Latest news with #MegRyan
Sydney Morning Herald
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
A deep dive into romcoms, from 1930s screwball comedies to today
CINEMA Falling in Love at the Movies Esther Zuckerman Running Press, $42.99 There are some who seem unaware that romantic comedies were born long before Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks got together – with some help from writer-director Nora Ephron – for Sleepless in Seattle in 1993 and then You've Got Mail five years later. And even long before the 1980s, which gave rise to films such as Splash (1984), Say Anything… and When Harry Met Sally (both 1989) and when the 'chick flicks' label was yet to enter the popular lexicon. Most of the culprits can be found pounding away in the blogosphere, but some have managed to migrate into the mainstream with their blissful ignorance intact. Fortunately, however, Esther Zuckerman isn't one of them. A Millennial, she saw the light, as she explains in the introduction to her Falling in Love at the Movies, at the age of eight when her family took her to see You've Got Mail on New York's Upper West Side. It was love at first sight, but, since then, she's opened her lens wide enough to recognise that romcoms – as we now affectionately know them – have an illustrious history. As the subtitle for her handsomely illustrated book indicates, it's an overview of the genre, more or less beginning with the golden era of the screwball comedy – which includes 1930s films such as My Man Godfrey, The Awful Truth and Bringing Up Baby, as well as His Girl Friday, The Lady Eve and Ball of Fire from the 1940s – and generally tracing its development through to the present day. She's not as knowledgeable about romcoms as, say, Molly Haskell in her seminal 1974 book, From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies, Stanley Cavell in his brilliant Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage (1981), or Ed Sikov in his astute Screwball: Hollywood's Madcap Romantic Comedies (1989), although she cites them all (along with numerous magazine and newspaper articles). But she's a smart, thoughtful and often-perceptive enthusiast, concerned to make us understand that romcoms aren't just the equivalent of comfort food for needy filmgoers. She proposes connections between the old and the new. Some of them are irrefutable, like the fact that You've Got Mail is an updated remake of Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner (1940), with Hanks in the James Stewart role and Ryan in Margaret Sullavan's. Others grow evocatively but not especially persuasively out of her analyses, such as her identification of similarities between the flavour of Lubitsch's work and Nancy Meyers' in films such as What Women Want (2000) and It's Complicated (2009): 'Nancy, like Ernst, relishes art direction, the sparkling spaces that her characters occupy.' More successful but still not entirely convincing is her linking of Preston Sturges' wonderfully wacky 1940s comedies, such as The Lady Eve and The Palm Beach Story, and Ephron's equally wordy ones, beginning with the sparkling screenplay for When Harry Met Sally… She draws our attention to the plot details that drive romcoms. There's the 'meet-cute' that brings the lovers-to-be together for the first time, followed by the deceptions and/or misunderstandings that threaten their relationships, even if they're all eventually set aside for the unambiguous happy ending (Zuckerman allowing for exceptions, such as The Graduate and Annie Hall).
The Age
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
A deep dive into romcoms, from 1930s screwball comedies to today
CINEMA Falling in Love at the Movies Esther Zuckerman Running Press, $42.99 There are some who seem unaware that romantic comedies were born long before Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks got together – with some help from writer-director Nora Ephron – for Sleepless in Seattle in 1993 and then You've Got Mail five years later. And even long before the 1980s, which gave rise to films such as Splash (1984), Say Anything… and When Harry Met Sally (both 1989) and when the 'chick flicks' label was yet to enter the popular lexicon. Most of the culprits can be found pounding away in the blogosphere, but some have managed to migrate into the mainstream with their blissful ignorance intact. Fortunately, however, Esther Zuckerman isn't one of them. A Millennial, she saw the light, as she explains in the introduction to her Falling in Love at the Movies, at the age of eight when her family took her to see You've Got Mail on New York's Upper West Side. It was love at first sight, but, since then, she's opened her lens wide enough to recognise that romcoms – as we now affectionately know them – have an illustrious history. As the subtitle for her handsomely illustrated book indicates, it's an overview of the genre, more or less beginning with the golden era of the screwball comedy – which includes 1930s films such as My Man Godfrey, The Awful Truth and Bringing Up Baby, as well as His Girl Friday, The Lady Eve and Ball of Fire from the 1940s – and generally tracing its development through to the present day. She's not as knowledgeable about romcoms as, say, Molly Haskell in her seminal 1974 book, From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies, Stanley Cavell in his brilliant Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage (1981), or Ed Sikov in his astute Screwball: Hollywood's Madcap Romantic Comedies (1989), although she cites them all (along with numerous magazine and newspaper articles). But she's a smart, thoughtful and often-perceptive enthusiast, concerned to make us understand that romcoms aren't just the equivalent