big Sh*tty
Bright stars, small gem
Tedious

Bright Lights, Big City [Region 2]
Starring: Michael J. Fox , Kiefer Sutherland , Phoebe Cates , Swoosie Kurtz , and Frances Sternhagen
Director: James Bridges
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

( B ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: B0000A08IM

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Turn out the lights.................2006-10-30

It all went up his nose, and we parted with our cash for this too!.......2006-02-05

Bright Lights, Big Sh*tty.......2005-09-09

Bright stars, small gem.......2005-08-08

Tedious.......2005-02-21

DVD:

DVD

DVD