The Movie:
Review Of The Film From Dec. 1998;
Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan back together with their "Sleepless In Seattle" director Nora Ephron, yet again. The dialogue here actually starts off alright, with Hanks playing the head of a chain of "Borders-like" book stores. The kind of book stores where people seem to live there, reading a book or two, relaxing on a couch, getting more coffee, reading more, etc.

Meg Ryan plays the owner of a competing store down the block, a historical landmark that has been in the neighborhood for years; you see this kind of store across the country as well; everything is laid out with care, the people who work there know your name and care to bring you the best service. It's a nicely decorated children's book store.

Hanks is dating indie film goddess Parker Posey, who has a great little performance that I would have liked to have seen more of; it's the fast talking bit that she always makes so funny and so charming; in fact, for the most part, it's the secondary actors in this film that have more promising and funny characters than the leads.The very funny Dave Chapelle, who also starred in "Con Air", gets only a couple of minutes time as Hanks's assistant. In fact, even Greg Kinnear, who plays Ryan's original boyfriend, seems to have had most of his screentime cut as well; all in the matter of bringing the focus closer on the bland lead characters.

Don't get me wrong, I like Tom Hanks as an actor. Meg Ryan is fine, but she's done this bit far better and with far more spirit in "French Kiss" and even last year's "Addicted To Love".

So, getting back to the story(I sound oh-so-excited about this film from this review, don't I?), Hanks is getting further and further on Ryan's nerves as his bookstore becomes an ever-increasing force in the neighborhood; we see countless shots of Ryan looking out the window, sad and denying the fact that her store is going out of business. Aside from the first verbal duels between Ryan and Hanks, the walls between the two are brought down a little too quickly and a little too predictably as the two become ever closer and somewhat less annoyed with each other, which I found hard to believe- she's falling in love with his character as his store shuts hers down. Reality? I think not.

Some of the dialogue between the two in the early scenes of the two talking over email and with their friends, etc, is very good; especially scenes like Hanks talking about how he's planning to get the neighborhood on his side as he walks through the construction site of his new store. It has sort of a "Woody Allen Light" feeling. Or, "One Calorie Woody Allen". But, as the two get ever closer together over email and in real life, the dialogue becomes the standard romantic cliche fare. I sort of like the concept, people who hate each other in real life are in love on the net, but why then go about making such a bland film? Why does Nora Epron direct the same film over and over and over? These are the questions I must ask.

Again, maybe I'm a cynical guy, but am I the only one in the universe who feels annoyed by the predictability and mechanical nature of these films? I guess so.

Sometimes I feel so alone.

THE DVD:
VIDEO QUALITY:Good, but not great and really, not the best job that Warner Brothers has ever done on DVD. Images are clear and crisp on this anamorphic 1.85:1 letterboxed transfer, but they lack a certain vibrancy that I would have liked to have seen. The print also has a slight scratch once or twice. Colors are not quite as vibrant as I would have liked to have seen; color saturation seems to be slightly lacking throughout. The streets of New York City don't seem to have that same sparkle here that they did when I saw the film in the theater. Occasionally, during some of the daylight scenes and the scenes in Ryan's bookstore, there was a hint of a rich red color or another color that jumped out a bit, but other than that, I just didn't feel that this was the very best this could look. Detail in the image is fair to average, certainly not to the degree overall that I would have liked.

Problems such as shimmering also make themselves known at times, although not nearly enough to ruin the viewing experience and for the most part, it's not really noticeable at all. It's certainly a nice transfer by Warner Brothers, but it's not quite up to what I think are the high stanards that they have set with their previous releases.

SOUND: Enjoyable, but nothing agressive. There isn't much in the way of surround action, except for a few short instances. The soundtrack mostly consists of a pleasant musical score along with nicely and naturally recorded dialogue. Really not much of anything in the way of bass. It's enjoyable and it gets the job done.

MENUS: Enjoyable animated main menu, but the sub-menus are not animated. The main menu has the various selections with scenes from the film playing in the background. Scene selection is not animated.

EXTRAS:
Dual-Layer: This is a Warner Special Edition where everything is on one side of the disc. Those who have seen the "City Of Angels" and "Lethal Weapon 4" discs know that Warner put all of the extras on one side and the movies with their commentaries on the other. This film has everything on one side.

Commentary: A really enjoyable commentary by producer Lauren Schuler Donner and director Nora Ephron. As much as I don't like watching Ephron's movies, the commentary was suprisingly enjoyable and revealed a lot of wonderfully informative behind-the-scenes information. It's a really nice commentary in the way that it doesn't simply describe what's going on onscreen. It's at times technical, at times funny and there's a lot of fascinating insights about the customs and neighborhoods of New York City. The commentary is structured and paced well and I really liked the way that Ephron and Donner easily shifted a lot of times from talking about the area(Ephron lives in New York and knows all the details), to how they went about coming up with the ideas for the scene, then how they went about filming each scene. During the early parts of the commentary, the two talk with few pauses; as it gets later in the film there are a few more pauses between talking. Nothing huge, but there is a little less said as the film goes on. I wish that the movie could be as interesting as the commentary is for the most part.

HBO First Look:Interview With Nora Ephron: I really didn't care for this extra that much. It's a 15 minute interview with Nora Ephron that appeared on HBO. The interviewer just asks a lot of easy questions and after awhile, it just seems like the interviewer is asking questions that are a variation on: "how can we all be as talented as you, Nora?". The interview is cut with various bits from the movie in-between; Ephron talks about the movie somewhat, but there aren't really that many major insights here. If you're looking for Ephron insights, go to the commentary.

Interactive Tour Through New York's Upper West Side: A really nice feature that Warner Brothers has included on a couple of DVDs now(such as "LA Confidential"). Here, we can be taken on a 1 or 2 minute tour of 11 locations that were important throughout the movie.

Trailers: 2 Trailers For "You've Got Mail"; 1 Trailer For: "In The Good Old Summertime", "The Shop Around The Corner", "Addicted To Love", "City Of Angels","Bridges Of Madison County", "Joe Versus The Volcano", "Arthur","Message In A Bottle", "Tin Cup", "Michael".

DVD-ROM Features:(will not work on a Mac Computer):
Original call sheets linked to scenes in the film.
Screensavers and poster
Three key scene comparisons with two previous versions of this film
Access to all e-mail sent between the two characters
Links to internet areas
Cast interviews and info

ALSO: There's an isolated score.

GRADES:
The Film: 75/C = (375/500 possible points)
Video: 88/B = (352/400 possible points)
Audio: 85/B = (340/400 possible points)
Extras: 94/A = (282/300 possible points)
Menus: 89/B+ = (176/200 possible points)
Value: 94/A = (282/300 possible points)
Presentation:89/B+ = (89/100 possible points)

TOTAL POINTS:1896/2200
Overall:86.18%/B
Final Thought: I'm not a real big fan of the movie, but I certainly think Warner Brothers did a nice job on this DVD; especially the extras. If you liked the movie, I'm sure you'll enjoy this Special Edition DVD.