Letters and books

Your mom's favorite movie: Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail.

You’ve Got Mail is one of the movies I enjoy writing about and I have written about it far too many times. I would prefer to enjoy writing about a more intellectual film, but this is a film that holds a special place in my heart, as silly as it sounds. Writing about it is almost as delightful as watching it and it is, of course, one of the most delightful films I’ve ever seen in my life. I never get tired of watching it. I would instantly stop channel-surfing the moment I see the movie on TV, even though I already own it on DVD.

It’s one of those movies I watched on my 13-inch television set. I discovered a lot of great movies on that television set. I remember watching You’ve Got Mail on CBS by myself on a Saturday night. It was one of the most pleasant movies my 10 year old self has ever seen. Saturday night movies got me excited about the movies and You’ve Got Mail was no exception.

When I first saw this film, I thought all romantic comedies were just as charming, lovely, and funny. That kind of set me up for disappointment because I soon realized that most romantic comedies are awful and lame. I realized that the romantic comedy genre relies on formula and there’s nothing wrong with relying on formula, but most romantic comedies do such an obnoxious job with the formula that it becomes rather unbearable to watch. I don’t care if it’s predictable, I just want to see a great story unfold. Movies, books, and plays are often about the journeys rather than the destinations.

In time, I actually began to question my adoration for You’ve Got Mail. The second time I watched it was eight years later, while channel-surfing on prom night (a prom I didn’t go to, clearly). I was skeptical: I remembered really liking it when I was 10 years old, but I also thought the remake of The Parent Trap was the greatest movie ever made at one point (it is a fantastic film, though). My 18-year-old self was clearly a different person, for obvious reasons. I already went through a The Godfather trilogy obsession phase and ardently believed that GoodFellas was the greatest film ever made (I still think it is). I also thought Roman Holiday was the best romantic comedy ever, mainly because well, the ending wasn’t the typical ending of a romantic comedy, but it was romantic nonetheless. And not only that, I had already experienced far too many romantic rejections for a teenage girl and pretty much put happy ending romances on a constant dartboard (oh that’s still me, by the way).

However, I watched it again and loved it. Didn’t care that it had a typical romantic comedy ending. Watched it two more times that year. Eventually bought the DVD.

On paper, it’s a film that should hold no appeal to the current me. I usually don’t care for modern romantic comedies. When I see a romantic comedy, even now, it’s usually through force, and snark and eye rolls ensue and it’s not a pretty sight. People tend to suspect I’m being grossly cynical. But hey, it’s not my fault–you guys picked the movie and it happens to be pure crap.

Other romantic comedies rarely satisfy me in the same way. There is too much of “been there, done that.” And that should have been true for You’ve Got Mail, considering it is a remake, but it feels fresh, and it feels fresh every time I see it.

After a winter break with, sadly, a string of merely good to truly mediocre films, I thought I might as well watch something I know I will enjoy: You’ve Got Mail.

It’s supposedly surprising that I happen to love You’ve Got Mail as much as I do. Well, what can I say, I’m just an occasional sentimentalist and a latent romantic, as most overt cynics often are.

You’ve Got Mail is perfect. It’s this wonderful marriage between sweet classic movie romance and modern movie cynicism. If there were e-mails and an explosion of superstores back in the ’40s, I’m convinced that You’ve Got Mail could have been made in that era. (I know, I know, The Shop Around the Corner, the film You’ve Got Mail is based on, is a charming film in its own right, but it doesn’t quite resonate with me in the same way.) This film has some of the most witty, clever dialogue I’ve ever heard in any film of the past 20 years. The leads are caring and not grossly self-absorbed (and when they are, it’s in a completely human way, rather than the all too common superficial rom-com way), so they are basically people I wouldn’t mind hanging out with on a weekly basis. And they own bookstores.

Because it’s a film about highly literate people. People who care about how words are used in literature, newspapers, and daily interactions, who realize the sheer importance of words and how they can be beautiful things (meaningful e-mail exchanges) or nasty weapons (impulsive insults to your business rival). It’s a film that contains more than just two people falling in love–it’s actually dangerously close to sophisticated social commentary. Of business, of writing, of culture, of technology, of society. It’s a romantic comedy willing to acknowledge that reality indeed exists and it’s a really messy thing that we all must reckon with.

