You've Got Mail (1998) / Empire Records (1995) Paramount Summer Classic Film Series Double Feature

 

You've Got Mail

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan were the epitome of screen couples in the 1990s. They made three romantic comedies together and all of them are worth a look, but my personal favorite is their last one, the Nora Ephron directed and co-written "You've Got Mail." The film is a remake and update of the 1940 Classic, "The Shop Around the Corner". It is extensively inspired by the then new phenomena of electronic communication. America On-Line (AOL) was the portal that most users of the internet in the mid to late 90s were found on. Instant messaging and e-mail were sparkling new toys that enticed people into communities, chat rooms and ultimately on-line relationships. 

Although the movie holds up pretty well when it comes to story, the technology has developed so much in the last thirty years that several things seem incredibly quaint to older viewers and foreign to younger audiences. The dial up tones for connecting to the internet have vanished and they are only a memory for early users of the internet. The notification in the mailbox that there were new messages, was probably useful in 1998. I recently covered "Eurotrip" on the LAMBcast, and the audio notification on e-mail there is quite different, just six years later. Of course today, if I had an audio notification for every new email, my phone would never shut up. 

The original film featured Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. Hanks has frequently been compared to Stewart for his aw shucks personable style and open faced handsomeness. Of course he has a quick wit and can dash off a line with flare, which is different than Stewart's deliberate and often halting delivery of lines. The two actors have different styles regardless of personality or physical similarities. Meg Ryan is completely different in her character than Sullavan was in the 1940 film. Kathleen is quiet and deferential at the start of the film, it is only after she gets advice from Joe Fox that she is able to actually confront Joe Fox. The realization that her words might be cruel, is a lesson that most people on the internet should learn.

This is a big spoonful of nostalgia for me. Like "Sleepless in Seattle" from a few years earlier, I experienced this movie with my late wife who adored it. The DVD was one of the first DVD purchases after we acquired a player late in 1998.  There was a promotional sale at "Comp USA" an long defunct computer store, which had a location about ten miles from our home and I remember driving over there on a Saturday, with the kids in the minivan, to buy the movie for the low price of $14.99. It has some Christmas sequences, but I have never thought of it as a Christmas movie. This is a romanticized view of New York Movie. It's sort of funny that there is a joke about Rudy Giuliani as mayor because it was largely his policies that allowed the idealized view of New York to flourish in the 1990s. If this film had been made in the seventies, it would have been set in San Francisco rather than NYC.

Empire Records

This was a strange pairing for the double feature. The tone of the two films is very different, and although they came out in the same era, it is very clear that they were seeking very different audiences. "Empire Records" is the antithesis of "You've Got Mail" in a number of ways. Both films feature a ton of needle drop musical moments, but "Mail" is all about established and well worn songs and moods, "Empire" is contemporary and focused on clashing subcultures of music. The former is all about polish and smooth story telling, the later is chaotic and frenetic. 

A dozen characters are featured with storylines in the film. They are not background but main arcs of the movie. The film bounces around all of those stories and barely lets us know the characters, much less develop any affinity for them. The cliched stereotypes are the short hand way in which we are expected to connect with these young people. The store appears to have more employees than customers and all of the employees have quirks that are off putting to some degree, regardless of whether they have other traits that might endear them to us. 

I suppose it is the retail workplace setting that makes this combination of films feel any sort of theme between them. Both the "Shop Around the Corner" and "Empire Records" are businesses on the brink of collapse due to competition from newer business models. It is a little ironic that youth lead internet culture subsequently consumed both industries to a large degree. Books and  Music were first, but movies are in the same buffet, and will soon be swallowed up by on-line users who will be soulless and will crush the individuality of all of us.

