1998: The Technological Timecapsule That Is YOU'VE GOT MAIL

Ah, 1998. Dial-up modems. Book stores. Meg Ryan's career.

We're flashing back all the way to 1998 in today's mini-photo essay on the tech interfaces in Nora Ephron's YOU'VE GOT MAIL. Itself a Clinton-era update on the 1940 Lubitsch comedy THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, YOU'VE GOT MAIL is ludicrously dated even fifteen years after its release in a way that the earlier film is not. A large part of this is due to the rapid evolution of email and the Internet during that time. AOL Instant Messaging seems archaic in a way that sending and receiving letters in the mail simply doesn't.

If we ignore the inane love story (and it's best to), a lot of YOU'VE GOT MAIL is about changes in technology. Or, rather, in metatextual retrospect, the irony of shifting technologies makes the storyline of YOU'VE GOT MAIL nearly obsolete. Here's the jist: Meg Ryan (and her hair) run a cutesy kids bookshop called (cutesily) The Shop Around the Corner. Tom Hanks runs the big, bad corporate box conglomerate that serves lattes with its best-sellers and moves into the quaint, old-fashioned neighborhood to ruin Meg Ryan's life. AH BUT. The two are unwittingly in lurve with each other, having exchanged anonymous, soul-bearing missives via ye olde email. WHAT TO DO. Will Tom Hanks allow his brick and mortar monstrosity swallow Meg Ryan's overpriced niche book store??? Will they live happily ever after???

Watching this in 2013, I'm glad to say this doesn't matter because both businesses have been made obsolete by Amazon.com and Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are probably now 13-year olds Skyping each other in their parents' living rooms.

Anonymous file folders

Anyway, this interface business. The film starts off with a clever title gag, turning the Warner Bros. logo pixelated and then revealing a desktop background onto which the titles are projected. This is cool for a number of reasons. First of all, it presupposes (accidentally, albeit) the accessibility of the Warner Bros. brand on the Internet. When YOU'VE GOT MAIL was released, movies had tie-in AOL Keywords that you could search and get info about the flick. But nowadays you literally have access to the WB catalog via Warner Archive Instant, the studio's streaming service. The titles are a nice way for you to enter the world of the film, which just happens to be the world of "virtual reality" (as they used to call it in the '90s).

Check out these retro screens from AOL circa 1998.

The sending and receiving of email is fetishized via the anticipatory close-up. The big moment.

In which the main characters extoll the sexy virtues of online courtship.

Meg and Tom switch from email to IM for their heated debate over THE GODFATHER. (He's right; she's wrong.)

The agony of defeat.

The desktop.

The quaintness of spam email circa 1998

Dial-up.

 

If you took a shot every time someone said the title of this movie, you'd be drunk within the first ten minutes.

The all-time accurate face of a person posting their opinion on the Internet.

It's not just the email and IM interfaces that are now a part of the archival past. Meg and Tom's respective book stores have been pretty much put out of business within the measly span of fifteen years.

 

Pretty much the only surviving cultural signifier in the movie is the Starbucks both leads consume with zeal. It seems that people are still (and increasingly) willing to leave their house for caffeine, but everything else they prefer to get online.

In a subplot we have Meg Ryan's boyfriend Greg Kinnear, a newspaper writer. I know, right? Newspapers! This guy is obsessed with old media, from newspapers and magazines to typewriters.  He's contrasted with his (obviously not right for him) girlfriend via their media consumptions.

 

This dude and his newspapers, I swear.

Greg Kinnear is another character whose job would most likely have been made obsolete by modern technology. He'd either be a rogue blogger (probable) or still a news reporter for an online publications. That Kinnear yearns to create copy on an outmoded typewriter touches on the tech nostalgia that will only increase as more and more old technologies are thrown over for the new. Which is really the theme of the movie. Or, rather, since it's a romcom, the coming together of the protagonists mirrors the synergy of their respective technologies. Meg (email) ditches Greg (typewriters) for Tom (email), even though Tom's business (big box book store) will almost inevitably drive Meg's small book shop out of business. So what does Tom Hanks do? He quits. Which solves the problem for the film, but not for the characters' reality.

YOU'VE GOT MAIL provides a snapshot of a particular time, pre-Dot Com boom but post-nobody having the Internet. It's kind of an odd, niche, coming-of-age time in our technological era. It's worth note, too, that since 1998 pretty much no one has come up with a better way of conveying online communication than the shot/reverse/shot of the screen/user/screen with the V.O. of what they're writing. Some modern films like SCOTT PILGRIM have tried and succeeded in capturing the feeling of what it's like to communicate via multiple technological shorthand (see my review here), and IRON MAN has taken technological interfaces to the next level with the HUD (see here). Nevertheless, I look forward to the future romantic comedy that is able to break away from the decades-long tradition of showing technology as is and actually communicating the feeling of Skyping, texting, connecting via social media, etc. If YOU'VE GOT MAIL is any indication, we have another fifteen years to wait for this to happen.

