BEFORE: This makes three in a row for Meg Ryan, who carries over from "Addicted to Love". Now we're getting down to it - somehow I've succcessfully managed to avoid this film for over 20 years, but wouldn't you know, I've found that it finally serves a purpose, helping me get to the end of this year's romance chain, with a link back to the last Noah Baumbach films on my list (I think).
Just 5 more days of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming, too - the focus for tomorrow, February 27 is on "Crime", with a head-to-head battle between Mickey Rooney and Jackie Cooper in "Favorite Young Best Actor Nominee" and then a fight for "Favorite Military Romance":
4:30 am "Manhattan Melodrama" (1934)
6:15 am "Doorway to Hell" (1930)
8:00 am "Johnny Eager" (1941)
10:00 am "The Maltese Falcon" (1941)
12:00 pm "The Naked City" (1948)
2:00 pm "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950)
4:00 pm "White Heat" (1949)
6:00 pm "Mystery Street" (1950)
8:00 pm "The Human Comedy" (1940)
10:15 pm "Skippy" (1933)
12:00 am "From Here to Eternity" (1953)
2:15 am "A Farewell to Arms" (1932)
Oof, there's only a couple real films that stand out here, is that because it's Wednesday, or did they already play most of the GOOD Oscar-nominated films, and here in the last few days, it's time for the ass-end of the list? Sure, I've seen "The Maltese Falcon", "White Heat" and "From Here to Eternity", but "Skippy"? Come on, TCM, work with me here. Plus, I've seen the 1957 version of "A Farewell to Arms", but not the 1932 version - so I'm only hitting for 3 out of 12 tomorrow, bringing me up to 126 seen out of 307, so I'm hanging on at 41% even. Just four more days, but I want to finish strong.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Shop Around the Corner" (Movie #1,045)
THE PLOT: Two business rivals who despise each other in real life unwittingly fall in love over the internet.
AFTER: Boy, this one looks really quaint, now, right? People signing on to check their AOL mail via DIAL-UP? People exchanging messages in an AOL chat-room, or using Instant Messenger? How is this movie 20 years old, but it feels like the technology is from the Stone Age of the internet? This is a film that's terribly in need of an update, like a version with Tinder and Grinder and Match.com and some freakin' WI-FI, for chrissakes. But since nobody had a smartphone back in 1998, or a Facebook profile, that's what drives the plot here, that two people could carry on a conversation for months without ever seeing what the other person looks like - so I guess it couldn't happen today, unless some form of catfishing were involved.
Joe and Kathleen are two people who both live on the Upper West Side, and they nearly bump into each other several times a day, like on the way to work or at cafés or while going through Central Park, and they've been carrying on a long internet chat for months, despite both being in relationships. Umm, that's called cheating, or a form of it, right? Because the person you DON'T know in real life but are talking to online is always going to be a mystery, someone you can fantasize about when your real partner lets you down. The grass is always going to look greener on the other side of the chat-room, or something like that. That's why we have Facebook and Instagram now, so you can check someone out and see if there are a lot of pictures of them with friends and lovers and ex-lovers, right?
But it's awfully convenient here that Kathleen seems to be in a serious relationship at the start of this film, and then when the partner needs to go away, it turns out that neither he NOR she were very serious about the relationship at all. Or perhaps it just seems very convenient to someone who's watched over 20 romantic comedies this month, I'm not sure. And then of course it's also very convenient that Joe suddenly realizes that his current girlfriend is an annoying, self-centered person, and he wants out. Well, why were they together in the first place? It must have seemed like a good idea at some point, right? Was it the AOL chats that poisoned the well, or did they turn to the AOL chats because something was fundamentally not right with their relationships? This is more or less unclear.
For a minute, I thought there was going to be a repeat of the "When Harry Met Sally" plot idea where the four lead characters would switch partners, like when Carrie Fisher's character connected with Bruno Kirby's character, and they split off, leaving Harry and Sally in the dust. Well, both films were written by Nora Ephron, after all. But "When Harry Met Sally" came first - still, when Joe's girlfriend Patricia seemed to connect with Kathleen's boyfriend Frank at a party, I thought, "Oh, no, here we go again, she's going back to that old well..." Thankfully, the film went in a different direction from there - but that was a close one, for sure.
The twist here is that instead of meeting cute like in most romantic comedies, the (eventual) couple finds themselves at odds with each other - Kathleen runs a small, independent children's bookstore, and Joe Fox is the head of a chain of giant bookstores, intent on expansion and taking over as much Manhattan retail space as possible, selling books at discounted prices, but making up for it with volume, volume, volume. So Kathleen (once she figures out the true identity of this man who bought a bunch of books at her store) can only see him for what she perceives him to be - a callous, greedy mogul from a rich family intent on driving her store out of business. Which, to be fair, he more or less is.
