"You've Got Mail" (1998)

I first saw You've Got Mail (1998) in the theater when I was home on Christmas Break during my freshman year of college.  I went to see it with my high school bestie, and I knew it was going to be a long-time favorite by the time we finished that first viewing.  

As soon as it hit the video rental stores, my college friends and I rented it.  And then rented it again.  Because I was a poor college student, buying a movie on VHS as soon as it got released was like the ultimate honor I could pay to it.  And this was one of those rare movies I just had to buy right away and have as my very own to watch whenever I wanted to, and who cares if it cost more than it would in a few months.  

Of course, this was back when a movie finally was available to buy on VHS several months after it was available to rent (and it arrived at the rental shops six months or so after it was in the theater -- this is how we learned patience).  So we'd been able to rent it quite a few times before I was able to own my own copy.

My roommates and I proceeded to watch my copy over and over and over.  Friends frequently borrowed it.  One friend had to buy her own copy at the end of the school year so she could watch it.  

And why were we so obsessed with You've Got Mail?  

We were all young women in our late teens or early twenties, and most of us were hoping to meet a nice guy at college and fall in love and get married.  And I think that was a huge part of this movie's appeal: Tom Hanks can play really nice guys.  Approachable guys.  Guys who don't seem like they're out of the realm of possibility for an average girl to get together with.  My friends and I were realistic about our chances of attracting a guy who looked like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt (never happening), but Tom Hanks was just enough of an average joe that we would have a chance with him.

And who doesn't want to have someone fall in love with who you really are?  Someone you can share your most whimsical, quirky, oddball, funky thoughts with?  Someone who takes the time to understand you?

That's what You've Got Mail is all about.

And, for book nerds like me, all the bookish goodness was a total perk.

Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) runs a children's book store in New York City called Shop Around the Corner.  She's warm and bubbly and quirky and feisty and complicated.  She's been online pen pals with a stranger for months.  They met in a chat room, bonded over loving NYC, and started exchanging their thoughts on various subjects, just for fun.

Kathleen's livelihood is threatened by the impending opening of a Fox Books mega bookstore nearby.  Her boyfriend, an opinionated newspaper columnist (Greg Kinnear), helps her organize a protest campaign to block the "big box" Fox Books from opening and ruining the indie-stores-only vibe of the neighborhood.

Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) is the third-generation businessman running the family company, Fox Books.  He's snarky and witty and sharp and kind and complicated.  And about halfway through the movie, he discovers that the awful woman who is throwing roadblocks in his bookstore's way and mocking him in public and generally being a pain in his neck... is also the lovely woman he's been corresponding with for months and might be falling in love with.

And then things get complicated :-)

You've Got Mail is a remake of The Shop Around the Corner (1940).  And I like it better than the original, mostly because both Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are playing such approachable, nice people.  The main characters in The Shop Around the Corner are both... kind of unlikeable.  I know one of them is played by Jimmy Stewart, but this is cranky Jimmy Stewart, not cuddly Jimmy Stewart.  I enjoy the movie, but I just don't love it like I love You've Got Mail.

Is this movie family friendly?  Um, fine for older teens?  Tom Hanks's character is living with his girlfriend.  A minor female side character leaves her husband for a woman.  There's some mild cussing and innuendo in dialog.  No violence, no nekkid people, not bedroom scenes.

This has been my contribution to the Film. Release. Repeat. Blogathon hosted by myself and The Midnite Drive-In all weekend!

The Film. Release. Repeat. Blogathon has arrived!

Welcome to the Film. Release. Repeat. Blogathon, hosted by myself and Jim (Quiggy) over at The Midnite Drive-In!

All weekend long, we're celebrating movie remakes and sequels!  Check back here for updates to the list of entries, as I'll be updating it periodically.