TCM Classic Film Festival: My Schedule

I couldn't be happier to be returning to the TCM Classic Film Festival for the third time! They recently released the full festival schedule and I've been pouring over it in a state of anxiety that's part ecstasy, part heartbreak and 100% nervous excitement. It's always a bummer to have to choose between films at the fest, and now with more awesome Club TCM events than ever, those choices go from difficult to me in a whiny voice simpering like a sad puppy. Still, it's hard to complain about the greatest that is the TCM Classic Film Festival. I should just be grateful I'm going, right? Right. Without further ado, below is my tentative schedule for the festival, (as ever) jam-packed with great films, awesome special screenings and impossible choices.


THURSDAY APRIL 25TH

Luckily the first night is always the easiest. Since I'm not going to the FUNNY GIRL red carpet premiere, that frees me up for an awesome night of noir and pre-code movies. First up is Stanley Kubrick's THE KILLING, with star Colleen Gray in person! This was a film made in 1956, so to have the star there to tell stories about the making of a classic is pretty exciting. It'll be in DCP, which is not ideal, but you take what you can get.

Luckily, the next film screens in 35mm. It's the William Wellman pre-code SAFE IN HELL, starring Dorothy Mackaill as a sassy prostitute who hides out on a tropical island to beat a murder rap back home in gangland Chicago. If that sounds awesome, it's because it is. Great movie and I can't wait to see it on the big screen.


FRIDAY APRIL 26TH

The next day features the toughest choices of the fest. Firstly, I can't decide between THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER in 35mm or 1968's THE SWIMMER with Burt Lancaster. The first I've seen several times but never on the big screen, and the second is a film I've wanted to see for a long time (and I love Burt Lancaster).  I feel like because this is first thing in the morning, I'll be going wherever my friends are going (I'm easily swayed).

The second choice is, for me, the most difficult of the fest. I really, REALLY want to see the great, train-set film noir THE NARROW MARGIN. The only problem is that the evil, evil programming people scheduled it opposite the Club TCM talk with film preservation superstar Kevin Brownlow and silent movie score superstar Carl Davis. Brownlow & Davis contributed to the incredible, life-changing screening of Abel Gance's NAPOLEON at last year's San Francisco Silent Film Festival. I bought a poster. I want to get it signed. On the other hand, THE NARROW MARGIN is one of the greatest, underrated films noir of all-time (and I love movies about trains!). Plus, co-star Jacqueline White will appear in person. Ugh, I hate this decision, but I have a feeling Brownlow & Davis will win out. I think I'll start the Twitter campaign to screen THE NARROW MARGIN again in the Sunday TBA spot, now...

The next choice is obvious: NOTORIOUS. Hitchcock. Grant. Bergman. 35mm. Done.

Then it's time for my first silent film of the fest, Clara Bow in her star-making role as the IT girl. (Yes, that's where the phrase comes from.) Carl Davis will be conducting the score. Bonus awesome.

Now for a classic Hollywood confession: I've never seen ON THE TOWN. I know, I know. Gene Kelly in a sailor uniform. I KNOW. But I'll be seeing it on the big screen, so that kind of makes up for my previous ignorance?

After a full day of movie-going, the lovely, lovely programming people have planned a treat for all us humans with "stupid minds--stupid, stupid!" Yes, my friends, it's Ed Wood's masterpiece, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE! Obviously, I can quote almost all the bad lines from PLAN 9. As an ardent lover of Tim Burton's ED WOOD (and the marvelously, sincerely, uniquely horrendous oeuvre of the master Edward D. Wood, Jr. himself), I am well-versed in the film. The only question is how to sneak in a bottle of something for an Ed Wood drinking game...? 


SATURDAY APRIL 27TH

Saturday's shaping up to be the most diverse day of the festival, with offerings ranging from silents and Swedish, to noir and cartoons.

After yesterday's late night silliness with Ed Wood, Saturday morning should begin as all Saturday mornings should begin: with cartoons. (Amen.) Sex symbol Leonard Maltin presents BUGS BUNNY'S 75TH BIRTHDAY BASH, a collection to celebrate Bugs' silver anniversary this year. Sounds good, Doc.