You’ve Got Mail is the greatest romantic comedy of all-time and one of the finest films of all-time because it gets better with multiple viewings. I don’t care what all the elitists say. There is an incredible warmth to this film: to the care-free soundtrack and the richly beautiful New York cinematography. In a world where bookstores and AOL are nearly extinct, this film proves to be incredibly timeless.

I hope that, someday, Nora Ephron writes another movie with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in mind and they agree to do it. And of course, Ephron will also direct.

‘Hugo’ is a movie about the movies

Contrary to this film still, Hugo (Asa Butterfield) has safety last on his mind.

Just when IMDb posters thought director Martin Scorsese was going to sell himself out to commercial family fare, he gives the world merely a fragment of his childlike wonder, passion, and giddiness for the cinema. I would think his love for the movies cannot be contained in merely one movie, but Hugo tries to express it in a nutshell. And it’s an incredibly well-done nutshell, to say the least.

While the trailers for Hugo focused on its young heroes to appeal to young children, Hugo is something more. It’s a film that celebrates early film history, a history that film lovers could never have done without. Without innovative filmmakers of the past, we wouldn’t have the movies we have now. Those filmmakers were visionaries and in result, inspired generations to create and, well, dream.

This is Scorsese’s love and gratitude letter to early cinema. Namely, George Méliès.

Hugo takes place in a very exciting, well-executed 1930s Paris. As much as we would all like to ponder why everyone is British in Paris, that’s far from the point.

Young Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is an orphan who is in charge of all clocks at the busy Parisian train station and spends much of his time hiding from the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), who takes great satisfaction in sending orphans to orphanages. However, his fascination with the automaton that his late father left him leads him to the toy shop owner, George Méliès (Ben Kingsley), and his goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloe Moretz).

The film has no true villains, only characters who must seek a purpose.

I’m not familiar with the work of Méliès or even early cinema, to be completely honest, but this film provides a fantastic film history lesson, even better than the high school film class I took during senior year. And it’s an entertaining history lesson.

Which makes me wonder how much children would enjoy learning about the advent of filmmaking. I’m curious as to how children would react to this film because I feel like it’s actually a film lesson disguised as typical family fare. Unless I’m underestimating the intellectual curiosity of today’s children. The trailers made it look like they were just going to make some robot work and that robot will save the world or something. I don’t know, I was just surprised that Hugo turned out to be so much of a reflection Scorsese’s own lifelong interest in film.

Not that I ever expected anything less…

It’s just amazing how Scorsese is able to inject so much in himself in a film that, on paper, seems to have little to do with him. Here’s a children’s film with none of Scorsese’s signature brutality. And it’s probably the film that speaks the most about Scorsese’s heart as a filmmaker. He’s always been a director who is never shy about his passion for filmmaking, never shy about being flashy. That tracking shot in GoodFellas? Yep. Méliès seems to be Scorsese’s dream subject–Méliès wanted to make all things possible: reality, fiction, dreams. But on film, it’s all magic.

I apologize for this turning into a Scorsese-fest, but it’s just inevitable sometimes. I wouldn’t have even cared about this film if Scorsese didn’t make it and I think I speak on behalf of the entire film criticism community.

Yet it’s hard to ignore that Hugo is just a beautiful film. The 3D is subtle, but not completely useless, considering I did enjoy some of the visuals. The cinematography is lovely, with that dreamlike shot of the Eiffel Tower overlooking the city. Many scenes nicely illustrating the busy life of the Parisian train station, making the appropriately chaotic backdrop for this film. The chase scenes between the inspector and Hugo are fun and exhilarating. The performances are likable, with Baron Cohen being a constant comedic relief as the relentless inspector.

Not to say the film is without flaws. While most Scorsese films are very well-paced, Hugo can be a bit slow at certain intervals and took a while to truly begin. The central conflict in this film is the secret that must be unveiled and as I waited, I got somewhat impatient. But the payoff is worthwhile.

So here’s to a fine film history lesson. It was quite an adventure.