Review of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) [sequel]

at The Midnite Drive-In

Review of Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979) [sequel]

at RealWeegieMidget Reviews

Review of A Star is Born (1976) and its predecessors [remake]

at Angelman's Place

Reviews of The End of the Affair (1955) and The End of the Affair (1999) [remake]

at Classic Film and TV Corner

Review of You Can't Run Away from It (1956) [remake]

at Nitrate Glow

Review of Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961)

at Critica Retro

Reviews of The Mummy (1932) and The Mummy (1999)

at Hoofers and Honeys

Top Ten Favorite Movie Sequels

at Movies Meet Their Match

Review of The Thing (1982) [remake]

at The Midnite Drive-in

Overview of the Blondie series (1938-1950) [sequels]

at Silver Screenings

Review of You've Got Mail (1998) [remake]

at Hamlette's Soliloquy

Announcing We Love Fairy Tales Week

If you love fairy tales -- by which I mean anything and everything from the original fairy tales from long ago to the latest retellings -- then you are in luck!  Because I am gearing up to host my annual "We Love XYZ" blog party in February, and this year's theme is Fairy Tales!

Join me February 9-14 as we celebrate all things fairy tale related!  As usual, I will provide a party tag, a giveaway with themed prizes, and some party games.  I also plan to do at least one post on my book blog, The Edge of the Precipice.

Everything else is up to you!  And you can start by nabbing one of these party buttons and displaying it on your own blog with a link back to this post so others can join the fun.

All sorts of blog posts are welcome, from fairy tale book and movie reviews, to lists of your favorite fairy tales or favorite retellings, musings on what themes draw you to specific fairy tales, or anything else you can dream up that has to do with fairy tales!

The one real rule is that, since this is a party and open to people of all ages, your posts must be:

• celebratory (no fairy tale bashing!)
• appropriate for all ages

That does NOT mean you can't be critical of things within a movie or book you're reviewing.  It also doesn't mean you can only review G-rated movies or books.  It just means your posts should overall be positive about fairy tales and be appropriate for readers of all ages.

Because this is a blog party and not a blogathon, there is no limit to how many people can write about the same subject.  If we have fourteen reviews of Cinderella (2015), nobody is going to complain!

That means you don't absolutely have to sign up ahead of time for this party.  However, it's always nice to have an idea of how many people will be participating.  So if you do know you want to attend this party and have an idea of what you plan to contribute, let me know in a comment and I'll add you to the roster!

List of Participants

+ Hamlette's Soliloquy -- party tag, game, giveaway

+ The Edge of the Precipice -- roundup of fairy tale retelling book reviews

+ Revealed in Time -- reviews of The Swan Princess (1994) and Beauty and the Beast (2014 -- originally La belle et la bête)

+ Movies Meet Their Match -- review of Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)

+ With Joy for the Work -- a review of either Disney's Descendents or the Tinkerbell film series or Rise of the Guardians (2012)

+ Inkling Corner -- discussion of the fairy tale The Handless Maiden

+ Postcards from the Bookstore -- favorite fairy tale retellings

+ Sam the Library Mouse -- reviews of Cress and Winter by Marissa Meyer

+ 18 Cinema Lane -- review of Brigadoon (1954)

+ The Midnite Drive-In -- appreciation post about Captain Hook portrayals

+ RealWeegieMidget Reviews -- love songs from Donkey Skin (1970), Enchanted (2007), and The Slipper and the Rose (1976)

+ Hoofers and Honeys -- review of Hans Christian Andersen (1952)

+ YOU!

My Ten Favorite New-to-Me Movies of 2025

It's that time of year again!  Time to sift through the movies I watched over the past year and figure out just which ones I liked best.

I really like that my list this year has movies spanning 97 years.  It's a pretty fun mix of genres too -- not shocking, as I am an eclectic and omnivorous movie watcher.

Anyway, here's my list!

1. Conagher (1991)  A rough-mannered cowboy (Sam Elliot) keeps crossing paths with a homesteader (Katherine Ross) and her adopted children, often helping them out of some difficulty or other, all while insisting he's going to be leaving the area any day now, he's totally not sticking around to look after her and figure out if her missing husband is ever coming back, nope, he's totally disinterested...  

2. The List of Adrian Messenger (1963)  A former military intelligence officer (George C. Scott) is asked to investigate a list of people, but before he can, the man who made the list dies mysteriously.  And then people on the list start to die, too.  What can the connection be?  Why do so many of these people have very peculiar faces?  How many ways can you disguise Kirk Douglas?  SO many questions!  Also, I've never found George C. Scott particularly attractive, but maybe I've just been watching the wrong movies...

