Monday, June 9, 2014

Princess Bride: Second thoughts

There are movies that sweep you off your feet, that transport you to amazing imaginary worlds full of Munchkins and droids and jinns. There are great films about the passion of love that was lost, love getting found again, love being made brand new. There are epics filled with thrills and tension and the sorts of incredible peril that gets people to sit down for two hours or more to watch a whole story play out in front of them, chases and gunfights and swords made of laser hissing at one another like two bits of the rainbow having a feud. The Princess Bride is not one of them.

But I like it anway. :D


This is a good movie. It's an entertaining movie. If I'm spending time with a younger cousin in the future, we'll watch this movie and I think it'll pass the time in a fun way. It's funny. I have an injury right now that was just pulsing with pain from how much I was laughing. The characters, most of them anyway, are charming or at least fun to see on the screen. Even the ones who show up for just one scene, like Father Fudd, the deranged king, the miracle man - they stand out.

I like the movie. I like the writing. There's so much to like. I'm going to be doing the Inigo Montoya speech (once again thank you Rachel for teaching me how to spell) at the next gaming session and probably annoying people who already know the movie and have heard it before. I don't even care. It's awesome and hilarious.

I feel like I should like it more? Not just because of the big stack of recommendations, but because of how much I like it on the face of it. If I had an issue, maybe, it's that it feels... thin? Not in a bad way, but I did just come off the Star Wars movies where the writers and artists just piled in a crapload of stuff in every single corner. Here I've got cheaper sets, cheaper effects (though many many kudos for having an actual giant how does that man exist), less... activity maybe? And one of the leads just isn't any fun at all. Part of it is that I don't connect with the actress or her character, but I'm not going to blame someone for doing a job when the job itself isn't good. The Princess Bride gets nothing to say or do that is interesting or fun at all. It's her name on the movie and then it's everyone else's show. Also I just realized that I don't remember any of the music, which is definitely a major letdown coming off of Star Wars and its earthshaking score.

It's a fast film, though, and it's really funny and clever and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's clearly a film for people who love D&D. Thin here isn't a criticism, it's just an observation. And honestly? Know what else is thin? Really really excellent pizza. :D

On a personal note, and I'm sharing this one because it's positive, I said I'd like the film right from the start. As you probably know from RPGnet or from when I talked about Empire Strikes Back, I grew up living with my grandparents. My grandfather isn't a very talkative man; he's private and quiet and introverted. One thing he always did with all of the grandchildren, though, was read bedtime stories. There was a rule, wherever Grandpa was (and I think it still holds for the younger ones), that if he was there when you were going to sleep, he would be reading you a bedtime story. He owns this little book, jacketed with black leather, and nobody gets to touch it except him. I know I never did or even thought of it; that's just his book. Nan would sing to us or give backscratches or tell tales about when she was a little girl, but Grandpa had his book and would read stories to us. That's his ritual, the thing that a quiet, private man used in the quiet part of the day to connect to us, the grandkids. I love him for that. I still wouldn't dream of touching his book or checking to see if there were pictures he wasn't showing us or if it was just a notepad full of accounting figures or what have you. I liked the framing story and it made me smile to think of that little old black book.

18 comments:

  1. Next time your grandpa asks you to do something, you can say "As you wish." And he won't get it, but you will.

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  2. Also, you're totally not wrong in your criticisms, especially in regards to Buttercup. You'll find as you go on that cinema in general and geek cinema in particular has a big problem with female characters. Star Wars is both emblematic of the problem (where there's basically only one female character and of course she has to be parceled out romantically to a male lead) and also well ahead of the curve, in that Leia is legitimately awesome in her own right and was adopted by a generation of geek feminists as their icon.

    There are some bright spots in this, however, and two of the films that have already been recommended to you - Alien and Terminator 2 (less so Terminator 1) have excellent genre-standard-defying female leads.

    Also, yes, the Princess Bride is thin, but fun. It's just an enjoyable romp and never aspires to be anything more. I love it for that, and it seems you appreciated it for what it was, too.

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  3. You may find that the "Princess Bride" book itself is better because it contains a whole extra layer that the film version strips away.

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    1. There's a book? I should get my hands on that. Wonder if it's on the Kobo. I'm getting a Kobo. :D

      (Rachel come spell that right for me :P)

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    2. There is indeed. The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure, by WIlliam Goldman.

      This is the rare case where if you liked the movie, you ought to read the book, and if you liked the book, you ought to see the movie. They're both good in different ways.

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  4. I'm not a huge fan of this movie, although it's not the movie's fault at all. It was my ex-girlfriend's absolute favorite movie of all time, and so I tend to find it kind of an annoying bringer of bad memories.

    Since you've finally watched The Princess Bride, you'll understand about half the quotes your fellow gamers are always using.

    Now in order to understand the other half of said quotes, I suggest watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail next.

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  6. Please can you watch the Back to The Future Trilogy?

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    1. Hi Sophie! Back to the Future is on the list of recommendations. :D

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  7. You should ask your granddad to watch The Princess Bride with you. I bet he'd dig it.

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  8. So, I'm going to recommend that you watch this a 2nd time. You'll enjoy it again, and you'll cement your knowledge of the quotes. You'll be glad you did.

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    1. Oh I plan to at some point. It was too good not to, and I expect I missed some things I'll like even more :D

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    2. If you can, ignore the soundtrack next time you watch it. I love so much of the rest of the movie, but this aspect really pales compared to SW and other films with great scores.

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  9. if you like excellent grandfather/grandson relationships and aren't afraid of a big, manly cry, make sure Secondhand Lions is on the list. Maybe not at the top, or even in the top 50, but somewhere, somehow. Based on this review only, it seems like your kind of movie. It's my second favorite movie of all time.

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  10. Alas, Andre Rene Roussimoff (aka Andre the Giant), the man who played Fezzik, was too good for this world -- he passed away on January 27, 1993. Robin Wright (Princess Buttercup) has a story she likes to tell that because they were filming in cold places, Andre would drape his hand over her to keep her warm between takes.

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  11. http://jmboulos.hubpages.com/hub/The-Truth-About-The-Princess-Bride

    "So William Goldman claims in his intro that his father read him this "Classic Tale" when he was sick in bed with pneumonia. He then tells us that, even though the book changed his life, he never again read it since he always considered it a sacred book belonging only to his father. Thus, when he got it for his son to read many years later when his boy turned 10, he was surprised to find it not as he remembered. His son hated it and so Goldman went away to his study depressed and started to read the book himself for the first time to see what the problem was. We are then told the shocking discovery that the original book by S. Morgenstern is actually a horribly boring, tedious book full of genealogies, politics, history, and more gunk. He realized at this point that his father had read him "just the good parts," which is what he fell in love with as a boy. At this point, Goldman makes it his immediate life's work to write an abridged version of this "Classic Tale" in the way he remembers it, taking only the good parts."

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  12. The problem is that you are coming to this film after Star Wars. The Princess Bride was a low budget unknown film that grew by word of mouth. It was one of the first real cult classics that children of the late 70's and early 80's watched and reminisced about in college. I was a late comer and saw it for the first time in college but the enthusiasm the others had watching it with me was infectious. The sword fighting scene at the top of the cliff is a real sword fighting scene and not a Hollywood one. Andre the Giant as Fezzik was truly inspiring,

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