Offline with Jon Favreau - How “You’ve Got Mail” Explains '90s Internet Culture

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

Leave it to Tom Hanks to make internet catfishing seem so darn charming! This week, Offline’s Movie Club is watching “You’ve Got Mail,” the cozy, capitalist, and kind of creepy 90s classic. Remember when being online was a choice? When online dating was stigmatized? When Meg Ryan flounced around with unparalleled charisma? Max is joined by Jon Lovett and Crooked Executive Producer Kendra James to soak up the nostalgia of AOL, a roaring economy, and a time before Amazon. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

Meg Ryan's character is definitely someone who considered themselves liberal, but hadn't been paying attention. Shocked by Trump winning, gets involved. She's a blue wave. That's right. And Tom Hanks has like kind of, I'm actually an independent, but Joe Rogan makes great points. Watch, never misses Bill Maher. Yeah. Never misses Bill Maher.

Profile photo is a selfie he took in his car. Voted for Obama twice. He couldn't bring himself to vote for Trump, hopefully. Has a lot of opinions about the left and college kids. Yeah, just thinks everyone's gone crazy. Here's my thing. Tom Hanks' character is 100% somebody who says, you know what I think?

I think there should be a Purple Party. Is the remake of this movie just Elon Musk and Grimes? I think it might be Elon Musk and Grimes. Welcome to Offline. I'm John Lovett. I refuse to introduce myself on my own network. That's fair. I had a little joke for it ready to go, so I was kind of hoping you would do it.

I co-host Pod Save America. I host Love It or Leave It. Oh, that's Favreau's spinoff show. Oh, right. Pod Save America. Yeah, I heard about that. Sorry, I didn't realize you had such a great joke in the fucking hopper. I thought it was good. It was pretty good. And I'm Kendra James. I'm the executive producer for Culture and Entertainment here at Crooked.

And I'm also an author who wrote a book called Admissions, which deals with a lot of my activity online as a youth. Oh, okay. A little first-person experience of pals. Thank you so much for being here. This is a series we're calling the Offline Movie Club. Every episode, we watch a beloved movie, then discuss that movie reflects or shapes how we think about technology and the internet. This week, we are talking about You've Got Mail, classic 1998 Nora Ephron rom-com about two rival Upper West Side bookshop owners, played by Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan,

who get horny for each other over email. Kendra, what do you think makes this movie important, how we think about the internet and technology? I'm not sure that this movie has shaped that much of how we think about the internet, because a lot'm not sure that this movie has shaped that much of how we think about the internet. Because a lot of it, as I was rewatching it for the first time in maybe five to ten years, so much has changed. Yeah. And I didn't find a lot of or as many connection points as I thought that I would going back to it.

We're going to get into this, but it's very interesting to revisit now and like what has changed and what has stayed the same with like how we engage with the internet and being online. Yeah. Yeah. So I do think what the I think the movie is important because it's peak Meg and peak Tom. True. And it's Nora Ephron at the height of her powers. But the way it existed at a very specific moment in time for our relationship to the internet, when the internet was a joyful and interesting and exciting place. In the movie, the internet doesn't do anything that letters couldn't do. It basically just serves, like the mail of You've got mail is really what it is this could be a pen these could be correspondence writers using actual physical paper and it's based on a story where it

was just physical mail oh i didn't even know that yes well that makes a lot of sense and then and and it does feel like it's of that moment where like you see clips of brian gumbel turning to some some journalists being like what is internet internet? That kind of thing. It feels like, look at this. And even inside of the movie, there's that moment where they talk about how exciting it is to hear that phrase, you've got mail. And boy, has it been a long time since anyone's been excited about getting a fucking email. We should say the two movies that it's based off, one is called The Shop Around the Corner, which is the name of the bookstore in the movie, which starred Margaret O'Brien and James Stewart.

And then the second one is In the Good Old Summertime, which is a Judy Garland vehicle with Van Johnson. Something that I was really struck by, like how this movie fits in like cultural portrayals of the Internet. I really think this is maybe the first big movie about the internet that's about regular people being on the internet. And it's just because there had been like the net and hackers and like the Matrix was going to come out the next year. Yeah, right. Sneakers. There's like Tron years before. But they were all about how the internet was for like hacker warriors. And like it was this scary, lawless place. And this was, I think, kind of the first big articulation we had for what it felt like to be a normal person with your regular life now being on the Internet.

Like even the fact that it opens with that sequence of the like digital map of Manhattan that they're clicking through. Like the first line is Greg Kinnear saying that solitaire is going to be the end of civilization. Like people were really freaked out. Well, he was kind of right in that regard. Because the exact line is it's the end of western civilization as we know it he was that's true i didn't think about that but you're right he was kind of right about that yeah um but i just i feel like it it even though it feels so long ago i feel like it was really formative for like a couple of generations for how to think about this thing that was arriving

that we're all going to be on yeah i mean, I think it was important for people a little bit older than us to see Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks using the Internet. I think it was it was important for online dating because this is it is a form of online dating. So I do think that was somewhat important. It was like, oh, look, look, anybody can use this. And it's actually not creepy or strange to meet people online. I mean, they meet they though he fucking catfishes her or lies to her face for months and never even will get into it, never shows even an ounce of actual behavioral change rooted in the remorse he claims to feel. But this movie comes out and it is another decade before online dating is fully destigmatized. Right. If you even could say it is now, which I do think it is another decade before online dating is fully destigmatized. Right. If you even could say it is now, which I do think it is. And I do wonder how much the legacy of this movie was helping to like this have something that people could have in their heads to be like, well, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan did it.

They did Sleepless in Seattle on the Internet. So how scary can it be? Well, it's funny because the portion that I that really stuck out to me was not even the dating thing, but just the idea that it was safe to go meet someone online. Because I think, or at least for me, when I was entering into my internet use, which I started using AOL in the second grade, got my first screen name, everything. And one of the things that I was always told and heard probably through high school was never, ever meet someone on the Internet, you know, from the Internet. You don't know what they could be. They could be like the serial killer, that whole scene in this movie where they think that they tell her that he hasn't shown up for her date because he was arrested for being a stalker. And it was really interesting to me that that stigma wasn't like that stigma is no longer the case. Like now I think we can go out

and do that and we're not being warned against it. Yet, while we're not afraid of meeting people in real life, we are more contentious online than we are like more online than ever. Right. It's a very weird. That's what I was thinking about a lot, like while I was watching this. Yeah. Maybe we need to bring back some of that stigma to being on the Internet. Yeah. Well, it does matter. It does matter that it was email because email is a digital representation of a form we all were familiar with and understood how it works. And so email, as an analogy, doesn't expand the scope of the present, right? You send an email, you get it. You actually are not expected to respond right away.