of comfort food for needy filmgoers. She proposes connections between the old and the new. Some of them are irrefutable, like the fact that You've Got Mail is an updated remake of Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner (1940), with Hanks in the James Stewart role and Ryan in Margaret Sullavan's. Others grow evocatively but not especially persuasively out of her analyses, such as her identification of similarities between the flavour of Lubitsch's work and Nancy Meyers' in films such as What Women Want (2000) and It's Complicated (2009): 'Nancy, like Ernst, relishes art direction, the sparkling spaces that her characters occupy.' More successful but still not entirely convincing is her linking of Preston Sturges' wonderfully wacky 1940s comedies, such as The Lady Eve and The Palm Beach Story, and Ephron's equally wordy ones, beginning with the sparkling screenplay for When Harry Met Sally… She draws our attention to the plot details that drive romcoms. There's the 'meet-cute' that brings the lovers-to-be together for the first time, followed by the deceptions and/or misunderstandings that threaten their relationships, even if they're all eventually set aside for the unambiguous happy ending (Zuckerman allowing for exceptions, such as The Graduate and Annie Hall).
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
My cultural awakening: I watched Sleepless in Seattle and realised I had to cancel my wedding
When my boyfriend proposed, I said yes – not because I was madly in love with him, but because it seemed like the correct thing to do. We'd been together for eight years and all of our friends were getting engaged; my life felt like a constant cycle of hen nights. I knew something was wrong but I suppressed it. Sometimes I'd get these flashes of anxiety. I'd worry about the fact that I no longer felt excited when my boyfriend walked into a room, or that we didn't have sex any more – but I was 28, which at that point felt ancient to me, and I was frightened of being alone. I told myself I was experiencing nothing more than a classic case of pre-wedding jitters. I threw myself into buying the big white dress and designing the invitations. I planned to stash a bottle of gin in the church, so I could have a shot to calm my nerves before I walked down the aisle. About three months before the wedding, I was home alone one evening and decided to watch Sleepless in Seattle. It was my father's favourite film – he loved the classic jazz soundtrack and Nora Ephron's dialogue. It had been on in the background a lot during my childhood and teenage years, so I was expecting it to be a comfort watch; something to almost lull me to sleep. I'd remembered the film as being about a man (Tom Hanks) and his cute son grieving the death of his wife. But that night I interpreted the film completely differently. I was sucked into the perspective of Meg Ryan's character, Annie, who is engaged to a perfectly decent but slightly boring man – and deciding whether or not to call it off. I'd always seen Sleepless in Seattle as being about bereavement, but that night on my sofa, it felt like a film about one woman's decision whether to get married, and play it safe, or give it all up and take a leap. My wedding venue was booked, the deposit paid. But as the film went on I began to feel this overwhelming sadness There's a scene towards the beginning where Annie is trying on a wedding dress at her family home. Her mother is talking about the 'magic' she felt when she first laid eyes on her own husband, and Annie's face just goes completely blank. You can tell she doesn't feel anything close to 'magic' with Walter, her fiance. Watching that scene, I felt the familiar squirm of panic, but I squashed it down. I did love my boyfriend, in a way. We trusted each other and were good friends and he cared for me. I told myself: I'm not going to be the person who has the magic, and I'm OK with that. I'm going to be the person who has a sensible, kind husband, and children, and a life that is beautifully mapped out. But as the film went on I began to feel this overwhelming sadness. My wedding venue was booked, the deposit was paid – but watching Annie agonise over whether or not to leave Walter, I began to realise that the way I was feeling about my own wedding couldn't be ignored. Right at the end, Annie tells Walter about her doubts, and he has a line that illuminated everything for me: 'I don't want to be someone that anyone settles for. Marriage is hard enough without bringing such low expectations into it, isn't it?' I realised, listening to that, how selfish I was being. My boyfriend was good and generous. He didn't deserve to be 'settled' for. He didn't deserve to have a wife who had to get drunk to force herself down the aisle. That night when he came home, I said I wanted to postpone the wedding. I wasn't brave enough to outright ask to call it off, but he told me that if I didn't want to marry him now, he didn't want to be with me. I like to think perhaps he was having doubts too, but wasn't able to voice them – I hope that's true. I emailed all of our guests and told them that the wedding was cancelled, and people were generally supportive. I remember being so grateful that I didn't have to 'face' anyone. I could call the whole thing off while hiding behind a screen. I told my father that Sleepless in Seattle had inspired me to make the decision, but I kept that part a secret from everyone else in my life. He understood, but I suspected other people would think I'd gone mad. I spent about 11 years being single after the breakup, so I definitely had to face my fear of being alone. Often it was hard, feeling like a spare part at my friends' parties, but as I got older, being 'coupled up' and safe lost some of its allure. I saw the cracks in the marriages around me, and I realised coupledom doesn't actually insulate you from loneliness. I am married now, but I don't completely buy into the idea that there has to be 'magic' in a romantic partnership. I don't believe in the Disneyland, mind-altering, life-completing version of romance – that part of Sleepless in Seattle just doesn't ring true to me. But I still believe you should never settle for anyone.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
