I got a working DVD of 1998’s You’ve Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan sometime last week. You may remember that I was watching my previous DVD version and it got to a halfway-ish point in the movie and stopped working. I think it was because there was some kind of tie-in between AOL, Microsoft, and the DVD, and it would play only on a computer with a certain version of Microsoft Windows that was released in 1997. Which is kind of funny, because 1997 is when I got my first Windows-based PC (before that, I’d only had Apple/Mac products). If I still had that computer, I probably could have watched the DVD.
The reason we got that computer was because I was reeling from several years’ losses of friends to AIDS, and my friend Lisa Y had, on a whim one day on a contract job we had, showed me how to access chat rooms. Tom said AOL was known for its chat rooms, so if we got a PC and loaded AOL on it, maybe I could find an AOL chat room with supportive people who’d experienced some of the things I’d been going through since 1989.
“Meeting” someone through communication via AOL email and Instant Messaging who turns out to be meaningful is basically the plot line of You’ve Got Mail. Among the people I met in the chatroom I landed in were Timothy, Jim, and Timmy, who became my friends and my writing partners, plus a stranger-then-friend who turned out to be a distant cousin from my father’s side of the family (what were the chances?).
That whole AOL experience is so LAST century, right? Yet in a viewer reaction to the movie, someone mentioned how outdated the technology is but NO ONE CARES because it’s still a good movie. I think it is, too. Like Sleepless In Seattle, there’s something so quietly sweet in the chemistry between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. I say that despite how the plot line has his character (Joe Fox) opening a big box bookstore that unapologetically aims to put her character (Kathleen Kelly)’s charming independent bookstore, inherited from her mother, out of business. By the time that movie came out, I’d been a bookseller in a chain, but I shopped at local booksellers, too, and I regretted every one lost. Ironically, ultimately, Amazon not only ate the independents, it continues the process of putting bookstore chains out of business.
Until last night’s conclusion of You’ve Got Mail, I hadn’t rewatched movies this week. I got in the mood to reread a book series that I first became acquainted with in junior high school. That’s a story for another time, but it’s provided a much-needed diversion from an anxiety-filled week.
I don’t think I have seen that movie either! I think my movie-watching fell off a cliff for a few years?
I rarely see anything new anymore. It’s all superheroes and franchises with ten movies in them, and I don’t feel like investing that kind of time in a genre that’s touch-and-go when it comes to my interest. I don’t mean that as a criticism of the genre. It’s just not my go-to. And I don’t watch anything horror or too violent.
Yeah, there hasn’t been a great deal that has appealed recently. As you observe, too many super hero movies and horrors.
I don’t know if the Hollywood strike had anything to do with it?
No idea. I think so much changed with the pandemic and streaming, that movies are trying to find their right footing again.
I find the whole streaming thing to be rather weird (although I don’t subscribe to anything – Netflix or Apple or – well, anything – so maybe that’s why). Cinema first, then streaming (or video, dvd, tv, as it was back in the day). Although digital technology brings so many advantages, I do think a lot has been lost. Although maybe I would appreciate it more if going to the cinema was a risk? Maybe cinemas are at greater risk of disappearing than ever?
Tom subscribes to several streaming services. He’s the big TV viewer in this household. He watches series and movies of all conceivable varieties. And sometimes we watch things together. But for the most part, I don’t watch a lot because it’s not my main diversion. I’m not against diversions, though!