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 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.
The film’s story centers around the titular betrothed maiden, Buttercup (Robin Wright), who is kidnapped and held against her will to wed Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon). Her childhood beau, Westley (Cary Elwes), sets out to rescue her, journeying through and over shrieking eel-infested lagoons and, yes, the Cliffs of Insanity. Along the way he, variously, hooks up and crosses paths with Inigo Montoya (a winning Mandy Patinkin), Fezzik (Andre the Giant) and Count Tyrone Rugen (Christopher Guest).
Oscar winner Goldman (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 in a new 25th anniversary edition Blu-ray, The Princess Bride is presented here in a gorgeous 1080p transfer in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, along with a DTS-HD 5.1 master audio track that is super-crisp and clear. As far as the hue balance, though, for those already owning the movie’s previous special edition release, the difference is negligible, with perhaps slightly more attention paid to color consistency in cinematographer Adrian Biddle’s backgrounds.
This Blu-ray imports all the previous, vintage featurettes and mini-documentaries from the movie’s prior home video releases (inclusive of DVD and Blu-ray), including fun, separate audio-commentary tracks from Goldman and Reiner. Also ported over to this release from its two-disc DVD special edition 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; and a trivia game. New to this version are two retrospectives running about a combined half-hour. Interviews with Reiner, Elwes, Wright and more include plenty of anecdotes from the production, but it’s also nice to hear everyone speak to the film’s unique staying power, and their surprise and delight at how subsequent generations have come to discover the movie. Patinkin even goes so far as to speculate that The Princess Bride will make the first line of the obituary of every major player. And he may not be wrong. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here. A (Movie) A (Disc)
Daily Archives: October 12, 2012
Here Comes the Boom
If the key to girl-next-door romantic comedy appeal is said to lie in an actress’ aspirational qualities, then the same is true of another subset of comedy embodied by Kevin James, whose stocky physicality but surprising grace with it feed an affable, self-effacing demeanor that serves as a pleasantly embraceable stand-in for legions of weekend warriors with anecdotes of past athletic glory and romantic prowess. Conventionally plotted but bighearted, crowd-pleasing teacher-turned-fighter tale Here Comes the Boom serves as James’ most well-rounded starring vehicle to date. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (Sony, PG, 104 minutes)
Smiley
A thunderously stupid horror movie of slapdash construction and ping-pong tonalities, Smiley builds its narrative around the notion of a viral video serial killer who’s summoned by way of a specific web chat incantation. Impressive only for its ability to chase unlikeliness and viewer frustration down an ever-increasing rabbit hole of bewilderment, director Michael Gallagher’s motivation-free genre exercise is populated with characters who, when not busy exhibiting the decision-making and inner emotional landscapes of 12-year-olds, are pantomiming the same age group’s mindset of adults and scariness — all ideas which they’ve absorbed through cultural osmosis.
College freshman Ashley Brooks (Caitlin Gerard, possessing a nice smile and beatific presence) is still recovering from the suicide of her mother just a year earlier, but becomes fast friends with Proxy (Melanie Papalia) when she moves into an off-campus house with her prior to her first semester. Proxy takes Ashley to a party where she introduces her to a bunch of anonymous users of a message board she frequents. These include alpha male Zane (Andrew James Allen, getting his “acting” on), who flirts seemingly by talking up his interest in “the intersection of the strange and the retarded,” as well as Binder (Shane Dawson), a meek kid bullied and kicked out of the party ostensibly for flagging inappropriate content like child pornography.
Against the ongoing backdrop of a reason and ethics class taught by Professor Clayton (Roger Bart, coming the closest to escaping this mess unscathed), Ashley and Proxy decide to test out the urban legend of Smiley by typing three times “I did it for the lulz,” which sounds like something a stoned, kitten-loving Limp Bizkit fan would have dreamed up circa 2000. They then witness a murder, and soon other members of their little group are felled as well. Fearing that her fragile sanity is unraveling, Ashley reaches out at various points to Proxy, Zane and Binder, trying to get to the bottom of this brutal killer.
The script for Smiley, by Gallagher and Glasgow Phillips, is a hodge-podge of clichés and nipped bits from many other horror movies, from The Ring and Bloody Mary to the Scream sequels. Its handling and portrayal of the average twentysomething’s relationship with technology is frequently silly, and its efforts to achieve notional topicality by way of basing its story around a Chat Roulette-type website already feel dated and lame. The movie tries to paper over all these deficiencies by way of spurious leaps in logic and some half-hearted mumbo-jumbo about the Internet achieving a greater consciousness (“From The Terminator, like Skynet — or like Neo!”). All other shortcomings (of which there are many) and red herrings are “solved” by a lazy, post-modern twist that feels cobbled together like a Mad-Lib.
Smiley is a movie of obviously limited budget and resources, but its failures run much deeper than that. The result leans on jump-scares and sound design in an attempt to summon some small modicum of dread or tension. On a purely visual level, the actual character of Smiley — with stitched shut eyes and a carved jack-o-lantern grin — is creepily effective, not unlike the striking slasher Chromeskull of a couple years ago, from Laid to Rest and its sequel. But everything about Smiley is nonsensical, derivative, or both — right down to an air-quote shocking ending that then tries to leave room for ambiguity or a sequel but only further undercuts the stupid narrative choices made by its makers. Leave this turd alone. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. For more information on the movie, click here to visit its website. (Fever Productions, R, 90 minutes)
Martin Landau on Tim Burton and Creating an Accent
Did I get a chance to craft a story about Martin Landau, his work with Tim Burton on Frankenweenie, and how he crafted his character’s accent? Yes, yes I did.
Simon and the Oaks
No, this is not the story of a crayon-obsessed kid and his plot to nourish and grow seedlings of Stubhub’s “Ticket Oak,” alas. A rangy coming-of-age drama based on Marianne Fredriksson’s Swedish book of the same name, Simon and the Oaks spans a couple decades in telling the story of an outcast adolescent of partial and secreted Jewish heritage growing up amidst the considerable political and social turmoil of World War II. Arthouse appreciation for this attractively photographed recipient of 13 Guldbagge nominations, Sweden’s Oscar equivalent, will depend on a given viewer’s tolerance for broad-strokes melodrama of intertwined fates that lacks the ambition and emotional complications of many similar screen works.
Simon and the Oaks is directed by Lisa Ohlin, and there’s no doubt that the film’s technical package is a solid one. The cinematography and score are both superlative, and the film never feels phony or even less than entirely authentic in its period piece detail and evocation of a bygone era. The acting, too, is solid, giving the movie a collection of many strong, self-contained scenes.
It’s just that the sum is less than the whole of its parts, since the film continuously opts for narrative forward movement rather than a deeper exploration of motivations and feeling. Ohlin’s film is beautiful, but John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas — both its 2008 cinematic adaptation, and the original source material — remain stronger evocations of Jewish-rooted World War II drama, the early intrusion of “the dark hour of reason” upon adolescence, and the dramatic consequences thereof. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. Simon and the Oaks opens this week in New York City at the Paris Theater and in Los Angeles at the Landmark, expanding nationally from there. For more information on the movie, click here to visit its website. (Film Arcade, unrated, 118 minutes)