My cultural awakening: I watched Sleepless in Seattle and realised I had to cancel my wedding
When my boyfriend proposed, I said yes – not because I was madly in love with him, but because it seemed like the correct thing to do. We'd been together for eight years and all of our friends were getting engaged; my life felt like a constant cycle of hen nights. I knew something was wrong but I suppressed it. Sometimes I'd get these flashes of anxiety. I'd worry about the fact that I no longer felt excited when my boyfriend walked into a room, or that we didn't have sex any more – but I was 28, which at that point felt ancient to me, and I was frightened of being alone. I told myself I was experiencing nothing more than a classic case of pre-wedding jitters. I threw myself into buying the big white dress and designing the invitations. I planned to stash a bottle of gin in the church, so I could have a shot to calm my nerves before I walked down the aisle. About three months before the wedding, I was home alone one evening and decided to watch Sleepless in Seattle. It was my father's favourite film – he loved the classic jazz soundtrack and Nora Ephron's dialogue. It had been on in the background a lot during my childhood and teenage years, so I was expecting it to be a comfort watch; something to almost lull me to sleep. I'd remembered the film as being about a man (Tom Hanks) and his cute son grieving the death of his wife. But that night I interpreted the film completely differently. I was sucked into the perspective of Meg Ryan's character, Annie, who is engaged to a perfectly decent but slightly boring man – and deciding whether or not to call it off. I'd always seen Sleepless in Seattle as being about bereavement, but that night on my sofa, it felt like a film about one woman's decision whether to get married, and play it safe, or give it all up and take a leap. There's a scene towards the beginning where Annie is trying on a wedding dress at her family home. Her mother is talking about the 'magic' she felt when she first laid eyes on her own husband, and Annie's face just goes completely blank. You can tell she doesn't feel anything close to 'magic' with Walter, her fiance. Watching that scene, I felt the familiar squirm of panic, but I squashed it down. I did love my boyfriend, in a way. We trusted each other and were good friends and he cared for me. I told myself: I'm not going to be the person who has the magic, and I'm OK with that. I'm going to be the person who has a sensible, kind husband, and children, and a life that is beautifully mapped out. But as the film went on I began to feel this overwhelming sadness. My wedding venue was booked, the deposit was paid – but watching Annie agonise over whether or not to leave Walter, I began to realise that the way I was feeling about my own wedding couldn't be ignored. Right at the end, Annie tells Walter about her doubts, and he has a line that illuminated everything for me: 'I don't want to be someone that anyone settles for. Marriage is hard enough without bringing such low expectations into it, isn't it?' I realised, listening to that, how selfish I was being. My boyfriend was good and generous. He didn't deserve to be 'settled' for. He didn't deserve to have a wife who had to get drunk to force herself down the aisle. That night when he came home, I said I wanted to postpone the wedding. I wasn't brave enough to outright ask to call it off, but he told me that if I didn't want to marry him now, he didn't want to be with me. I like to think perhaps he was having doubts too, but wasn't able to voice them – I hope that's true. I emailed all of our guests and told them that the wedding was cancelled, and people were generally supportive. I remember being so grateful that I didn't have to 'face' anyone. I could call the whole thing off while hiding behind a screen. I told my father that Sleepless in Seattle had inspired me to make the decision, but I kept that part a secret from everyone else in my life. He understood, but I suspected other people would think I'd gone mad. I spent about 11 years being single after the breakup, so I definitely had to face my fear of being alone. Often it was hard, feeling like a spare part at my friends' parties, but as I got older, being 'coupled up' and safe lost some of its allure. I saw the cracks in the marriages around me, and I realised coupledom doesn't actually insulate you from loneliness. I am married now, but I don't completely buy into the idea that there has to be 'magic' in a romantic partnership. I don't believe in the Disneyland, mind-altering, life-completing version of romance – that part of Sleepless in Seattle just doesn't ring true to me. But I still believe you should never settle for anyone. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion You can tell us how a cultural moment has prompted you to make a major life change by filling in the form below or emailing us on Please include as much detail as possible Please note, the maximum file size is 5.7 MB. Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian. Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian. If you include other people's names please ask them first.