It doesn't live in the, when you get it isn't actually, it's important, but it's not as important as say for a text or a tweet or some other kind of post. And so it wasn't until like social media really took off that like basically like that the internet got between the past and the future and said, we are here and we're going to make this space called the present bigger. So email doesn't do that, which is why I think it does. Like you sent the brief for this over Slack and Slack is a chat, right? Like, oh, that's it.

That's music. Oh, hey, by the way, this is the thing you need to look at. Right. If you had sent an email like, I don't know, there's something about we're moving away from email is the point I'm making. And I think we're moving away from email, not for any fundamental flaw in email, but actually just because we broke email by using it too much.

And so now we've moved a lot of that conversation to somewhere else, that somewhere else is better in some ways and worse than others. But eventually we'll destroy that too and need to find a new place to go. But there was something nice about the way email approximated mail

that we have lost and in a way that's made us all less productive and more adult. Well, we should we should get into the questions because this actually speaks to one of the answers I had for the first question. So there's a set of topics we discuss for each movie, kind of big questions about how the movie shapes how we see the world. The first question, what is the biggest thing that this movie gets right? I've already said mine. The line, the end of Western civilization, as we know it, really jumped out at me because he, I mean, he was predicting something. He predicted the change in the way the internet would have us interacting with personal lives, our work, our children,

everything. It wasn't there yet in this movie, but it did change things. This movie came at a point where they couldn't even reference Amazon yet, which would be the next step after Fox Books, because we're in a point now where Fox Books would be considered the underdog when you compare it to Amazon. And so I just think that, yes, this came out on the precipice of a change. And they didn't know what it was going to be yet, but they did predict it. Something I thought this movie got really, really right that I'm not even sure if they intended to get it right or they just like accidentally arrived at this is the idea that you were kind of a different person online than you are in person. And there's like you have these two identities and you have to navigate like that you're a different person on email. It's like Meg Ryan is talking about her personality is different. Actually, I think we have a clip for that. Could we play that?

What happens to me when I'm provoked is that I get tongue tied. My mind goes blank. Then I spend all night tossing and turning, trying to figure out what I should have said. What should I have said, for example, to the bottom dweller recently belittled my existence? Man, they are acting the hell out of that type thing. I thought this movie should have fallen on its fucking face. It only survives because it is in the hands of meg ryan yeah that that what she does bouncing between voiceover and actually speaking aloud what she is typing

is such incredible acting it really is that is so hard what she's doing and makes it like like the charisma wafting off the two of them in this movie it makes up for all of it we'll get into some of its sins but like in in a less charismatic performance by the male lead this movie is a horror movie and the fact that it's not as a testament to the fact that tom hanks the way he says rose to that cashier rose we're gonna have to get into just charms this woman uh that no one could do that no one could do that i think the legacy shall we do that couldn't do it couldn't do it the over that kind of like super dialing up the charisma overacting over emoting they do specifically in the email scenes where they're like it was so wild to watch like meg Meg Ryan is like throwing herself out of her chair to like overexpress the emotion she's feeling as she's typing. It's like something this movie captured is that people were not used to the idea that you would feel like the full range of human emotions on your computer.

Like that felt kind of silly. And they really I felt like they had to overcome that by like really acting the hell out of like, wow, can you believe tom hanks is having romantic feelings while he's typing an email the yes and i i do think they they kind of i think they like tilt at the way in which oh the internet that's just for losers was the attitude right by giving her uh like a shit heel of a lududdite boyfriend because I think that does two things one it like we can countenance a single man that's allowed you can be Tom Hanks' age and single but like the idea of Meg Ryan's character just being a single

woman it disgusts us he's with Parker Posey you're right sorry that he he breaks up with her in the elevator that that he but like that like doesn't he he breaks up with her in the elevator that's right long does he breaks up with her in the elevator before she breaks up with yeah i think that's right it's around the same time but yeah that's right but um regardless like they have to i think that actually makes the point they have to be it

is better for them to be in relationships because then they're not just single, which is that the audience would rather these people be having an emotional affair than have to root for something that the audience would find despicable, which is being single at their age. Right. Like, oh, I don't even want to see that. That is so pathetic. They're going on the Internet to look for dating. Oh, they're not going on the Internet because they're single and lonely. They're going on the Internet because they're in bad relationships. I think it speaks to that Internet taboo of the 90s, too, that like to your point, they had it couldn't just be like Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are horny. So they log on. I think that would be seen as disgusting behavior in 1998. And maybe it still is, but we've just normalized it. So that's great. But that they had to be like, oh, they incidentally fell into this relationship because, of course, they never would have deliberately sought it out. No, you need to prove the fact that they can actually score in person. Yeah. It's like it's like how Picasso could paint accurately. You know, you have to show that you could do well in the world. Right. It did. I think I do think the movie got right before a lot of people figured this out,

that people were going to use the Internet to cheat on each other and to jump relationships that was just that was an important insight and they were correct yeah also um all the bookstores closing yeah also men love the godfather yeah they do love the godfather i do i love it i'm not gonna otherize the men i'm one of them i do feel like this movie made it harder to quote the Godfather because you can't do it as charmingly as Tom Hanks anymore. Yeah. And it turned it into like such a trope to be like the guy quoting the Godfather. Yeah. I do think like what you were saying earlier, Kendra, about the like the it feels weird that the movie kind of gestures that but doesn't quite capture the fear of dating someone on the Internet.

That was such a big thing in the 90s. Yeah. And I maybe it hadn't reached its height yet. I just remember so much about like, so I went to a boarding school and a lot of my friends were online and I would then go meet my friends in New York City. I had a lot of friends at NYU. And it was just a big worry always of my parents, of teachers, like, who are you going to meet? And part of it was also fueled by, I don't know if you remember, To Catch a Predator. Like, that to me genuinely, like, sort of encapsulates the great fear of the youth being on the Internet, of people meeting people from the Internet. When did that show run? It was, like, 2000s, right? Yeah, it was, like, early, early 2000s.

Well, it's something that, like, I didn't know't know until I was like researching the movie a little bit. An earlier draft of the movie actually did have this whole plot line that was supposed to be about the terror of meeting someone in the internet. Like you referenced that like the rooftop killer that Steve Zahn referenced offhand. That was supposed to be a whole subplot. There was supposed to be this whole thing about like every time she goes out, she's worried it might be the rooftop killer. And then they're supposed to like catch him at the end to show like oh good news he's not a serial killer glad they left that out that's a good cut that's a good cut uh all right what is the smallest thing that you think the movie gets right like maybe

weird little stuff you noticed um i will mention one. How much time everyone used to spend fucking talking about Starbucks, being annoyed at Starbucks, going to Starbucks, having little takes on Starbucks. Like our lives were really boring in the late 90s. And this was what we had to think and talk about, apparently. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, just even just the prediction that specifically 72nd and Broadway, that sort of intersection would turn into a big box haven. That was correct in the end. I mean, back when I was still living up there, it's now a Trader Joe's that has a club line every time there's a blizzard. There's a Bloomingdale's outlet. There's, I think, a bed, bath and beyond, or RIP, bed, bath and beyond. It was there. But that entire area really is big box.