It's a pretty big three-sixty from a rascally rabbit to rapey hillbillies, but, ah, such is the joy of the TCM Classic Film Festival. Next up is John Boorman's DELIVERANCE, one of several '70s classics that, through the inexorable passage of time, now share billing with Greta Garbo, Ernest Lubitsch and Bob Hope. And I'm all for it. With respect to the traditional "classic Hollywood" era fans, the 1970s were probably the all-time greatest decade for American film (certainly, the '40s give the '70s some stiff competition). Heck, it's been 40 years. Yes, the '70s is classic. And Jon Voight will be there in person! C'mon, TCM, you couldn't get Burt Reynolds and Ned Beatty? What are they doing that's better than this? Their loss.

One of the must-see screenings is the world premiere restoration of THE BIG PARADE, presented by rock star/sexiest film preservationist alive Kevin Brownlow. King Vidor's 1925 epic about WWI features (another!) new score by Carl Davis. It's a match made in silent cinema heaven.

Speaking of cinema heavens, how about a discussion with Max von Sydow about THE SEVENTH SEAL? Kind of amazing, right? Ingmar Bergman's stone cold classic with the star in person? Okay, you twisted my arm. And screening it in 35mm as to preserve Sven Nyquist's perfect cinematography? Oh, my heart, be still.

Next up is a film I know nothing about: Cy Endfield's TRY AND GET ME. But I trust Eddie Muller, the czar of noir, to pick out gems for the festival. And the film--about mob justice in light of a kidnapping that ends in murder--sounds like a winner.

Now it's time to take a breath. It's Saturday night at midnight. Am I still awake and alive enough to sit through ISLAND OF LOST SOULS? I sincerely hope so, because it's an awesome film that I've been meaning to see forever. I mean, Charles Loughton and Bela Lugosi in a pre-code horror flick about half-human monsters? Perfect midnight movie fodder. Here's to the coffee I will require to make it through this awesome slate of movies.


SUNDAY APRIL 28TH

Sunday I am running completely on fumes. Luckily for me, it's kind of an easy day because, baby, we're spending it in the '70s.

First up is the digital restoration of Terrence Malick's amazing first feature, BADLANDS. No Sissy Spacek or Martin Sheen for the Q&A, though, which is a bummer. But it's an amazing film and I'm psyched to finally see it on the big screen.

Ditto for the next film: an oft-overlooked New Hollywood gem called SCARECROW, which co-stars Al Pacino and Gene Hackman. The pair play drifters who hook up to travel together, but beyond that (and the fact it was photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond), I don't know much about it. This will be the U.S. premiere of a new digital restoration, however, so that's cause for excitement.

We continue the Max von Sydow tribute with Sydney Pollack's thriller, THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR. And '70s Robert Redford on the big screen? Me-ow.

Which brings us to the end. But what a finale! It's my bf Buster Keaton's masterpiece, THE GENERAL! Screened in a world premiere digital restoration with musical accompaniment from the terrific Alloy Orchestra, this will be an amazing end to what's sure to be an amazing festival.

And then, oh yes, the infamous Club TCM after party. What happens at the Club TCM after party stays at the Club TCM after party.  Happy festival, everyone!

Ladies of Tampa: The (Ecstatic, Exurberant) Women of MAGIC MIKE

Washboard abs. Male butts in thong underwear. Male sexuality being worshiped by women in a playful, consensual environment (and men loving it). Magic Mike is something of a mainstream movie miracle in regards to gender relations. Simply the amount of naked male flesh in this film makes me wanna pen feminist odes to Steven Soderbergh. But perhaps my favorite part of Magic Mike isn't the skin, so much as the reactions to this hidden world of male stripping. Most of these reactions mix surprise and disbelief with the expected excitement and titillation. I know for a fact the accuracy of these faces--it's what theatrical audiences looked and sounded like when the film was released last summer.

So, please, enjoy the feminine side of Magic Mike. "Laaadies of Tampaaa..."

 

Harris Savides' San Francisco

Celebrating the cityscapes of the late cinematographer Harris Savides.

Previously: Los Angeles

San Francisco

From Fincher's obsessively dark land of murder and mystery to the scruffy '70s of Harvey Milk's gay rights revolution, San Francisco through the lens of Savides always focuses on the architecture of the city. Bridges, tunnels and windows make mazes for Michael Douglas in The Game; the Bay Area's network of interconnected cities and suburbs make it impossible for the police to track the Zodiac killer, whose knowledge of puzzles and codes is matched by his mastery of urban design and transportation. The story of Milk is the story of San Francisco--the two are inseparable. The life, death, and legacy of a man and a city. 

The Game (David Fincher, 1997)

Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)

Milk (Gus Van Sant, 2008)