This movie was not a success when it was released but it has become something of a cult film as a result of cable exposure over the years. I can see why. Watching this in a theater reveals all of the films flaws, and makes it a chore to get through. This is one of the few films I think works better on a small screen and at home viewing. You can tune in and out of the dialogue without losing anything because most of the dialogue is not very good. The sequences don't really build on one another, so if you miss something while answering the door, going to the bathroom or getting a snack, it won't matter. This is not a film that was mad for my generation, but it tries to take the attitude of a touchstone film from my era like "Caddyshack" or "Animal House" and apply it to the millennial audience.   Unfortunately, from my point of view, that is a fail. 

 

The Outsiders (1983) Alamo Drafthouse Movie Party

 

In spite of the fact that "The Outsiders" was released in 1983 and was made by one of my favorite directors, it has only just dawned on me that I had never seen it. I have been to NYC twice to see the musical stage adaptation, and I own the Complete Novel Version DVD/Blu-ray of the film, so I thought I'd had this as part of my history, but while watching it, I came to the realization that this was a completely new experience for me. Knowing the story is not the same as seeing actors play out the roles on screen or watching a director make choices to emphasize one visual element over another.

I have been lax this summer in keeping up with my blog and the films that I have seen. Some of this passivity is a result of the large number of retrospective films I have been seeing, but an even bigger influence has been my devotion to the LAMBcast episodes and the videos, which take up a lot of my time and reprioritize my efforts. Which is why this post is both late and not as complete as I had originally intended. in the first few years of this blog, I wrote about the films I saw immediately after seeing the movie. Sometimes I would stay up into the next morning to get my thoughts down completely. That has not been the case for the last couple of years and since I don't take notes, when a post goes up days or even weeks after a screening, I have forgotten many of the things I wanted to write about while watching the film. That has happened with this movie.

I know there were performance moments that I thought were great, but I cannot recall the images or nuances that struck me at the time. I do know that I thought the church fire scene worked much more effectively in this film than I was expecting. C. Thomas Howell and Ralph Macchio were really strong in the film and this sequence was a standout. 

Francis Ford Coppola and his cinematographer Stephen Buram, captured the golden hue of the evening that matches the poem and the theme for Ponyboy at the end of the movie. In fact, the whole film does a nice job of creating the 60s era without over doing cultural images that give us a shorthand way of seeing the time period.  

The rest of the cast was also great, with Matt Dillon and Rob Lowe the standouts. Tom Cruise is in the edges of the film and his breakout role in "Risky Business" came this same year. Many of the cast members were reunited for "Red Dawn" the John Milius film of 12984, and they all seemed to play off of each other pretty well. 

If I see the film again, I will try to be quicker in writing about it so that you get a more complete picture of my experience. Until them Stay Golden. 

Ghostbusters (1984)-Revisit/Alamo Drafthouse Movie Party

 

Whenever I get a chance to see one of my 1984 films on the big screen, I am going to take it. Last week the Alamo Drafthouse had a Movie Party Screening of "Ghostbusters". The Movie Party screenings include a theme hosted introduction with a contest for a prize, and props are distributed as you enter the theater. In the past, some of the props are clever, but not useful for the interactions of the Party Atmosphere. This event however did include some props that made the screening feel like a party. We were given two foot long glowstick streamers that allowed us to join in on the ghost hunts when the proton packs came out. 

Everyone in the half full theater would wave their proton streams whenever the Ghostbusters did. It was quite a sight. I did not record during the screening, that would still be a no no by Alamo standards, but you can imagine the effect by looking at the video above. 

No one used the slime in a jar during the movie, but I did see several people eat their marshmallow at the end of the film when the Stay Puft Man makes his appearance.  

Here is a link to a decade old post on one of my visits to see Ghostbuster in a theater. 

and here is a 30th Anniversary screening link as well. 

One more link for you, this is the post on my 30 Years On Project from 2014. 

I am always happy to revisit a film that I love in a theater. Getting to do so with other fans is one of the things that makes movie going special for me. Oh, by the way, I wone the ring toss Slimer game and got two passes for an Alamo Screening. Not to shabby for a 41 year old movie and an even older fan.