New York Post
12-06-2025
- Business
- New York Post
NUMC CEO canned in hospital shocker in first action after NYS' controversial ‘takeover'
Nassau University Medical Center's CEO was abruptly booted in the first board meeting since New York state effectively took control of the hospital through Gov. Kathy Hochul's budget deal. CEO Meg Ryan planned to stay on until July 20 to help with the transition, but was removed on the spot and placed on administrative leave Tuesday night by the hospital's new state-appointed board of directors. 'This evening's actions reflect our commitment to restoring stability and building a successful future for this essential public hospital,' Stuart Rabinowitz, the hospital's newly appointed board chair said in a statement. Advertisement 3 Nassau University Medical Center's CEO, Meg Ryan, was fired and replaced with a new long-term CEO, yet to be announced, Richard Becker has been named interim CEO of NUMC. Stefano Giovannini The board replaced Ryan with Northwell Health executive Richard Becker for the interim, and also agreed to bring in three outside firms to help steer the hospital through the transition. Manatt, Phelps & Phillips was hired as legal counsel, Deloitte brought on to handle the finances and operations, and Korn Ferry to find a new permanent CEO. Advertisement Ryan declined comment to The Post. Ten hospital execs including Ryan announced over the last two weeks that they'd resign in July. Nassau Executive Bruce Blakeman announced he and the GOP majority in the county legislature would not be making their designated picks to the newly-formatted board out of protest — and instead would be naming Hochul in the lawsuit to overturn the 'illegal takeover.' '[New York State] has made it very clear that they do not want me to be in the CEO role,' Ryan told The Post after she made the decision to step down. Advertisement 3 Ryan was placed on administrative leave Tuesday night, though she planned to stay with NUMC for the next month to ease the transition. Stefano Giovannini Two weeks ago, she and other executives predicted that the power balance will completely shift, pointing out that seven out of the 11 board members are being hand-picked by the state. The five-member Nassau County Interim Finance Authority, which monitors and oversees the county's finances, unanimously voted last week to impose a 'control period' of overseeing NUMC spending. That means that every major contract the hospital enters now needs the fiscal watchdog's sign-off. Advertisement 3 Nassau Executive Bruce Blakeman said the GOP majority in the county will not name who they want to take over in the full-time role as a protest against Gov. Hochul's 'illegal takeover' of the hospital. Heather Khalifa for the NY Post 'This is a mandatory requirement,' NIFA chair Richard Kessel explained ahead of the June 2 vote. 'It's not something that's optional. The numbers that have been presented here tonight automatically trigger the imposition of a control period.' He explained that under the new state budget, NIFA is now required to intervene if the hospital runs an operating deficit above 1%. NUMC posted an 11% shortfall in 2023 — roughly $77 million — which ballooned to $83 million last year, which he said has no sign of slowing down. However, Ryan and other NUMC leaders have said they've turned around the fiscal disaster since new leadership under Blakeman took the reins and is now on track to profit $11 million this year without cutting any jobs or departments — despite being in the hole hundreds of millions of dollars just a few years ago.
