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I'll make this quick. Jim "Give Me The Ball" Brown speed-bagging bubble-headed martians as he journeys home to Pam "Foxy Brown" Grier. Tom Jones finger-snapping and rocking out to "It's Not Unusual" with a bald eagle on his arm. Las Vegas getting a demolition only Steve Wynn could dream of. And just about the most serous A-list cast not taking themselves seriously and having a ball. Your family and friends will have you committed for loving this but who cares! Just crank up the Slim Whitman and watch their heads explode. It's "Independence Day" meets "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" with Tim Burton again at the helm. The best picture of 1996!

OK...here's an idea...lets plan a Hamptons vacation and while we're there we'll invite some A-list stars who are already there and film a few phone-it-in scenes at a great house and thus pay for it all. We'll write a story that puts imperfect people in perfect settings so the rest of us can feel that although we're all failures compared to these who populate the aesthetic super race, we are none-the-less heartened by the fact that they have problems too. You know...personal crisis problems...the ones you can afford to deal with when you're not paying the rent. I like Jack & Diane as much as the next guy, but the sound tech should have told the director that Nicholson speaks the entire movie in a low, monotone register we haven't heard from him since "The Shining". And the camera tech needed to mention that Keaton's unrelenting no-upper-lip smile makes her look like she's squinting into the light of a super nova. Oh well...pass the chilled Chablis and wake me when it's over. Better yet, pour me a double scotch and give me a "Heeere's Johnny!" This movie's just plain REDRUM.

Once this movie moves beyond its chick-flick set up and the cheeky posturing of its lead actors, the viewer is introduced to a complex and disturbing exploration of domination, manipulation and surrender...much like the diabolical twists of Richard III and the voyeuristic pathology of Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom". Kathleen Kelly (Ryan) is a women harmed by Joe Fox (Hanks). Ryan's overt disgust for Hanks only energizes him to craft a scheme whereas he poses as an anonymous e-mail suitor who secretly stirs and manipulates her vulnerabilities only to serve his own desire to control and, finally, possess her. Much like Lady Anne becoming slave to the courtings of Richard III despite the fact that is was he who murdered her husband, Ryan falls for the Hanks who destroys her. The twisted voyeurisim arrives when Hanks manipulates Ryan by convincing her to meet his secret e-mail persona at an arrange location only to stalk her as the "evil" Hanks and "coincidentially"show up and try to engage her in conversation. He then witnesses first hand the effectiveness of his work on the clueless Ryan. Ryan's tense and antagonistic reactions to Hanks in these scenes creates an unsettling "inside joke" for the viewer as we see Hanks further manipulate her as she unwittingly engages his twisted fetish. When all is revealed, Ryan is too far gone to resist the monster and she falls into his arms. Her complete inability to combat Hanks' craven violations on her psyche become the ultimate domination by Hanks and the film ends with Ryan's character effectively "vanishing" as she folds into Hanks. This is Nora Efron's most complex and revealing take male/female tensions and the sinister aspects of courtship. As a tale of psychological terrorism, "You've Got Mail" is a stark warning sign to all of us who let others in but give not enough thought to how they got there.