The Princess Bride (1987)

 



Dir: Rob Reiner
Writers: William Goldman
Starring: Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, Christopher Guest, Andre the Giant

A couple of months ago, my friend Jaime and I started watching Homeland and when Mandy Patinkin as Saul came on the screen I looked at her and said, "My name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my father, prepare to die!" Jaime stared back at me quizzically, and I understood the horrifying fact that she had never in her thirty five years of life seen The Princess Bride.

"Inconcievable!"

My dad happened to call me on that fateful night and also joined in my absolute astonishment. Since the following week was my birthday, he happened to send a copy of the DVD, since I had lamented my last one had been stolen (right off my DVD shelves!). I invited Jaime over recently to finally introduce her to Wesley, Princess Buttercup, and all the favorite lines I grew up with.

The movie really does stand the test of time; I remember watching it repeatedly as a kid (this, and Big). Watching it as a twenty-nine year old was just as enjoyable. Jaime and I laughed out loud, I slapped my knee a few times, I said the lines I remembered so well, I pointed out who the actors were to Jaime (that's Billy Crystal! That's Christopher Guest!), and we even thought of what a great group costume the characters of movie would make for Halloween. It was fun to rewatch it, and even more fun to watch it with someone seeing it for the first time.

The movie is a bit of a fantasy, but grounds itself with the storytelling of a grandfather (Peter Falk) to his grandson (Fred Savage). The script nor actors ever miss a beat, and the movie is a great adventure from start to finish. It defines the word enjoyable for a film!

The Best: Cary Elwes has never been as good as Wesley, though I still love Robin Hood: Men in Tights. I just love when he reveals himself to Princess Buttercup while falling down a cliff: "as youuuuu wiiiiiish!"

Fact: When Count Rugen hits Westley over the head, Cary Elwes told Christopher Guest to go ahead and hit him for real. Guest hit him hard enough to shut down production for a day while Elwes went to the hospital.

Rating: ********** (10 out of 10)

Before Sunset (2004)

Dir: Richard Linklater
Writers: Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, Richard Linklater
Starring: Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke

Perhaps one of the best sequels ever made--isn't it rare to get a sequel to a genuine, romantic film? Most of them seem to fade away into their happy endings. Before Sunrise's ambiguous ending left so much room for a follow-up, and follow up these creators did. This time actors Hawke and Delpy helped write the script (and they were Oscar-nominated for it!) and their characters Jesse and Céline meet again--somewhat by chance--in Paris.

This film happens in 'real time' - they have a 90 minute conversation as they walk through Paris, catching up. We learn that Jesse was indeed waiting for Céline in Vienna nine years ago. Céline never showed up, but there's more to it than that. Hearing the two characters catch up was fascinating as we, too, were catching up with them. They've matured, but still harbor this remembrance for that one night. It's almost as if they feel silly for holding onto this one memory from their youths, but it was just as genuine for the other.

As I am about to embark on my own trip to Paris tonight, I watched this film and still love it so much. There's much here about relationships and missed opportunities and taking chances. I've worked my own Before Sunset Tour into our itinerary in Paris--I want to meet like them at the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore and walk by the Seine and sit on a bench on the Promenade Plantee. And we shall.

The Best: The script is beautiful; it still feels like two regular people talking, but in a way that you know this is not how they talk to other people. Jesse and Céline each have their own brilliant moments (Jesse's talking about how he might break apart if someone were to touch him, Céline discussing the sad cynicism that came with getting older). I become wistful just thinking of these two and this movie and their conversation. The two ending lines are perhaps my favorite two ending lines of ANY movie. Bravo to the three writers, bravo!



Fact: It only took 15 days to film this movie.

Rating: ********** (10 out of 10)

Before Sunrise (1995)

Dir: Richard Linklater

Writers: Richard Linklater, Kim Krizan

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy

This movie is a conversation. If you're interested in fast-paced or action-packed movies--this movie is not for you. Young, American 20-something Jesse (Hawke) is on a European rail when he meets Céline, a beautiful French girl. They talk. Everybody at some point has felt that energy when your conversation with a person just goes on and on and there's no pause or stalling. Those conversations are quite honestly some of life's best moments, aren't they?

And so we get to witness Jesse and Céline's. He asks her to spend the day with him in Vienna before he flies back to America, and she accepts even though she's on her way back home to Paris via the train. What ensues is a beautiful, spontaneous series of activities with Jesse and Céline as we listen in on their conversation--oh, and Vienna, Austria is the background.