3. Desperate Journey (1942)  A WWII British bomber crew (Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, Alan Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Ronald Sinclair) survive a crash landing behind enemy lines and daringly attempt to sneak their way back to Allied territory.  This movie gallops along, flinging our heroes from one tense and worrisome situation to another, but somehow never feels rushed.  Instead, it feels like an exciting series of adventures, each one making us more and more invested in the characters.

4. Glass Onion (2022)  Quirky and laconic detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) attends a house party thrown by a gazillionaire (Edward Norton) on a private island during the Covid-19 shutdowns.  People die.  Blanc figures out how and why.  There are twists on twists on twists, one of which I loved so much, it bumped this much higher on my list than it would have been otherwise.  This is the first movie I've seen that deliberately included the Covid-19 shutdowns in the storyline, complete with the face masks and the social distancing and the special rules for rich people, which was pretty interesting.  Because I don't have Netflix, I only got to see this because our local theater showed it on the big screen for a couple of days.  So happy that they did!

5. Salty O'Rourke (1945)  A gambler (Alan Ladd) needs to pay off a debt fast, so he buys a race horse and hires a jockey and does some dubious paperwork shuffling and falls in love with a school teacher (Gail Russell) and makes a lot of other bad decisions, but it all works out okay because this is a comedy.  I especially loved the sidekick played by William Demarest, of whom I grow and more fond with every movie I see him in.

6. The Invisible Man (1933)  A scientist (Claude Rains) turns himself invisible and slowly goes mad.  This movie makes no secret of the fact that the special effects are the main star of the film, and I am absolutely here for them.

7. The Pirates of Penzance (1983)  A band of jolly pirates (but are they?) led by a Pirate King (Kevin Kline) bids farewell (but do they?) to their apprentice (Rex Smith) when he comes of age (but does he?) and decides he will stop being a pirate and become a law-abiding citizen (but will he?).  Absolute madcap delightfulness from beginning to end, in the best Gilbert-and-Sullivan-but-make-it-1980s-instead style imaginable.

8. Kim (1950)  A British soldier's orphaned son Kim (Dean Stockwell) passes as a native of India to spy for the British, aided and mentored by the mysterious Mahbub Ali (Errol Flynn).  It's based on the Rudyard Kipling classic, but streamlined, and with a lot more for Errol Flynn to do than his character was granted page time for in the book.

9. Libeled Lady (1936)  A rich young thing (Myrna Loy) is libeled by a newspaper, and the editor (Spencer Tracy) responsible for running the libelous story cooks up a doozy of a plot to convince her not to sue the paper.  It involves his fiancée (Jean Harlow) and a slick-talking writer (William Powell), a sham marriage, and all the screwball hijinks the screenwriters could dream up and toss at the characters.  I will probably enjoy this a lot more the second time I watch it, but I only just watched it for the first time a few days ago and haven't had time for a second viewing.  Still, it wound up on this list, which means I did like it more than most screwball comedies...

10. The Gold Rush (1925)  A hapless but plucky prospector (Charlie Chaplin) tries to find gold in Alaska, but mostly finds problems and trouble and a lot of snow.  We saw this in the theater with my brother and his family, and it was the first silent film my niece and nephew had ever seen.  (My own kids had seen a couple before that, but years ago.)  It took them all about ten minutes to get used to the storytelling style, and then they all had a rollicking good time enjoying all of Chaplin's hijinks.  And, as a bonus, we all went to Alaska about a month later, and my nephew was able to relate historical things we saw regarding the actual Alaskan Gold Rush to things he saw in this movie.  I love it when fiction can bring real history to life for people that way!

Well, that's my list!  Have you seen any of these?  Did you make a list of favorite films you watched in 2025 too?  Please share!

I've been collecting my top ten new-to-me movies in posts like this for twelve years now.  You can find all of them at the bottom of this page.

Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas!  I hope you've had a lovely day -- I definitely have!  We went to church this morning, then spent the afternoon doing our own version of Jolabokaflod by all drinking hot chocolate and reading books.  My husband lit a fire in the fireplace when the sun went down, which made it even more cozy!  