Because Meg doesn't have that line about like, imagine coming out of the subway at 72nd and Broadway. Yeah. Well, I'm picturing it. Yeah. The chain store takeover being complete. I did get that right. That's for sure.

Yeah. There's still little places in New York. Sure. Of course. Something else I thought they got right, the fact that there used to be people like Steve Zahn's character who were just not on the Internet. Like that was just an option. Steve Zahn, are you on the Internet?

No, not on the Internet. That's wild. Used to be able to do that. Yeah. I do think one of the small thing that gets right is pretentious New York based journalists. They exist. I don't know what you're talking about. They exist and they are represented in this film.

You can, you know, your miles may vary about how well, but there they are. Yeah, it did track. When he was, when he was like unveiling his mechanical typewriters, I know that's supposed to be a sign that Greg Kinnear's character is a loser and Meg Ryan is to pick up on them. But I was like, that looks kind of cool. I wish I had a cool mechanical typewriter. I do think one thing, one thing the movie I do think does well is the elevator scene when they're all stuck in the elevator and they're all going around in circles saying something kind of poignant about their own lives. And then Parker Posey says like, ugh, something about gum or something. And he realizes he has to break up with her. Yeah. That. That's a real moment. I think it does a really good job of capturing the feeling of being alone in a relationship for just a moment. Yes.

And realizing you're not on, like, you're not on the side of the person. You're on your own side. I thought that was, like, a really small, well-done moment. That's a great point. Right. And it's this look of, like, I feel like I don't know this person at all. Yeah. It turns out.

Yeah. That's Nora Ephron. Yeah. Okay, okay. Should we move on? What is the biggest thing this movie gets wrong? I already mentioned mine, which is that email being a fun part of being alive. I do think that that turned out to not be right. The internet being a huge net negative, uh, has been a surprise. I think, I i think everyone there was an optimism of the 90s 1998 i mean that's that's right where that's right the beating heart of internet of like you know adolescent or even younger internet optimism and man we that childhood ended i mean it is i don't want to say we're going to do another show on the matrix but like the matrix does come

out a year later and the internet is like the source of human liberation so yeah it is a real contrast that's an interesting thing to say about the matrix that the internet is a source of human liberation it is right but it's also like the matrix is also a metaphor for being trapped being trapped inside of the they are they do live inside of an internet of a cyber world but then they where i know it's just like falling stepping on the show but they but then they do also like leverage it and wield it as to like take it anyway yeah i've seen that movie once and i've managed to avoid these conversations my entire life well that's your loss that time is over i'm so sorry uh i have something small that it got wrong and we if we have bigger ones. But independent bookstores are not more

expensive than chain bookstores. All bookstores charge the same thing for books because the price is printed on the book. Like where where was this coming from? The focus seemed to be on the discount. It was like the discount that the big box store could give. So I guess it's like that Barnes and Noble sticker that they put on the front of a new release saying you can have 20 percent off if you're a member. I guess that's true. That's what she was fighting against. But then when Tom Hanks goes to McRyan's bookstore and he like can't believe how expensive all the books are. Yeah. Books are priced the same thing. Yeah. It's almost as if this was propaganda for big box bookstores. My one small- No, it was propaganda for independent booksellers.

To raise their prices? No, to be like, oh, they're so magical and special. I don't know. It's the same books. Right. But the whole point of what are you saying? That was such a dumb point. No, if if if everybody went to see a movie and in that movie they said Barnes and Noble is cheaper than your local bookstore, but that is not an ad for your local bookstore. That's an ad for the big box store. They talk about they talk about this independent bookstore is the last bulwark of civilization But the point is that the reason of the reason they get I'd a spoiler alert for you've got mail You've already seen it. It loses it closes as the books are too expensive Actually closes because McRyan gets bored. She she could fully keep that store open

They she could keep her employees employed. And she fires them because she's like, no, I don't want to. The circles they run in this movie to make her boyfriend fucking her business into her idea is like, we can get through it. Sorry, that's a big thing. My small thing that this movie gets wrong is this movie does not have the rights to the song by Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now. Really? But he makes a long reference to the song and the lyrics and how he doesn't understand

it. And, you know, and very clearly it was set up so that at some point I've seen love from both sides now, which fits perfectly into this film. Should have played. You think they were trying to get around the, I think they didn't get the rights. I think they had planned to get the rights. They didn't get the rights.

And the scene where he talks about clouds, he is really nice and good. And there's a clearly a moment towards the end of the movie where they should have had both sides now playing and they didn't get the rights. And, you know, it sucks. I knew love actually was coming i had to save save their points oh i didn't realize i was in there um no my my smallest things i have a few one the fact that we never see an aol cd rom that's a good point yeah they're nowhere in the

movie i don't know when they started sending those out but i was actually really missing actually it's occurring to me there's no point at which someone dials up, even though we do hear the noise at the very opening. But you would think at some point someone would be like fiddling with a modem or trying to log on, but they're just always online. Your phone rings when like while they're online trying to send an email and then that creates a whole problem. So I actually have a question about this. Was that what that old lady was referencing when she said I tried to have cyber sex, but I kept getting a busy signal? Because that what that old lady was referencing when she said uh i tried to have cyber sex but i kept it a getting a busy signal because that made no sense to me i i don't

believe that's how any of that works that could be it yeah i think it's um i think it's sort of like a borscht belt joke i don't know if you need to go too deep into it it's just supposed to be like it's funny to have those things together. Okay, fair enough. I tried to have cyber sex, get in the busy signal, my brother. It is a Rodney Dangerfield kind of a, yeah. Okay, okay, fair enough. Okay, Kendra, go on, please. Also, the fact that she was able to get the username shopgirl felt very unrealistic.

I couldn't even get my first name and then my last initials. I had to have underscores in them when I was in the second grade by that point. I need to ask, what was everybody's AOL Instant Messenger screen name? Mine was Kendra and then my last, my real initials. Okay.

Yeah. Nice. Mine still exists and I won't share it. Okay. But you still... You can still log in. Some people still use Instant Messenger. Yeah.

I used AIM until probably about 2012. By 2012, it was a mix of aim and Google Messenger. But I was a big aim person. I think I crossed over in like 2009, 2010. Yeah, I kind of missed instant messenger. I thought it was really handy. I loved instant messenger. And that was like one of my other issues about what the movie gets wrong.

