Over the Rainbow

I have a weakness for chick flicks/Romantic Comedies. I don't care if they're good or bad, really, I just enjoy watching them. The meet cutes, the chemistry, the awkward situations, the big spinning kiss at the end...they always leave me happy and swoony. They're an instant lift.

Which is why last night, when I was so physically exhausted that I literally could not fall asleep, I came to the conclusion that it was vitally necessary for me to watch You've Got Mail.

Now, I hadn't seen YGM in years...probably not since around the time it came out. There were several things I remembered about it (mostly the ending, with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" tinkling in the background and Meg Ryan, in full on RomCom swoon, saying "I wanted it to be you"), and some things I didn't (Dave Chapelle?!). I've seen Sleepless in Seattle countless times (a movie I don't even like all that much, and yet I can't stop myself from watching it whenever I catch it airing on TNT or TBS or USA or really any other three letter cable station), but for some reason this particular Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks chick-like flick always seems to pass me by.

But then the trailer came out for Julie and Julia, a movie I didn't even know existed, but instantly felt the need to see (the blog-turned-book it's based on is sitting next to my bed as we speak, as yet uncracked, but complete with movie tie-in cover). It's another Nora Ephron movie, sure to give me that lift I spoke of earlier.

And a few weeks ago I saw this on youtube:



Suddenly I wanted to see the movie again, wanted to see if it was as I remembered.

And it was, for the most part. Hate turned to love, random happenstance, not-so-strangers passing each other on the street oblivious to the fact that that man, that man right there, was their true love.

But the thing that struck me more than anything else was just how nineties it felt.

I am, without a doubt, a child of the millennium. I was using e-mail on a regular basis at age seven. My first password was "Peter Pan." I started begging for a computer of my own when I was nine. I discovered the wonderful world of online fandom when I was thirteen and I haven't looked back since. I'm writing about this on my blog for goodness sake.

So this movie, this movie where Greg Kinear's character is obsessed with his typewriter and thinks computers are leading to the end of civilization as we know it. This movie where the two main characters have laptops that can hardly be transported to the bed, let alone to a Starbucks or to class. This movie with dial-up internet and America Online...it feels dated. It's a window into a world where online dating wasn't profiles on match.com, before youtube and wikipedia and even google, when we couldn't begin to imagine what we could do with the internet. It's only ten-ish years old, but it's already a snapshot of the Past. With a capital "P."

Which just makes me wonder...what does the next ten years look like? What's the next website we won't be able to live without, or the next fancy way to watch video? How long before it's movies about blogging that seem like they're from the dark ages?