Every year at the Oscars they have that little role of honor of thing where they list all the dead members of the Academy from the last year. There are always a few big stars that you say, oh, I didn’t know they died. Then there are all these other people, like screenwriters and lighting techs and people that invented the Panavision Movie Camera. In short, a bunch of people you never heard of before.
Nora Ephron is not dead, not yet anyway. She wrote the screenplay for two of my all time favorite movies, When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle. She also penned the generally over praised Silkwood. Her most recent movie was the horrible, runner up for worst movie ever, Bewitched. Well, they can’t all be home runs, can they?
The old joke about screenwriters goes: Did you hear about the young starlet that was so dumb she slept with a screenwriter to get ahead?
Writer still don’t get as much respect as they deserve. There are countless great lines in When Harry Met Sally, this is my favorite.
Sally: So you think a man can only be friends with a woman he thinks is unattractive?
Harry(pausing in deep thought): Nah, you pretty much want to nail them, too.
