Youve Got Mail

Starring: Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks Director: Nora Ephron Original UK Premiere: 1999 Dvd Release: 23rd August, 1999 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: PAL, Widescreen, Region 2 Encoding Subtitled In: Arabic, English

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Youve Got Mail is a phrase spoken by America Online software to welcome users when they login & there is unread email in their account. It is also the name of a film. Youve Got Mail was released in 1998 by Warner Brothers Films & given significant media coverage leading up to its release. Part of the anticipation for the feature film was the romantic coupling of Tom Hanks & Meg Ryan, a dynamic employed successfully in other films such as Joe vs. The Volcano & Sleepless in Seattle. Youve Got Mail was directed by Nora Ephron. The script was written by Ephron & her sister Delia Ephron. The production team included Nora Ephron, Delia Ephron & Lauren Shuler Donner, responsible for the box-office-busting comedy Mr. Mom. The cast included Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey, Jean Stapleton, Steve Zahn, David Chappelle, Dabney Coleman & Hallee Hirsh. The entire film resonates with Ephrons personality & influence.

By now, Tom Hanks & Meg Ryan have amassed such a fund of goodwill with moviegoers that any new onscreen pairing brings nearly reflexive smiles. In Youve Got Mail, the quintessential boy & girl next door repeat the tentative romantic crescendo that made Sleepless in Seattle, writer-director Nora Ephrons 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 features 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 & her sister, Delia Ephron, updates & relocates the Ernst Lubitsch classic, The Shop Around the Corner, to contemporary Manhattan, where Joe Fox is a cheerfully rapacious merchant whose chain of book superstores is gobbling up smaller, more specialized shops such as the childrens bookstore owned by Kathleen Kelly . Their lives run in close parallel in the same idealized neighbourhood 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 & clash over their colliding business fortunes.

Its no small testament to the two stars that we wind up liking & caring about them despite the inevitable 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 theres a slow leak that considerably deflates the affair. Less credulous viewers will challenge Joes logic in prolonging the concealment of his online identity from Kathleen, & may shake their heads at Ephrons reinvention of Manhattan as a spotless, sun-dappled wonderland where everybody lives in million-dollar apartments & colour co-ordinates their wardrobes for cocktail parties.

Meg Ryan is a blue-eyed, blonde-haired American actress. She was born Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra in Fairfield, Connecticut. She specializes in romantic comedies, but has dabbled in other film genres as well. Ryan studied journalism at New York University. She went into acting to earn extra money while in school. After a part in a feature film, Ryan, now using her new name Meg Ryan, landed the role of Betsy on the daytime drama As the World Turns from 1982 to 1984. Directors for this show especially liked working with her because she could cry on cue. After several TV film & smaller movie roles, her first full-blown hit in a leading role was the romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally. The movie was favorably received & crystallized Ryans on-screen persona as a bubbly, charming, feisty but incurable romantic, a role she has largely reprised in her biggest roles since. In 2003, she broke away from her usual roles & starred in In the Cut, an erotic crime/thriller/mystery. Many of her films of the 1990s have been hits not only in North America, but also abroad. Posters Of Meg Ryan

Editors Choice: In The Cut, Against The Ropes, Kate And Leopold, Anastasia, Proof Of Life, Hanging Up, Youve Got Mail, City Of Angels, View DVDology

Thomas Jeffrey Hanks is an American actor famous for playing notable roles in many popular & critically acclaimed movies. He is well known for his acting ability & is able to play characters that range from the vulnerable Forrest Gump, to the inspirational lead in Philadelphia, to the never-say-die commander in Apollo 13. Hanks is generally known for his ability to imbue nice-guy roles with warmth, for example in the romantic comedy Sleepless in Seattle, but is quite capable of taking the role of a mob hitman in Road to Perdition. Hanks is currently one of the most sought-after leading men in Hollywood. His salary for two recent movies was USD$20 million each. His portrayal of the likeable lead in Forrest Gump earned him $70 million. Born in Concord, California, Hanks later studied theatre at California State University, Sacramento. He couldnt get cast in a college play so he auditioned for community theater instead. He was invited by the director of that play to go to Cleveland & it was there his acting career started. Posters Of Apollo 13

Editors Choice: Road To Perdition, Apollo 13, Catch Me If You Can, Polar Express, The Ladykillers, The Terminal, Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump, View DVDology

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