The use of a double space after a period in an aim message is offensive and a hate crime yeah the um i do miss the uh yeah they're very very good punctuation they're they're they're they're pent they're like kind of they're they're typing is so excellent yeah the yes the aim away message was such a nice. Yeah. And it was, again, like, oh, wow, you could be away from this. Now it's ridiculous. You can't be away, away message.

Away from what? Us? You're not. You're here. We're all here all the time. It was incredible to see them capture this moment when you had the Internet, but you didn't have smartphones and you didn't have spam. And it was this tiny little window when the internet kind of ruled.

It's we, so when I was in high school, our internet every single night shut off at 10 PM and then it came back on at 6 AM and we had no connection to the outside world. We had that too. Outside of that. And now at the school, they can't do that. And I don't know, I cannot wrap my brain around what it is like to just have a period of time where the internet is off. I feel like I would pay someone so much money now to shut off my access to the internet from 10 to six every night. We've made a huge mistake. We've built something none of us like. It is why it just we are everyone would like if you

could nobody wants to be it the fear of missing out is motivating so much of this it's like idea that like oh well i wish the party wasn't happening but because the party's happening i guess i have to go it's sort of where i think we're at but the party never stops and it follows you home. And you can and you can like maybe kind of quiet it for a time. But if you wake up at the night, you can attend like it's and I just we're we all hate it and we're all choosing it. And that I don't. It doesn't last forever.

Do we all choose something we hate forever? Sometimes, sometimes when it's up to the Facebook corporation. Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty clean from X. I'm like, I'm pretty clean from X. I'm like, and I'm really, really proud. I went back for Cowboy Carter night, but that was the first time that I had gone back in about five or six months. Yeah.

Like I, for me, the, the, the idea of the internet lives in your computer in your home was great. That's exactly the right amount. It was great. It was pure. It was great. Yeah. great. That's exactly the right amount. It was great. It was pure. It was great. And if you like, I'm only logged into X now on this work computer that I usually leave at the office. And so it

exists at work. It exists in the physical space of work. And then it's fine. I go in, I kind of occasionally use it to search for stories and I use it to promote our shows and things. And then it's gone. I literally don't look at it at home. TikTok follows me. Sure does. Yeah. And that's not as good. It does feel like we're all trying to get back to precisely You've Got Mail era internet, maybe like three years after.

One thing that I think the movie, I know we moved on from You've Got Right, but I think the movie does get right is the incredible feeling of serendipity when you were online the same time as someone else and you were both on instant messenger and you could suddenly have especially if it was your first iam conversation like it felt really intimate and there was like this kind of frizzing with it it was really exciting you talked about this earlier that you can be a different person um in email or online than you can be in real life. And I think we instinctively understand that social media is a performance, that Twitter is a performance,

that Instagram and YouTube, that these things are a form of performance, but we don't actually think of text messaging and email. And we don't think of one-on-one conversations as a form of social media. We think of that, we sort that into the category of replacement for a phone call or replacement for in-face conversation. conversations as a form of social media we think of that we sort that into the category of replacement for phone call or replacement for in-face conversation social media is its own thing

it's public but i i do like i call my friends almost always i really don't like texting with my friends i they don't like that i don't like texting but i call them i'm like when i leave here and i drive home i have a few friends that i call basically every day i really wish i could be a call person but i really want to be that person, but I'm just not. But I do see, but like, but why, what do you mean? Because you're not a physical letter person. So you mean you just text your friends, which, so you mean what you do whenever you have an interaction with the closest people in your life is you think about what you want to say, type it, look at it, make sure it's right, change it, and then send it. That is not conveying you.

That's conveying a mediated version of you, mediated by some of the biggest companies in the history of the world. When you call them and speak to them, they're not in there. They can't get in there. They can't get between your thoughts and your friend. There's a happy medium for you, though. Voice memos. My friends and I are really...

I think this is why people are switching. Voice memos. My friends and I are really... I think this is why people are switching to voice memos. I think that there's an instinctive understanding that because a text to a friend or a text on a social media platform is in a lot of ways, it's less so, but does have some of the same problems as posting. I think people have an instinct that texting is less authentic because it is. And I do think a lot of people lose something when they become a text person. They just fundamentally they don't even I don't even think people realize what they give up. They don't even think about it. Well, that I mean, I think this is something that you've got mail again, like I don't know if they planned to nail

this, but like the idea that Tom Hanks is deliberately crafting this persona in the second half of the movie that he knows is false, that he knows is a performance, that he's catfishing, which it's incredibly fucked up that he just does that. And he's like the hero of the movie. But it's like it's prescient, I think, to your point about all online interactions being some some form of like invented personality. Can you remind me because i i do truly know this movie inside and out but yeah when when tom hanks references the lyrics to joni mitchell's both sides now and says he doesn't like or get the song is that because in email she had already referenced how joni mitchell is her favorite i think that might be true i don't remember yeah

i don't remember i just remember checking in the comments he brings it up but i think it's because she brought it when they up when they're shopping. Again, I'm just, this is just in here. This is just in the deep microfiche. You've got a level of granularity that I do not have from watching this 12 hours ago. Although I hadn't seen it in 12 years. See, I feel this way about Kate and Leopold. Not about You've Got Mail.

Of course. Of course you do. Okay, I've got one more thing this movie gets wrong. and then we should move on to some of the other questions. So this is a clip we have. Meg Ryan starts talking about this. Remember this, like, no last name thing? Yes. Is this a 90s thing?

I didn't know what the hell she was talking about. Let's play the clip, and then you all can explain it to me. Joe. Just call me Joe. Sure. As if you were one of those stupid 22-year-old girls with no last name. Hi, I'm Kimberly. Hi, I'm Janice.

Don't they know you're supposed to have a last name? It's like they're an entire generation of cocktail waitresses. Look. What is she talking about? I've got to assume that that's like a pop music thing, like a Madonna, a Cher. Right. So this is just because they're only using first names in their correspondence? Initially, they meet in the first person or they meet in person for the first time.

And he's very coy about his last name because he does not want her to know that he is Joe Fox of Fox retailers. It's a real tough rebuke to cocktail waitresses who catch a stray here. I don't understand. Wait. Like, I'm sorry. Would you like the person you're ordering a drink from to give you first and last name? This movie's relationship to service workers is deplorable. It is completely unacceptable. Like the Tom Hanks thing at Zay bars where he is like scolding the cashier in the no

credit card line for saying, sorry sorry you can't use your credit card here and then commands her to say happy thanksgiving and then says zip zip to her what the fuck he says zip zip to her yeah right is that rose yeah but she but she wins but she but he wins her over that is one of many ways in which is deplorable yes is that ultimately it's like well he's so charming about being condescending and ordering her around. Did he win her over, though? I don't remember. She does. She smiles. She smiles. I remember that smile. Because he goes, Rose, it's a beautiful name, Rose.