But, WHY does it have to be this way? Why can't both bookstores exist and cater to different markets? If Joe really liked the way that "The Shop Around the Corner" operates, why not just maintain a giant chain bookstore without a children's section? Why not say, "Well this nearby store has a lock on that market, so we'll carry every OTHER type of book here, because she already has a loyal clientele." Especially when Joe learns that his business rival is ALSO the woman that's he's fallen for on-line, why doesn't he work something out, send a little business her way? Surely his giant conglomerate mega-bookstore doesn't need to hog EVERY sale of every book, does it?
For that matter, why doesn't Joe just hire Kathleen, is he afraid that she's too proud? Why doesn't he buy her tiny bookstore to give back to her, or just to keep it in business, or make it the annex to his giant mega-bookstore? Why is it so important for the plot that he becomes "the guy who put her out of business", just to create another obstacle in their relationship, when there were simple plot solutions that would save her store, keep her employees employed AND redeem Joe Fox as a caring human character at the same time?
It seems that I've accidentally set up a running theme for the past week, and it lies somewhere at the intersection of romance and deception, aka lying. Even a lie of omission is still a lie, whether it's Diane's mother in "Peace, Love & Misunderstanding" setting her up with a local musician while carefully omitting some details about him, or the person delivering the messages to Holly in "P.S. I Love You" in secret. Then in "Rumor Has It..." Sarah went off with Blake Burroughs without telling her fiancé about it, and that turned out to be a bad idea. In "Thanks for Sharing" Adam sort of neglected to tell his new girlfriend that he was being treated for sex addiction, and in "I.Q." Ed the mechanic couldn't find a way to tell Catherine that he wasn't really a scientific genius. Then in "Addicted to Love" there was a whole lot of destructive behavior, like the couple spying on their exes, and Sam taking a job in Anton's restaurant, lying about his identity to sabotage his career. And now today we've got Joe Fox, who is lying to Kathleen by befriending her and NOT telling her that he knows they've been communicating in the chat room. This lying really should disqualify him as a future romantic partner, but come on, it's a Hollywood romance, so of course somehow it doesn't.
The inspiration here was probably what was going on in NYC in the late 1990's, with big stores like Barnes & Noble putting independent "mom & pop" bookstores out of business, just like Starbucks moved in and took over and killed a lot of smaller coffee shops. But now in the last few years Amazon has been dominating the market, like I still love Barnes & Noble, but who doesn't go there just to browse, then go home and order the same books on Amazon? Like, who wants to carry a big bag of books home on the subway, when they can be delivered by mail? Someday we'll all be working for Amazon...
Or maybe not - the recent Amazon scandal in NYC was that the company got a ginormous tax break to set up their East Coast headquarters in Long Island City, but then the debates began over whether this plan was good for NYC or bad for NYC. Sure, it meant 25,000 more jobs in the city, but at what cost? That giant tax break meant that the city was essentially getting screwed, which meant that all the other New Yorkers would have to pick up the slack and foot the bill for that, somehow. And more Amazon workers meant more people on the subway going to work, more people getting paid minimum wage (or close to it) for slaving in Amazon's soulless warehouse, and oh, yeah, those people are all going to need apartments, which means fewer apartments for everyone else, so that means rents would go up, and then what about all the things that COULD have been built on the site of Amazon's East Coast headquarters, like maybe some low- or moderate-income housing? Wouldn't that help problems like homelessness in the long run, which would mean less of a drain on city services like shelters and hospitals? Yes, this was a complex issue, and people are still debating now whether Amazon pulling out of NYC real estate is a good thing or a bad thing.
Somehow, the events seen in "You've Got Mail" are some kind of prescient metaphor for this, even if I can't quite articulate it properly. Though the plot is very clunky and awkward, this movie still could have been a lot worse than it was.
Also starring Tom Hanks (last seen in "Concert for George"), Parker Posey (last seen in "Mascots"), Jean Stapleton (last heard in "Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World"), Greg Kinnear (last seen in "We Were Soldiers"), Steve Zahn (last seen in "Saving Silverman"), Heather Burns (last seen in "Manchester by the Sea"), Dave Chappelle, Dabney Coleman (last seen in "Rules Don't Apply"), John Randolph (last seen in "Frances"), Hallee Hirsh (last seen in "One True Thing"), Jeffrey Scaperrotta, (ditto) Cara Seymour (last seen in "The Music Never Stopped"), Katie Finneran, Sara Ramirez, Chris Messina, with cameos from Michael Badalucco (last seen in "Desperately Seeking Susan"), Jane Adams (last seen in "Orange County"), Deborah Rush
RATING: 5 out of 10 quotes from "The Godfather"
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