Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

Gold Rush! There's another Criterion I need.

For me it was the characters who seemed so real that I ended up caring about them, especially the girl who stole fruit from the neighbors tree to help her family survive. She was a very natural actresses. I read that none of the children in the movie had ever acted before. How amazing is that then, that the children made the movie.

I was disappointed in St. Elmos's Fire, I guess it had it's moments but it was not Breakfast Club or Sixteen Candles. Still it's worth watching and I could see it on a guilty pleasure list.

Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan
Genre: Drama Comedy Romance

Synopsis: Two employees at a small Budapest gift shop (Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart) can't stand being in each other's presences...they bicker and argue all the time. What they don't realize is that they have fallen in love with each other, anonymously, when each secretly sends a 'lonely hearts letter' to the newspapers personal ads.

Review: Ernst Lubitsch brings out the small moments that make up life. His focus is on the character's idiosyncrasies and by that we experience their world. The Shop Around the Corner is a world unto itself. The majority of the film takes place inside the shop, this gives us an intimate feel. Inside the shop the lives of the sales people unfold for us. Their simple yet telling actions allows us to connect to them in a personal way. Lubitsch understands people, this film is a showcase for his talents.

James Stewart is arguably one of the greatest actors of all time. His strength is in how he can 'play it small'. He can bring a dramatic moment to life by doing the opposite of what most actors do. At the end of his dialogue he often will lower his voice and trails it off to almost a whisper. This works well and brings out his humanity, he seems real to us. Stewart is a very likable actor and here his character is perfectly tuned for the story.

Margaret Sullavan has top billing, with her name before Stewart's in the title sequence. Which seems odd as she wasn't as big of a star as Stewart at the time. Margaret didn't make very many movies and this is her most well known performance. It's a good one too. I liked her in this and she fits the character to a tee. Another producer might have went with a platinum blonde glamor queen for more eye appeal and ticket sells, Lubitsch chose wisely with his leading lady.

Lubitsch is one of the great directors and The Shop Around the Corner is one of his great films.

I love The Shop Around the Corner, as well as both of its remakes. I think it's much better than In the Good Old Summertime, which is also a great movie, but I'd put You've Got Mail almost as high up as The Shop Around the Corner.

I think The Shop Around the Corner is actually a better movie than You've Got Mail, but I think You've Got Mail is a more emotional movie because of the chemistry between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

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You've Got Mail is a more emotional movie because of the chemistry between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

Don't they end up meeting at the Space Needle? Or am I thinking of a different movie.

No, that's Sleepless in Seattle.

Ha, my mind has melded those two films. I know one of them has Tom Hanks living on a house boat.

Yeah, that's also Sleepless in Seattle.

It's easy to get those two movies confused because of the pairing of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Plus, they're both great movies.

I wonder if I seen both? I might not have seen You Got Mail

I don't love Shop Around the Corner, but I can see the appeal.

Then you should definitely see it. It's a version of The Shop Around the Corner that's been updated to when AOL used the sound file "You've got mail.".

Have you seen either of the remakes?

Update...I just asked my wife and she said we did see You've Got Mail. And when watched it after watching The Shop Around the Corner, (I bet it was because you mentioned it before)

I'm sure Raul seen The Shop Around the Corner, that was an HoF film. I thought maybe it was his, but must have been someone else's. (I'm too lazy to look)

Yeah, I probably mentioned it when I did a write-up of The Shop Around the Corner for the HoF. I usually end up watching both of those movies together, and sometimes all three if I have the time.

Wow, that's a lot of movies

Well, I work on the computer through most of the night, so the TV is usually on the whole time.

You've probably watched a lot more movies than I have. I only manage 1 a night, sometimes not even that. I couldn't watch 2 movies back to back, I would get to tired from that. But it cools that you can watch and work at the same time. Do you have two computer monitors?

I have four computers and three monitors, plus a laptop and a tablet, but one system is my primary system, and one system is Hubby's primary system. One of the other systems is strictly for work, and the laptop and tablet aren't used much unless we're traveling.

But I rarely watch movies on any of the computers.

Do you do networking between any of those computers? I tried setting that up once with my wife's laptop and my desktop but it was more of a pain than I wanted to go through. So if we transfer files (usually pictures) I just use a USB flash drive.

Yes. Three of the computers are on a wired network, and the laptop and tablet have wireless access to the network. (Our cell phones and Blu-Ray DVD players also have access to the network.)