Their characters seem so genuine and they are funny and flawed but I want to be their friends. I want them to be together. By the end of the movie, they decide not to share their phone numbers and addresses but because their connection is so strong they make a pact to meet back at the Vienna train station in exactly six months. The ambiguous ending leaves it all up to the viewer: do Jesse and Céline rejoin and continue their burgeoning romance? Does one make it and the other doesn't? Do neither make it out to Vienna? It's almost a Rorschach test for how idealist or realist you are as a person. I always thought they'd meet back up.

The Best: The chemistry between these two characters just oozes off the screen! I love them both and they are both played wonderfully by Hawke and Delpy.

Fact: Linklater based the film on an evening he spent with a woman in Philadelphia. That just makes me think he probably took the Amtrak, on a line I'm very familiar with, and it amazes me when I think about how un-magical Philadelphia and the Northeast Corridor rail-line is in comparison to Vienna, Austria. The backdrop really adds to the movie's magic.

Rating: ********* (9 out of 10)

(500) Days of Summer (2009)

Dir: Marc Webb
Writers: Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel

When I first saw (500) Days of Summer, I was fully prepared to write it off as a quirky rom-com without much to it. However, it surprised me in its clever storytelling and assessment of modern romance. More interestingly, the movie acts as a sort of Rorschach test.

The anonymous narrator says from the beginning: "The is a story about love, but this is not a love story."

The relationship of Tom and Summer spans 500 days, and because it is told through the eyes of Tom (with varying amounts of sad moments and funny, imaginary asides), the audience inevitably will root for him. Upon rewatching this, I realized how it really resonates with my generation more than it might with others. It's more than just the Smiths references - it's the fact that Tom builds a relationship on a girl liking "the same stupid crap" he does (Chloe Moretz playing his all-knowing little sister spouts truths throughout the movie).

Many relationships these days begin because of shared interests, but I get the feeling that finding a mutual, obscure band to bond over was not such a prevalent romantic inspiration until these more modern years. And in another part of the movie Tom blames greeting cards, pop music, and movies for leading him astray about romance - and that may be the most universal moment in the whole movie.

Because though Summer embarks on a sort-of relationship with Tom, from the beginning she tells him she does not believe in love, she does not want "anything serious," and when he asks her what they are doing later into their time together, she doesn't give in and tell him what he wants to hear. They continue on, and she breaks it off with him in a scene where she calls herself the Sid to his Nancy - the scene happens early on, and it's hilarious.

The writer Neustadter apparently based this in part on his own relationship, and cringingly calls her out in the opening credits. But the breakup scene happens early on because the movie carries it's audience back and forth between day (1) and (500). We see the promising beginnings to the bleak post-breakup days.

The movie is a Rorschach test because people opine so differently on who they relate to or side with. Some people come away with thinking Summer is a complete and total bitch and Tom is their dream guy. The movie does a good job of making these characters three-dimensional, because I don't think you can make any black-and-white decisions about these two personalities. And Summer, I believe, is so misconstrued as "the bitch" to some people, I can't grasp it - do people hate her character because they are Toms that have been done in by a pretty girl before? Do they not see all of her verbalized views of the non-relationship? Did they also watch The Graduate the way that Tom did in the movie?

Summer is not the villain here - there are no villains - but it's quite telling if someone watches this movie and makes her out to be the bad guy. That's someone that can't see what's right in front of them at all. They are missing the social cues. And Tom, for much of the time, does too. He's the romantic, she's the realist - and that's all there is to it. I think people get a little too caught up in the gender roles we normally see in film, and this movie turns it around.

Fortunately, that's what makes the movie layered and interesting. Not everybody who falls in love are meant to be together forever. Also, it's the prettiest I've ever seen Los Angeles, the editing is perfect, and the script entreats you to consider your own romantic dealings. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel play the main characters wonderfully, and Webb (previously a music video director) makes a strong and beautifully shot feature-length directorial debut. (And bonus points for a GREAT soundtrack!)

The Best: Zooey's all blue-eyed beauty and adorableness, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt knocked it out the park with his emotional wavering between happy-dancing and all-out depression. (He also "knocks it out of the park" during some choreography in a hysterical song-and-dance number!)

Fact: I had noticed all the blue in the movie (particularly the outfits of all those dancers!), but apparently it was a director decision to do so in order to bring out the color of Ms. Deschanel's very blue eyes (which is very hard to miss!).

Rating: ********* (9 out of 10)