Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0085391164197
Format: Closed-captioned
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
MPN: WARD116419D
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2008-02-05
Running Time: 120
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1998

Neigborhood bookstore rivals unwittingly become e-mail pen pals in this charming remake of The Shop Around the Corner
By now, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan have amassed such a fund of goodwill with moviegoers that any new onscreen pairing brings nearly reflexive smiles. In You've Got Mail, the quintessential boy and girl next door repeat the tentative romantic crescendo that made Sleepless in Seattle, writer-director Nora Ephron's 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 feature's 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 and her sister, Delia Ephron, updates and relocates the Ernst Lubitsch classic, The Shop Around the Corner, to contemporary Manhattan, where Joe Fox (Hanks) is a cheerfully rapacious merchant whose chain of book superstores is gobbling up smaller, more specialized shops such as the children's bookstore owned by Kathleen Kelly (Ryan). Their lives run in close parallel in the same idealized neighborhood, 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 and clash over their colliding business fortunes.

It's no small testament to the two stars that we wind up liking and caring about them despite the inevitable (and highly manipulative) 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 there's a slow leak that considerably deflates the affair. Less credulous viewers will challenge Joe's logic in prolonging the concealment of his online identity from Kathleen, and may shake their heads at Ephron's reinvention of Manhattan as a spotless, sun-dappled wonderland where everybody lives in million-dollar apartments and color coordinates their wardrobes for cocktail parties. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Rating:
Summary: Nice Romantic Comedy
Comment: Internet dating when AOL was still huge. Good chemistry between Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks (will they ever do a romantic comedy together again?)

Movie you'd enjoy cozying up to. Other movies to cozy up to:
Sleepless in Seattle, The Notebook, Ever After...

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great seller
Comment: Had to return the first one. Seller was very quick to respond and send out another. Thank you.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Best ever
Comment: Fun and entertaining....best movie I've seen in a long time...Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks make the perfect couple...the type movie that leaves you with a smile on your face and a warm feeling in your heart...a must see for all true romantics

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Customer Rating:
Summary: You've Got Mail
Comment: This is a great "feel good" movie. When you want to forget about the cares of the day, watch, "You've Got Mail".

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Customer Rating:
Summary: "Just the beat of my heart. I have mail, from you...."
Comment: "All this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings." -- Kathleen


This captivating film from Nora Ephron about finding that special someone who makes our heart beat faster and lends love to our small lives is one of the best. While no adaptation of Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner starring Jimmy Stewart and the winsome Margaret Sullavan could be as fully realized as that screen classic, no one can deny the great romantic appeal and utter charm of this one.

New York is photographed by cinematographer John Lindley as a magical place for romance to bloom. Meg Ryan is disarmingly enchanting as the blossom Tom Hanks finds so much beauty in through email correspondence, not realizing until too late that he is the person responsible for putting her children's bookstore out of business, and vice versa. Set as the Christmas season approaches, there is a lilting charm to this romantic comedy which must be credited to the two stars.

Kathleen has run The Shop Around the Corner since her mother passed away. It has been a fixture in the neighborhood for 42 years. But when Fox Books opens just across the street, her little store, so personal and intimate, cannot compete with the huge discounts and coffee bar customers flock to at Fox. What she does not know is Joe Fox, who is responsible for her business woes, is also NY152, the person she is falling for online.

Her handle is Shopgirl, and since they have made a pact to only speak in generalities about their lives, neither discovers whom the other is, until they try to meet. Joe can't believe it is she waiting with her copy of Pride and Prejudice and red rose in the cafe. So NY152 stands her up, whilst Joe just happens along. Sparks of the wrong variety fly yet he cannot let her think her dream of finding someone dashed because he didn't care. It is when her store finally closes and he realizes he loves Kathleen that this film is at its most charming.

Joe works his way into her heart and discusses and advises her on her email relationship, finding ways to date her without her realizing she's being wooed. But he and his dog Brinkley finally must risk all and let her know and hope for love rather than disappointment. The final moments of this film are very special, Ryan especially wonderful showing everything she feels without saying a word. Hanks is pretty terrific here also, and the two have a screen chemistry you can feel.

Dave Chappelle as Joe's pal, Dabney Coleman as his father, and Greg Kinnear as her boyfriend, lend fine support. Both Joe and Kathleen are with someone else but the audience knows from the start that they belong together. A great soundtrack and humorous references to The Godfather offer smiles and warmth rather than outright laughter in a film with a quiet yet abundant charm. A wonderful film for anyone who still has the dream of someone.

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