And it works. It works on all of us. It does. It does. And it is a beautiful name. The whole movie is talking about- And he never realized how good of a name Rose was until he says, it is a beautiful- It's a flower, Max.

It's a lovely name. It's a fucking flower. It's a lovely name. It is a lovely name. Yeah, Kate Winslet hadn't done anything for the name Rose a year before. Oh. I guess that's a good point. Is that a good point?

All right. No, the whole movie is Tom Hanks being a monster to people and then music playing and everybody loves him for it. Which he is Tom Hanks. I don't know if you want to get it. I'm sort of saving my fire here. Yeah, we should save it. About what kind of monster Tom Hanks is in this movie. Yeah, yeah. I think when we get to, when it came out today, do we have anything for moment you most related

to personally? We can move through this quickly if people have any. Realizing you're in love with someone who's trying to destroy you. That's not real. That's not true. That's not true. That's a great answer. But I think for people out there, that might be something people could relate to. Not me.

I mean, just the feeling that both Kathleen and Joe would go through where they were like waiting desperately for a moment of privacy to use the Internet. That was a huge thing for me. Oh, yeah. Got to run back to your desktop. What's on there? Have they IM'd me? Yeah. I mean, I didn't have the Internet in my childhood bedroom growing up, but I did have my own computer. But then to use the internet, I would have to put everything that I wanted to use for the internet on a floppy disk and bring it downstairs. And I would usually have to wait until my parents were out of the house or they had gone to sleep. And I do just remember that feeling of like dashing downstairs to be able to do whatever I wanted to do and do it in private. Yeah. I will just add, I really related to the look in people's

eyes at a party when they realize your whole personality is talking about movies and that you're just going to keep doing it until they can find a way to move away from you. Yeah, that's interesting. I get that. That's hard. Most unintentionally revealing moment. A movie this dated. I had a few. I will say one. The idea that the worst thing that might happen to you if you lost your part-time job in the 90s was that you might have to move from Manhattan to a $450 six bedroom in Brooklyn. Like it's a very, it's very end of history. Economy will be moving forever. Bill Clinton is president

yeah i will i do think that this was out of touch in the moment yeah that's true that's actually the thing that i find the most the the relationship this movie has to the economy in all its various manifestations there's something about the way meg ryan has to um self-actualize around her own business being closed by this other retailer that it is incumbent upon her to take these systemic forces and turn it into something that she has to personally find a way to see the good in. That it wouldn't be right, that it wouldn't feel good for that character to say, this guy screwed up my bookstore. He doesn't even care. Like all to make a few extra dollars. Fuck this guy. I'm going to you know what? I'm losing my mind. I live outside of that bookstore now. I have I have scraggly hair and a tote bag filled with books that I hand out pamphlets about why Fox Books is terrible. The fact that like this movie feels like it has to put her in a position where she goes to the children's section of this bookstore and like embraces it.

It just seems to me as like, it speaks to like the politics, not even of the nineties, just like the, the politics of like requiring individuals to find a way to use their self-discipline and good qualities to overcome terrible and changeable things in the world, right? That like there couldn't have been a way for her to go to the city council and get this bookstore out of there. There couldn't have been a way to stop. This is unstoppable. This force is unstoppable. The only thing you can do

is deal with the ramifications and a good person decides that they're going to basically go work in that bookstore for free to absorb it and to overcome it yeah her treating it as a like personal growth moment well even when she's at the end she's sitting with the bookkeeper who's telling her to just sell and it's like well to sell because that's best for her emotionally and it's like she just fired steve zahn. Steve Zahn is out on the street now. Right. Obviously, it's necessary dramatically for this movie to hang together. But there are plenty of other examples where movies require this of characters. Sure. That's true. I did think it was very late 90s that Meg Ryan just casually mentions that she doesn't vote and that that's given no credence whatsoever. That she just offhand says to to greg kinnear like oh i don't vote i mean at that point giuliani felt

inevitable that's true i don't know democracy or else meg um yeah i thought it's not great uh i thought it felt very late 90s that um Posey's character is supposed to be the villain because she says obtuse at one point. Like, there's a weird late 90s anti-elitism. Or like Tom Hanks' stepmom. We have one scene with her and we're immediately supposed to hate her. And the reason we're supposed to hate her is because she's getting an egg retrieval process. She's like, oh, I have to go get my eggs harvested. And like Tom Hanks rolls his eyes

because what could be more disgusting and ridiculous than an age-based fertility treatment? 100%, I agree with you. I have always attributed the rolling of the eyes to the fact that Tom Hanks understands that he is an over 30 year old man with a six year old brother. Sure, yeah.

Well, I think, but that also like part of it is like because the it's like a money grab of some kind that's true but no i don't think that makes it better i do think that there's like if you look at like the line about the cocktail waitresses like the way like there's a there is a like like the way Parker posed, like there's a hostility to, to, to basically, unless you're a kind of sweet and flouncy woman delighted by the wonders that one sees on the streets, uh, get out of this fucking movie.

That's no way to be a woman. There's only one way to be a movie. You gotta be, gotta be pointy. Your hair's gotta be pointy. You gotta be odd and a little bit, you know, you have to be kind of easily flummoxed

by a charming man like that's that's what this movie and your relationship to your small business is mostly for like personal growth

it's ego basically yeah right and if you're out of the job then that's fine because now you have time for Tom Hanks I think this is the big one. This is going to be 90% of the podcast. What would be different if this came out today?

Well, Dave Chappelle wouldn't be there. Dave Chappelle is in there. He is pretty good, too. He's great. He's always good when he pops up in a jump scare like that. His fun little side dramatic roles. He's always great. And I include his stand up. Especially his more recent stand up, I think, is your favorite. Especially his most recent stand up. So, okay, if this happened today, instead of meeting in an AOL over-30s chat room, where do we think they're meeting? Replies to a Krasenstein tweet, maybe? For me, it's Discord or Reddit.

Okay, yeah, I could see a subreddit, yeah. Because I think on Twitter, you're not anonymous, unless you're trying extremely hard to be anonymous. And if you're on Twitter trying extremely hard to be anonymous, then I'm instantly suspicious of you. But maybe they're suspicious together. I just I can't. I guess. Yeah, I can't imagine meeting someone from Twitter where I don't know who they are. I always think that is apropos of well, it's of this. And that's podcasting. But like the film Pretty Woman is very different if it starts two scenes earlier.

This movie is very different if we actually see Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks enter a chat room for over 30 singles and find each other and then say, oh, let's go to a side chat and take let's take let's take this to a quieter location because they are in long term relationships. And I forgot about Parker Posey when we started, but now I vividly remember. But but so like you would want them to go meet on Hinge or someplace like that, you know, a place, you know, a place for people that are looking for not just, you know, not just trolling for... Not ASL. Yeah, that's true.

