Friday and Saturday in the Cinema: “The Princess Bride.” It’s interesting to look at the path of Rob Reiner’s career as a director, which began in 1984. If we look at the movies, we can see a marked change from the first half of his directorial career to his more recent films. His first, “This Is Spinal Tap” (1984), was immediately destined to be a classic comedy. But was the movie good because of his direction, or because of the improvisation by Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer? “Stand By Me,” (1986) set the bar for coming of age stories, but it was, of course, based on a Steven King story. So how much was Reiner responsible for the film’s success? (On a side note, if you ever have the misfortune of seeing Lawrence Kasdan’s “Dreamcatcher,” notice how similar the flashback scenes are to “Stand By Me.” It seems that Reiner’s film has become something of an archetype.) Then, skipping over “The Princess Bride,” he made “When Harry Met Sally.” This is another revered comedy, which I think is another case of him directing a great script, written by someone else. In this case, it was Nora Ephron.
Then we’ve got “Misery” (1990) and “A Few Good Men,” (1992) written by William Goldman and Aaron Sorkin, respectively. So he’s still surrounding himself with respected writers. It’s around this point that the so-called awesomeness of his movie begins to get shaky. I’m not a fan of either of those movies, at least in comparison to his earlier work. His last five films are no more interesting: “North” (1994), “The American President” (1995), “Ghosts of Mississippi” (1996), “The Story of Us” (1999) and “Alex and Emma” (2003).
Many people like “The American President,” also written by Sorkin. I like the script, but the movie is trivial and unexciting. But maybe that’s just me. Or maybe it has to do with my morbid fear of Michael Douglas.
Reiner has gotten fairly complacent as a director. He’s appeared as Himself in over 25 films and TV shows, but has only made a handful of good films since the early 90s. So, it is with great pleasure that we bring you one of his best films, from the 80s, when movies were good (at least Rob Reiner movies): “The Princess Bride.”
Not to be a killjoy, but the reason that this movie is so good might have more to do with screenwriter William Goldman’s script than with Reiner. Goldman wrote, among other things, “Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid,” “All The President’s Men,” and “Marathon Man” (and, unfortunately and ironically, he also wrote “Dreamcatcher). Regardless of who was responsible—Reiner, Goldman, or the all-star cast—”The Princess Bride“ is good fun.
And now, the cast: Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Christopher Guest, Wallace Shawn, André the Giant, Fred Savage, Peter Falk, Robin Wright Penn, Carol Kane and Billy Crystal. Radical!
How many times did you see this movie growing up? What’s that? You’ve neverseen it? Shame on you. This movie is so funny. See it and you’ll finally get why everyone you know has all these little in-jokes of lines from this movie that you never understood before.
Friday in the Science Center: ”Rushmore.“ There is no need to explain why this movie is good. If you haven’t seen this movie, I am sorry. Please see it.
Saturday in the Science Center: ”Sunset Boulevard.“ Billy Wilder was a genius. This is one of his best. Compared to ”Rushmore,“ there’s less of a chance that you’ve seen this. But it may be more important that you see this. This is the movie that shatters all the illusions you’ve ever heard about Hollywood. Absolutely perfect. To the point where it upsets me. It’s that good.
Thanks to anyone who’s reading this. I hope that you’re out there seeing these movies. And if not these, I hope you’re seeing other movies. Just watch something, even the
Paris Hilton video (great mise-en-scene). Have a nice break and if you see something that has a profound impact on you, a movie that speaks to you on an emotional level, treasure it. Movies like that don’t come along often. Don’t try to analyze why it’s affecting you. Just let it happen.
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