My opinion has proved unpopular during many conversations through the decades, but Nora Ephron is responsible for what are for me a few of the most very twee & disagreeable films of the end of the 20thcentury: When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless In Seattle, & You’ve Got Mail. This may make me seem as if I am not a fan when, in fact, I am a big fan. Even those films that irk me so much are smart films in an age of dumb films.
Ephron also was responsible for screenplays for favorite films- Silkwood, Heartburn & Julie & Julia (which she also directed), but I remain an avid admirer of her essays, often published first in the New Yorker, Esquire, New York, & NY Times magazines & gathered in her collections: Crazy Salad, Wallflower at the Orgy, Scribble Scrabble, I Remember Nothing: & Other Reflections, & I Feel Bad About My Neck: & Other Thoughts On Being A Woman.
She was my generation’s Dorothy Parker & as I consider her writing today, & look for quotes, I note that that her words are musical, like tap dancing prose.
She was my generation’s Dorothy Parker & as I consider her writing today, & look for quotes, I note that that her words are musical, like tap dancing prose.
I always enjoyed Ephron’s appearances on TV talk shows & interviews in magazines. I find it hard to resist a really smart, very funny woman.
Thinking about her today, upon learning of her passing & because I am zany for lists, I was drawn to these 2 lists from her last book:
What I Won't Miss:
Dry skin
Bad dinners like the one we went to last night
E-mail
Technology in general
My closet
Washing my hair
Bras
Funerals
Illness everywhere
Polls that show that 42 percent of the American people believe in creationism
Polls
Fox TV
The collapse of the dollar
Bar mitzvahs
Mammograms
Dead flowers
The sound of the vacuum cleaner
Bills
E-mail. I know I already said it, but I want to emphasize it.
Small print
Panels on Women in Film
Taking off makeup every night
WHAT I WILL MISS:
My kids
Nick
Spring
Fall
Waffles
The concept of waffles
Bacon
A walk in the park
The idea of a walk in the park
The park
Shakespeare in the Park
The bed
Reading in bed
Fireworks
Laughs
The view out the window
Twinkle lights
Butter
Dinner at home just the two of us
Dinner with friends
Dinner with friends in cities where none of us lives
Paris
Next year in Istanbul
Pride & Prejudice
The Christmas tree
Thanksgiving dinner
One for the table
The dogwood
Taking a bath
Coming over the bridge to Manhattan
Pie
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