We didn't have the ASL scene. Couldn't think of a word before I got to body. What scene? It would have been, what is it? ASL. ASL, yeah. Age, sex.

Don't act like you don't know. You just said it. No, I don't know the L. What is the L? Age, sex. Location. Location, yes, that's right. Yeah.

But they were staying mom on the location. Yeah. Or maybe they're meeting on the Crooked Friends of the Pod Discord. That's actually not bad. I will say, well, no, well, she, right. Meg Ryan's character is definitely someone who considered themselves liberal, but hadn't been paying attention. Shocked by Trump winning, gets involved. She's a blue wave. That's right. Yeah. someone who considered themselves liberal but hadn't been paying attention shocked by trump

winning gets involved she's a blue wave that's right and then and tom hanks has uh like kind of i'm actually an independent but fine but joe rogan makes great points watch never misses bill marr yeah never never misses profile photo is is a selfie he took in his car. Voted for Obama twice. He couldn't bring himself to vote for Trump, hopefully. Has a lot of opinions about the left and college kids. Yeah, just thinks everyone's gone crazy. Here's my thing. Like Tom Hanks, Tom Hanks's character is 100 percent somebody who says like, you know what I think?

I think there should be a purple party. Is this is is the remake of this movie just Elon Musk and Grimes? I think it might be Elon Musk and Grimes. The yeah, the other the this movie like Kendra, you were talking about how like, oh, wow, we just had such a different relationship. Like they were afraid of being stalked or they're being a serial killer. I actually think we have not moved past those fears. We've actually just become more sophisticated about how real it is that you have to be super careful when you're dating online. And the fact that basically for fully half the movie, he's catfishing her, I think probably would not work today. And I want to say that I'm critical of this movie. I love this movie. Sure. It's great. I hate every single part of it,

but all together, I fucking love it. You know what I mean? It's like none of these things work independently and none of it makes sense. And story is a horror put it together i love it i literally will cry cozy uh but it's so cozy yeah you can sink into it it's a cup of tea but the fact that he i think that to me i can never get past and i think it represents all the other problems. The moment he finds out that she is shock girl, when he sees her through the window of that restaurant, he becomes a monster. And not just over the course of the next third of the movie, but in that scene. I can understand feeling like, what do I do? Oh my goodness, I've made a mistake. The idea that it isn't so obvious that you go to a pay phone, you call the restaurant, and you say, can you please tell the beautiful woman with the red rose that I have a family

emergency and I will send her a note and I'm so, so sorry. The idea that instead of doing that, you leave her sitting there for hours and then you show up and you treat her like shit for no reason. For no reason. It's just abjectly, pointlessly cruel. He won't leave her alone, too. He won't leave her alone. She is about on the verge of tears. Please, please.

This was supposed to be a good night and now it's a terrible night. You're the worst person for me to see because I am looking forward to seeing the love of my life. And he's a prick. So I remembered that there was catfishing in this. But in my mind, it was like 10 minutes where there's like an awkward interaction. And then he like has to figure out how to get around it. It's like 90 minutes. Well, it's like the last 45 minutes of the movie entirely.

And just remind me, I believe that she actually does say the mean thing in that scene to him. She says something quite cruel to him. The first time in my life when confronted with a horrible, insensitive person, I knew exactly what I wanted to say and I said it. Well, I think you have a gift for it. It was a perfect blend of poetry and meanness. Meanness?

Let me tell you something about meanness. Don't misunderstand me. I'm just trying to pay you a compliment. And then he has the audacity and the narcissism to be wounded and to let her see him being wounded. Not only does she not only does he ruin her night, he ruins her night three times. He stands her up. He shows up and then he forces her in this situation where she is 100 percent being victimized by him to feel like she did something

wrong. Well, that's three times. He fucks her in that scene. That sucks. That cannot be defended. And she never goes back to it. She just says, I was hoping it was you, Meg. Hope for more. Well, to bring it to like, how would it be different if they made it now? I kept thinking about how they just made this shitty movie adaptation of cat person that new yorker short story that's about like the horrors of online dating now and it's like you just take you've got mail and you put some darker lighting on it and you put a like atticus ross trent resner score on it like it's a it's an age 24 horror yes it's a fincher movie like change three lines of dialogue and it is a horror movie about tom hanks who is the like everyone's worst nightmare of what they fear

happening when they go online for online dating also two other points i want to make about this please one whole movie is different if he's ugly he shows up at the end of that movie and he's a dog she's like i'm hoping it was you no no it's the fact that he is so dashing that's very important but that's a classic rom-com trope right they're both beautiful bound for each other of course of course but in the context of basically this being a reveal right like this is his face reveal and she's like i was hoping it was you both because i have a crush on you because we've been spending so much time together and you're so handsome. But also because now you, my anonymous admirer, my anonymous suitor, is as handsome as the guy I have a crush on.

Well, this used to be a thing people really did. The IRL face reveal. Yeah. Back in the day. It's also interesting that you're harping on the fact that he's handsome because I, for me, this movie is not Meg Ryan, but the Tom Hanks of it all is very much. He is an average Joe. Like this is not Val Kilmer. This is not this is not Brad Pitt.

This is not Richard Gere. But but see, I think. Yeah, sure. He's good looking guy. But but that but his normalness. Sure. He's the he's the Brad Pitt you can get. He's the Brad. He's the he's the shop around the's the Brad Pitt you can get.

He's the shop around the corner of Brad Pitt. We got Brad Pitt at the house. Yeah, but he's Brad. Right. We have Brad Pitt. We don't need Brad Pitt. We got Brad Pitt at the house. But he manages to be like an everyman.

You can imagine him wandering into your bookstore. It's not like if Tom Hanks walked into your bookstore, every person would be like, who the fuck is that? That guy's so hot. No, but he's, but if you spent, but he's so charming, the way his charm and his features go together, you're like, this is magnetic. But the other part of this movie, so that's just, that was an aside about the looks. The other big problem I have is, okay, so he realizes that he is, so he's already, by the way, so before he knows she's shop girl, he goes to the bookstore, discovers she's

charming and wonderful, doesn't reveal that he's Joe Fox. Fine. He then discovers this charming and wonderful person is the love of his life. He doesn't want her to know. He doesn't know what to do because he's about to destroy her business. Why? Because he's opening up a big new Fox Books where everyone's going to have great selection

and there's going to be coffee. It has a children's section. Okay, I got a great pitch. This one doesn't. This one branch of your conglomerate, this one branch, this one revenue line, this one store in your vast empire. You wealthy man

will simply not have a children's section. And you will say in this store, hey, everybody, no kids section here. Why? Head on down to the shop around the corner. If you need a children's book, there's a wonderful woman who built a beautiful business in the name of her mother that's selling children's books literally around the corner. And you should all go there and get children's books. And then what's going to happen? There's going to be a board meeting. He is the board. It's a family business. The movie is about how it's a family business. They're never hearing about how like we're getting help from the shop, from the shareholders. It's him and his dad and his grandpa and whatever else. It's called Fox

