Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

Pleasant Rom-com starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Plot? A recently widowed man pours out  his grief on National Radio causing a woman to fall in love with him.

Its the type of movie where everyone is comfortably well-to-do and no one worries about money or work. The houses are well furnished, the restaurants upscale, the kids smart/cute, and the dinner parties cozy. Tom and Meg have supportive friends, who are willing to move out of the way if needed.  To provide us with some connection, the characters constantly reference old movies (Dirty Dozen, Casablanca, An affair to remember, fatal Attraction, etc.) and the soundtrack blasts out the old classics with Louie Armstrong, Durante, Celine Dion, Ray Charles and Nat King*.

Typical Quote:
Tom Hanks: Jonah, listen to me. You don't know Victoria. I hardly know her myself. She is a fat mystery to me. She tosses her hair a lot. Why does she do this? I have no idea. Is it a twitch? Does she need a haircut? Should she use a barrette to keep her hair out of her face? These are things I'm willing to get to the bottom of. And that is why... I am DATING her. That's all I'm doing. I'm not living with her. I'm not marrying her. Can you appreciate the difference? This is what single people do. They try other people on and see how they fit. But everybody's an adjustment. Nobody's perfect. There's no such thing as a perfect...

Summary Basically, a derivative entertainment product, with two likable leads, designed to make people feel good. Not really my kind of movie - very predictable - but it was OK. The only downside is the presence of Awful, unfunny Rosie O'Donnell. ** 1/2

Notes

* =  While almost all the singers are black, the songs are standards from the 1950s or before.  Somewhere over the Rainbow,  When I fall in love, Stardust,  Makin Whoopee,  A Kiss to build a Dream on, and An Affair to Remember.  Strangely,  for "As time goes by" Dooley Wilson is dropped in favor of Jimmy Durante. Like Warren Beatty's Love Affair,  you wonder if the soundtrack was "blackened up" to make up for there being almost no black characters. 

Shop Aournd the Corner (1940)

One of my favorite Christmas movies, and one of the best Rom-coms ever made. Favorite characters, moments and dialogue:

Supporting Characters

• Joseph Schildkraut as the shamless toady, yes-man, backstabber, and dandy.
• Pepe looking at Rudy's Bonus and Saying "too much"
• Perovitch hiding whenever Morgan wants a "honest opinion"
• Perovitch:  "Entertain? What are you an Ambassador?"

Frank Morgan

• "She didn't want to grow old with me"
• When he admits to Stewart he's been wrong about him.
• Yelling at his staff, then being nice to a customer, then going back to yelling.
• Morgan telling Rudy about the wonderful Christmas meal they will have.

James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan:

• Stewart's hurt puppy dog look when Sullavan calls him an insignificant clerk
• Sullavan's gloved hand reaching for a letter in an empty mail box
• Are those real diamonds? They're pretty near. 
• Stewart: "Half Shakespeare and half me."
• Sullavan line reading of : My trouble is what one might call......psychological.
• Sullavan's expression of Joy when she gets a letter from "dear Friend"
• The catch in Sullavan voice when she says: "Maybe we'll both be engaged Monday morning"
• Sullivan: "Instead of licking my hand, you barked,  My mistake was I didn't realize that the difference between this glamorous lady.....and me was that she was with the Comédie Française......and I was with Matuschek and Company."
• Stewart: If I were a girl and had to choose between a young, good-for-nothing... ...with plenty of hair,and a solid, mature citizen... ...l'd pick Mathias Popkin every time."
• Sullavan: Who is this very attractive young man? He's just the type women fall for."

Just a word on Margaret Sullavan

I love her in this movie and she has perfect chemistry with Stewart.  She's pretty, intelligent, and has a great attractive voice.  But in listening to several podcast reviews I was amazed that serveral people don't like her.  She's too "mean".  She's not good lookin enough.  Of course, Klara is mean to Stewart at serveral points, but from her point of view its justified.  Until the cafe scence, Stewart has been "all business" with her, and full of criticism. And at the cafe she's afraid he's going to spoil her big date,  and Stewart's hanging around seems like deliberate sabotage.  She's does call him an 'insignficant clerk" but that's only after he called her a Snippy old maid who will never find love. The criticism seems to be indicative of people in the 21st century rerquiring everything to be super obvious and "nice".  Lets not offend anyone!

As for Sullavan not being good looking enough.  Klara is supposed to be  "Just a lovely, average girl". Her clothes were deliberately made average, the kind a shop girl could afford.  Sullavan is pretty enough for the role.  Like Myrna Loy, her voice and face are her best qualities.  She's not supposed to be Grace Kelly or a sexy bombshell. 