Tonight, we'll be watching The Thin Man (1934) before bedtime.  

Merry Christmas!

Announcing the Film. Release. Repeat. Blogathon!

Jim/Quiggy of The Midnite Drive-In and I are gearing up to co-host our first event of 2026!  We're very excited to bring you the Film. Release. Repeat Blogathon.  This is a blogathon dedicated to sequels and remakes, those movies that came about because some Hollywood executive somewhere figured if one movie was good, why not have two?  Or four?  Or more?

Obviously, sometimes remakes are just as good as the original that inspired them.  Sometimes, they're better.  And sometimes... well, sometimes, they're a cheap cash grab, and we all know it.  And the same goes for sequels!  Sometimes, a movie is well-suited to creating a franchise, and sometimes it should have been left to stand on its own.

There are soooooo many ways you can join this blogathon!  You can review a movie a remake.  You can compare a movie and its remake.  You can review one or more movies in a series.  Is it a remake or sequel that improves on the original film?  Is it a remake or sequel that no one should ever have even considered making?  Is it one great film in an otherwise lackluster franchise, or the one dud in a stellar series?  The possibilities are very wide open.

Here are a few guidelines that Jim and I have set up:

1. One person per movie... but that only means we don't want two reviews of Rocky III -- someone else can review Rocky II, and a third blogger could do a post comparing all the Rocky movies or rating them from best to worst, etc.  

2.  Please limit yourself to two entries for this blogathon.  We love enthusiasm, but we'd rather not have one or two bloggers take over the whole show.

3.  Once you settle on what you want to contribute, leave it in a comment either on this post or Jim's announcement post so we can add you and your choice to the roster. 

4.  Try to use one of the blogathon banners in this post on your own blog to promote the event so others can join the fun.

Any questions?  Ask in the comments! 

The Roster

+ The Midnite Drive-in: reviews of The Thing (1982) [remake] and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) [sequel]

+ Hamlette's Soliloquy: review of You've Got Mail (1998) [remake]

+ Nitrate Glow: review of You Can't Run Away from It (1956) [remake]

+ Cinematic Scribblings: review of Carmen's Innocent Love (1952) [sequel]

+ Angelman's Place: review of A Star is Born (1976) comparing to other versions [remake]

+ Classic Film and TV Corner: reviews of The End of the Affair (1955) and The End of the Affair (1999) [remake]

+ Realweegiemidget Reviews: review of Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979) [sequel]

+ Movies Meet Their Match: top ten sequels

+ Critica Retro: review of Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) [sequel]

+ Hoofers and Honeys: comparison of The Mummy (1932) and The Mummy (1999) [remake]

+ The Wonderful World of Cinema: review of Cape Fear (1991) [remake]

+ Silver Screenings: reviews of Blondie (1938) and Blondie Meets the Boss (1939) [sequel]

+ 18 Cinema Lane: review of Lovey: A Circle of Children Part II (1978) [sequel]

+ YOU!

Don't Miss the Black Friday Book Sale!

Are you ready for the most wonderful time of the year?  It's nearly time for the Black Friday Book Sale!  The time when a couple hundred indie authors (including me) put some or all of their Kindle books on sale for $.99 or FREE!  From Black Friday through Cyber Monday, you can stuff your Kindle full of amazing indie books at ridiculously low prices.

I'm marking all six of my Once Upon a Western books down to 99 cents.  Same goes for A Noble Companion.  And all the authors of Follow the Lonesome Trail agreed to lower its price to 99 cents for the weekend as well!  

This price drop is part of the massive indie book sale showcased at blackfridaybooksale.com, a site run by the wonderfully organized Perry Elizabeth Kirkpatrick.  My books are mainly in the Historical Fiction section, except for A Noble Companion, which is in the fantasy section.  A lot of other books in the Cornerstone Series (which ANC is part of) are part of this sale too.

All of the books included on that sale site are clean, which means they do not contain smut, the violence is non-gory, and any cussing is kept to a below-PG-13 level.  There are a couple hundred authors involved in this, which means hundreds and hundreds of ebooks available at their lowest price possible!

It looks like the price for my books has already dropped even though it isn't Black Friday, so if you want to go shopping a little early, go right ahead ;-)