Books. So they could obviously do it. So he has a perfect way to make everyone win and be happy. And it's never even suggested because Fox Books has to be dominating. It has to do what it's going to do. It's just business. It's not personal. He's a man who lives by the Godfather Code. And you have to respect that if absolutely literally nothing else about his character in this movie. A little sign that says, oh, you want a children's book we actually don't have those here it's the one thing we don't

have why there's a beautiful bookstore around the corner you should go check it out everyone's happy everyone wins literally everyone wins well so believable okay if they're making it now what is the equivalent to the big box store because those have obviously been driven out of business in turn by amazon and the local business story. Yeah. Like Fox really got his in the end. What is the equivalent? Is the Tom Hanks character the like AI developer and he's meeting the actress who is putting

out a business with his opening eyes? There's no charm to opening. I live across the street from an Amazon Fresh. I can tell you there is no charm to an Amazon Fresh I think yeah it could be it could be I guess you can't even do like a news outlet versus a big news company those are all different

R.I.P. Spotify and the local the local what? the local podcasting company the local coffee shop you don't really have local businesses anymore. Yeah, the movie got that right too. Yeah, I mean, it could be right.

It could be like the last Barnes & Noble managed by... By Frank Ryan. By Florence Pugh being shut down by... Timothy Shell. Jeff Bezos as played by Timothy Shell. You have to find the most charming person in the world to get any viewer to sympathize with the Bezos type. You mentioned Timothy Chalamet with just like a shower cap and now he's Jeff Bezos. Weird face fillers too, I guess.

It's also like it does, the movie just does like bring you back to a simpler time where like little store little boxes were threatened by big boxes you know how nice was that physical one physical place was eating another physical place and we're like no no no no physical places uh okay i have two two more little ones if it came out today all right the the bookkeeper casually reveals a youthful fling with francisco franco the fascist dictator of spain who is that dictator who the elderly bookkeeper, if the movie is coming out in 2024, reveals their fling with? Gaddafi. I was thinking Gaddafi.

I don't know why I went there, but I think it's the amount of rich people with children who I know were in Libya at the time. Really? That's so specific. What people did you go to? Kendra, here's the thing. Speaking of boxes, you don't want to unlock the box that is Kendra's backstory.

I think this is your first time here in this universe. Take it to someone who's been there. Really? That box, you can open it and it's interesting, but you can't do it near the end. You spent a lot of time in Bathurst circles back in the 90s? Olivia specifically

dealing with like a best friend of mine who worked for someone who See what I'm saying? See what I'm saying? You do actually you meet a lot of people in like the development world

who are like three rungs out from like yeah I knew someone who had a fling with Gaddafi. Yeah, I could It's like a thing that is out there. My sophomore year roommate I'm sure has met some dictators in her life.

Wow. Okay, does she want to come on and discuss her? We don't speak for reasons. Okay. And those are Gaddafi-based reasons. I'm telling you, you keep opening the box. I'm telling you, Max, leave the box closed. Okay. All right. The last one, it would be different if it came out today because Julia told me I had to raise this because she could not shut up about it. At least one of the many rooms and one of the many apartments we see would be one color other than beige.

Well, that's asking a lot of a movie of this era. I had really forgotten the beige epidemic that we all went through in the late 90s. There's another... By the way, the epidemic has not been cured. The pandemic didn't end, my friend. It's ongoing. But there's a moment in a scene earlier where Tom Hanks eats the caviar off the side of

a dish and then meg ryan says that caviar is a garnish what is that is that ever something when is caviar ever a garnish it's never a garnish no it's you put it on top of something it's special isn't that what a garnish is well well it's on the snow but it's in the in the scene it's on it's it's sort of around the plate on the edges what is it what is the thing, it's on the... No, but it's in the scene. It's on... It's sort of on the edges of the plate. What is the thing that it's like a weird like... It's a dip. Oh, yeah. It's a dip.

And the 90s dips were very important. That's true. It was big dip culture. If you're not a second wave millennial, if you're younger than that, you don't understand the hold that dips had. Dips. All kinds of dips. Society was very dip based.

A lot of events revolved around dips. There were dairy based dips. We had just, we had literally just gotten hummus, which we called hummus dip. And so that's something, that's something that people don't remember. I don't know if it's true, but it's something that I don't, I remember. We just made it true. It became true to the magic of memory. I'll say one more thing that struck me while I was watching this and would be different now um it was very much like when i saw home alone for the

first time a few years ago incredible movie great movie tight loved it not a black person to be found now this movie obviously had dave chapelle but one thing that was jumping out at me in every crowd scene every like just the shot of new york whiter than any of like the Barclays Bank Christmas parties that I had to go to when I was younger. It was just it was it's a way. It's very Seinfeld Upper West Side. And the only other person of color is Sarah Ramirez, who gets scolded and lectured by Tom Hanks and then is grateful for it. The 90s. Wait, what movie?

Oh, yeah. the uh the 90s wait what movie oh yeah this is obviously not for this but um home alone uh is the story of a boy setting booby traps which we all which legally speaking are a horror and very much you should booby trapping is always illegal for liability reasons i never recommend them no booby trapping And why is he doing it? To protect his home, which presumably was well insured. And would be considered legal in some states. Home Alone is a film about a little boy trying to prevent his parents from hitting the deductible. And nobody talks about it.

It actually makes no sense whatsoever. Go to the neighbors. Thank you. It's a great take. This is a movie. He almost gets murdered by itinerant thieves. He's got to protect the castle, which talk about 90s thought. Deductible.

To protect the castles, deductible. But he doesn't know about that. He doesn't know about insurance. He's 10. He tries to call. But he doesn't know about that. He doesn't know about insurance. He's 10. He just he tries to call the police. But we know about it. We as viewers know about deductibles. They're a very responsible family.

He's a 10 year old who's like read Harriet the Spy. I know why he's doing it. I know why his character is doing it. Why am I seeing it? Because Chris Columbus wanted to celebrate Christmas. All right. They don't have a single friend in the city of Chicago

to go check on their son. They call the police and that's it. They don't have a single person. It's a little roundabout. There are some holes. I agree with you. All right.

We are going to finish things off with something we are calling True or False. I'll read a series of rapid fire quotes or plot points from the movie. You tell me if it's true or false. And to be clear, that doesn't mean whether it appears in the movie.

