Screenwriter
William Goldman and director Rob Reiner’s beloved fairy tale adventure
is one of those rare movies of whimsy that appeals across gender lines,
and in near-equal fashion. Full of well-choreographed swashbuckling,
lively character interplay and pithy, irreverent dialogue, it’s an
adventurous treat, plain and simple. Satire can so frequently seem
malicious and kind of jaded because there’s no lively appreciation of
the genre(s) being aped, but 1987’s The Princess Bride, is
lovingly framed as a rousing bedtime story, and wears its affection —
and thus its emotional honesty — refreshingly on its sleeve.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men)
brings his shrewd eye for detail and ear for whipsmart dialogue to bear
on this eminently quotable (to this day, “Have fun storming the castle”
ranks as my all-time favorite flippantly pleasant tiding of futility)
adaptation of his own cult tome, but the movie is just as notable for
its discernment in casting. Billy Crystal and Carol Kane are perfect as
Miracle Max and Valerie, and Peter Falk anchors the movie’s wraparound
segments as the kindly grandfather relating the story to his grandson
(a wee Fred Savage).

Released concurrently in “Dread Pirate” and “Buttercup” editions, which might best be described as his-and-hers versions, The Princess Bride
is presented here in a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that
preserves the aspect ratio of its theatrical distribution and is billed
as a high-definition re-mastering. For those already owning the movie’s
previous special edition release, though, the difference is negligible,
with perhaps slightly more attention paid to color consistency in
cinematographer Adrian Biddle’s backgrounds.

Spread out over two discs in a regular Amray case with snap-in tray,
the film imports all the previous, vintage featurettes and
mini-documentaries from the aforementioned release, including separate
audio-commentary tracks from Goldman and Reiner. Among the bits new to
this release are a 10-minute mockumentary on the “real” Dread Pirate
Roberts, with historian’s recollections and other edifying information;
a make-up featurette that nicely showcases Crystal’s transformation via
new footage and interview information; a trivia game; and more.
Rounding things out are a mock-tour booklet (“Fezzik’s Guide to Florin”
— now, with the location of the Pit of Despair!) which offers up some
fun for diehard fans of the film. Don’t allow neophytes to do more than
flip quickly through it before watching the film, though, lest spoilers
dampen their enjoyment of the main attraction. A- (Movie) A- (Disc)

What’s not to love about an action movie whose story is as big and over-the-top as its hairdos? Starring Patrick Swayze as zen bouncer James Dalton, who “cools” the rowdiest club in Jasper, Missouri, and eventually triumphs, at great personal cost, over crooked small town kingpin Brad Wesley (a growling, glowering Ben Gazzarra), 1989’s Road House is perhaps the best and most unapologetically honest B-movie of its decade, and certainly the highbrow blueprint for the classic era, early ’90s canon of Steven Seagal that would follow in the wake of this movie’s tremendous word-of-mouth VHS success.

Kevin Smith and his producing pal Scott Mosier, self-professed fans of the movie, who nonetheless evidence no greater grasp of minutiae (or even plot, actually) than anyone who’s glimpsed even part the film on TBS in the past decade. Instead, this entertaining track devolves into a series of read jokes in which the pair takes the famously viral list of “man’s man” attributes credited to ass-kicker Chuck Norris (e.g., “He invented the cesarean section when he roundhouse-kicked his way out of his mother’s stomach”) and substitute the names of Dalton and producer Joel Silver. Along with this bit of juvenilia, Smith and Mosier offer up a rapid-fire blend of random, often only tangentially related observations, most of which are still funny — especially during the sex scene between Dalton and Elizabeth, which has Smith bemoaning his sexual prowess and technique.

Alongside an amusing trivia track, the highly enjoyable “What Would Dalton Do?,” running 13 minutes, takes a look at real-life bouncers and shares stories from their occupational lives (one dude ripped off a guy’s prosthetic arm) along with their thoughts on the movie, while the 17-minute documentary “On the Road House” includes interviews with Swayze, Lynch, Herrington, bit player Jeff Healey, villain Marshall Teague, fight choreographer Benny Urquidez and — disclosure alert! — yours truly. While my face time is dispiritingly limited, and my insights thus perhaps rather pedestrian, Lynch talks about the task of getting her hair blonde enough (“almost white”) and her skin dark enough (“mahogany, actually”) for the role, while Herrington notes the movie — his undeniable career high point — was “the most fun [he’s] ever had with [his] clothes on.” B+ (Movie) B+ (Disc)