TNG Star Trek - Season 3 Reviews

Ensigns of Command - Meh. Data beams down to a dangerous planet. His Job? Convince the recent humanoid settlers to leave before the rightful owners of the planet exterminate them. This episode has an interesting story but is let down by the awful acting/casting of the planet settlers and their awful dress. They all look and act like LA Community College drama students. The Clothes are from JC Penny circa 1986. We get the obligatory female character who - unlike everyone else - takes Data's side, falls in love with him, and helps save the day. Meanwhile, on the USS Enterprise, Picard plays lawyer and finds Treaty contract clause number 1,045 subparagraph B, which causes the aliens to back off. Yawn. **

Who Watches the Watchers - Simply cornball. Picard is mistaken for a God, when he saves a life on a primitive planet. What a talkfest. What a snoozefest. I think TNG was trying to be philosophical and that's always bad for a TV show with bad actors and space aliens. It justifies the Prime Directive, but that really didn't need to be proven. *

The Enemy - This has three suspenseful plots going on at once.  Georgi is lost on a planet and must cooperate with a Romulan to survive.  A Romulan prisoner has to be given medical treatment and Wolf = who hates Romulans - has to give him medical treatement.  Finally Picard has a showdown with a Romulan commander who wants his POW back or else.  This is another episode let down by bad acting/casting.  Georgi is a charisma-free character, and the Romulans are played by 3 very mediocre actors in bad makeup.  One yearns for Mark Lenard.  Further,  we get TNG's usual boring "We'll just talk this out, and come to a peaceful resolution"  trope.  Cooperation may be fine in the real world, but Conflict makes for better TV.  **1/2  

The Bonding -  Picard must deal with an orphaned 12 year old boy when his "Redshirt" Mother is killed by a land mine. Good God this was horrible.  Evidently, even in 2400 AD, no  one is smart enough to keep mothers out of combat.  The absurd "You Go Girl" feminism which created this situation is never questioned.   Instead, the whole episode revolves around Klingon customs, the kid and some aliens who pop up.  Rating * 

You've Got Mail (1998)

This Hanks-Meg Ryan Romcom was a big hit back in 1998 but hasn't aged well, and currently has a relatively low IMDB rating of 6.7. Even its target audience (women over 30) give it a mediocre 7.0. Loosely based on Shop Around the Corner, Director/Writer Nora Ephron lifts the central conceit of two people corresponding by mail/email who can't stand each other in real life, while being infatuated with their anonymous counterparts. Everything else in the 1940 version is more or less changed:

• Instead the leads being a poor sales clerk and store manager, Hanks is multi-millionaire Store Chain CEO and Ryan is a well- to-do small bookstore owner
• Instead of strong subplot with strong supporting characters (headed by Frank Morgan), the entire movie is focused on Ryan-Hanks. Their current boyfriend/girlfriend are simply there for comic relief and to be dumped. Dabney Coleman, Jean Stapleton, and Steve Zahn show up but are given little to do.
• Instead of two leads who are forced to work with each other and who bicker and fight,  we get nice Meg Ryan and nice Tom Hanks who are really only at odds because his Book Chain will put her small bookstore out of business.  Once her business goes under, she has no problem hooking up with Hanks.
• Instead of Stewart and Sullavan who go through hard times and heartbreak on their road to eventual happiness, Hanks and Ryan have no real problem except two annoying romantic partners.  Hanks sleeps on his yacht and does business deals, while Ryan lives in an expensive Manhattan brownstone and is almost liberated by her store closing.  Both spend their time dining at fashionable restaurants and coffee houses. 
• Stewart makes a likable character even more so. Hanks makes an unlikable character likable. In fact, with a different lead You've Got Mail wouldn't work. 
• Sullavan plays "Klara" with an edge.  Stewart labels one of her remarks "An interesting mixture of poetry and meanness". Ryan, OTOH,  is perky and, nice.  Even when she calls Joe Fox an empty suit, she seems sad that she said it. 
• And finally, Ephron pads out story to 120 minutes vs. 100 minutes for Shop Around the Corner.  Interestingly, she places the crucial cafe scene where Steward/Hanks find out that Sullavan/Ryan are their pen pals excactly in the middle, just like Shop Around the Corner.  Ephron's film has the Cafe scene at tthe 60 minute mark, Shop at the 50 minute mark. 

Summary:  A pleasant Hanks-Ryan follow up to Sleepless in Seattle.  Corner,  Its hard to dislike any movie with two such likable leads,  But unlike Shop Around the its a forgettable entertainment product.