They're all from the movie, but whether you agree with it. So true or false quote. You think this machine is your friend, but it's not true. True. Yeah, I agree. True. True or false. The executives at big box retailers spend all their time sitting around chatting about the mom and pop stores they're putting out of business. False. They don't know their names.

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, false. I think false. True or false, it is infidelity if you're involved with someone over email. It's a discovery that Meg Ryan has in the movie. I think that's true. Yeah. I do.

I don't know if she believes it or the movie believes it, but I think it is true. True or false. If you got stuck with some people in an elevator for an hour, everyone there would reveal their deepest desires and rethink their entire lives. Absolutely false. Yeah, I agree. False. Parker Pozo is the only one who was acting even a little bit normally in that elevator. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. Unfortunately, unfortunately, I do agree with that. Okay. We have to do this one because we haven't mentioned it yet. True or false? Quote, the whole purpose of places like Starbucks are people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee.

He really does a whole tight five on this. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can for $2.95 get not just a cup of coffee, but an absolutely defining sense of self. You know, it's very... They just have a lot of different kinds of things you can get. And you can get a coffee any way you'd like it. And so you can personalize it. Seems like that's all it is. What kind of coffee is he selling at Fox Books?

Right. He does talk a lot about the coffee. Yeah, that's true. Has their own brand, just version of Starbucks. Yeah, and I assume they are doing the same lattes, macchiatos, whatever at Fox's that you're doing at Starbucks. I think that's false. Yeah.

I think it's false. I think people like Starbucks because they like permission to have milkshakes in the middle of the day. I think it's permission to have milkshakes and you're not going to get the best thing in the world. You're not going to get the worst thing in the world. You're going to get exactly what you expect. And that's the promise of a chain store.

Absolutely. Like Fox Books. True or false, it is actually kind of surprising when you learn that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were 35 and 37 when they died. True. That's surprising. It is true.

Well, that's because in any old photo, it's just like, that's what 35 was then? They do look older. I'm sure if I heard, what is Tom Hanks' age, the character in this movie? I think it is hard because it's over 30. He's younger than me. He's younger than me.

I don't feel. They're in the over 30s. I kept thinking about that too. He must be like 37 and she's playing 33. That's usually how they would do the age difference in a movie like this. They're both tiny babies in my opinion. It's the same like what I mentioned. I was watching Manhunt earlier and like to look back and know that John Wilkes Booth was 26.

It's wild. That is a Parker Posey level poll. All right. True or false. Independent bookstores in expensive neighborhoods are a quote, lone reed standing tall, waving boldly in the corrupt sands of commerce. I'm going to say that's false. It's just a bookstore. It's fine. That's false. Also, I as someone from a semi expensive small town, we love our local bookstore. It's fine. That's false. Also, I as someone from a semi expensive small town, we love our local bookstore. Sure. People congregate there. We have every time one closes, there's a massive campaign to like, I think only one has closed. But like,

there's a massive campaign to save it. You're always going to the local bookstore. I think it's actually true. Okay. But I do think the sentiment is the problem, which is, I do believe local small retailers trying to stay alive are doing something very difficult and challenging. But the idea that they're like, the idea that like, what he's trying to do is imbue it with a kind of heroism. Like the second store says, you have to shop here, it's good for the world, is the second you've kind of given up the game a little. They have to do better, offer something better.

Now, the shop around the corner did offer something better. They offered her. And she decided to give that up because it was not convenient for her. Yeah, it was too hard. True or false, Meg Ryan is within reason to ask her boyfriend Greg Kinnear to write a news article calling her bookstore a sacred cultural temple in which he does not reveal their relationship.

I'm going to say that's false. That is wildly ethically compromising. False. For him. Oh, sure. Yeah. For him. Yeah, which makes her request beyond the pale unacceptable, I feel. I mean, I guess you can ask. Well, you shouldn't ask someone you love to do something unethical on your behalf and demand that they say no. So I agree with fair. If we saw Fox Books' taxes, we'd be horrified.

I just think it's important to note that Meg Ryan is also a monster in this movie. A lesser monster, but doesn't vote, does not respect journalistic ethics. She's pretty cavalier about their jobs. Yeah, right. Steve's on. I'm worried about him. True or false? Okay, if you grew up, like Tom Hanks' character, super rich with a serial philanderer dad who had had relationships with two of your nannies, you would become a totally well-adjusted grownup with no romantic hangups whatsoever. It's close to home. Wow.

Told you to leave the box closed. I said leave the box closed. Does Gaddafi enter into that story somehow? I think the question would be, I think there's an assumption in there that I don't agree with. Like, he is terribly adjusted. First of all, he's dating Parker Posey. He's terrible. Her character's great.

He cannot be honest with the person he loves. I mean, I do think think this in the same way, if this movie goes on for another two or three weeks, I think there's some really hard and uncomfortable conversations as she goes back over what happened. I think that that night at the restaurant is a big deal that is unexamined. The second she thinks about it,

what did you do? Why did you do that? I think the a24 horror thriller version of this movie i think would definitely connect his upbringing more as the like trauma origin story for why he is the way he is all right last one true or false quote new york in the fall makes me want to buy school supplies everywhere in the fall makes me want to buy school supplies i think this movie made it true i don't think i would have felt that way if not for this line from this movie that is like so resonant that i think it's for me i think it just stuck in my head made me feel that way this is a movie for people who have a just a great affinity for school supplies you know that's

that's who this movie is that is absolutely true and that. And that's us. I mean, yeah, again, I'm a Kate and Leopold girl. No one knows. What is that? It's another Meg Ryan rom-com. I vaguely remember this movie. It's early 2000s, right? It's the one where Hugh Jackman is a time traveler who jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge to time travel and he invented the elevator. Wow.

An English duke from 1876 is inadvert dragged to modern day new york where he falls for a plucky advertising executive always an advertising executive written by the guy who wrote i tanya it's great um really yes wow okay but yeah no i i mean i actually had forgotten about the line about school supplies um really yeah i i had forgotten about but it it is very true this movie evokes something about new york that do love. It shows New York. It shows New York very well on screen. I would compare like the way New York is shot in this movie to the way like Sofia Coppola knows how to shoot men from like the female gaze or for the female gaze and that whoever the cinematographer was, whoever was framing everything up, like they wanted to fuck New York. They get it. Yeah. No, they get it.

It definitely made me feel a little romantic about New York, a city that I consider to be a cesspool of garbage and urine. For sure. For sure. Well, pals, this was so great. Thank you for coming on. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having us.

Welcome to Offline. from Jordan Cantor and Kyle Secklin. Kenny Siegel and Jordan Katz wrote our show's original theme music and the remixed movie-specific bangers you hear at the top of each movie club are composed by Vassilis Vatopoulos. Thanks to Ari Schwartz, Madeline Herringer, and Reid Cherlin for production support.