Much like The Shawshank Redemption a few years later, The Princess Bride didn't find an audience until it reached the rental aftermarket ...
If you haven't seen it, The Princess Bride is a swashbuckling romance/comedy (as distinct from a romantic comedy) of the first order. Told as a story within a story, the movie opens with a doddering grandfather (the hilarious Peter Falk) insisting on reading a book to his skeptical grandson (Fred Savage) who is home from school with the sniffles.
"When I was your age, television was called books."
So what's in this book? Glad you asked.
"Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles ..."
"Doesn't sound too bad. I'll try to stay awake."
"Oh, well, thank you very much, very nice of you. Your vote of confidence is overwhelming."
After that, the story — stuffed with the aforementioned swashbuckling, romance and raucous comedy — unfolds on screen, although Peter Falk helpfully pops in from time to time:
"She doesn't get eaten by the eels at this time."
"What?!?"
"The eel doesn't get her. I'm explaining to you because you look nervous."
"I wasn't nervous. Maybe I was a little bit concerned, but that's not the same thing."
Stars Cary Elwes and Robin Wright as the young lovers, Chris Sarandon as the evil Prince Humperdinck, Wallace Shawn as an assassin for hire, Mandy Patinkin and Andre the Giant as his morally-conflicted henchmen, and Billy Crystal and Carol Kane as, respectively, a down-on-his-luck wizard and his no-nonsense wife.
Based on the book of the same name by legendary screenwriter William Goldman, The Princess Bride is endlessly quotable:
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
"We'll never survive."
"Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has."
"Inconceivable!"
"You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders — the most famous of which is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia' — but only slightly less well-known is this: 'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!'"
"Have fun storming the castle!"
And many others.
The Princess Bride was directed by Rob Reiner in the middle of one of the greatest runs of great movies any director has ever had — This Is Spinal Tap, The Sure Thing, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery and A Few Good Men. The train came off the tracks after that and I really have no idea what Rob Reiner's been up to the last thirty years. But for a while there, he was as good as anybody ever.
So. If you haven't seen The Princess Bride, see it. And if you have, treat yourself and see it again. One of the Monkey's all-time faves.
My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.
This is one of those years I exercised the "dingoes ate mah baby!" card and skipped over very actor-ly, Oscar-nominated performances by Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep in Ironweed, a mediocre and largely-forgotten drama about a couple of skid row drunks. I opted instead for a pair of iconic performances that the Academy ignored, John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing.
If you don't like it, you've come to the wrong place.
My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.
My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.
What a deep year for movies. The movies I didn't nominate — Au Revoir Les Enfants, Babette's Feast, The Dead, Full Metal Jacket, House of Games, Predator, Radio Days, Raising Arizona, RoboCop, Withnail & I, among others — would make a credible top ten in most any other year.
Some years are so thin, it's hard to find a winner, much less ten solid nominees. Other years, one's cup overfloweth. Oh, well. That's the life of an alternate Oscar junkie.
Empire of the Sun was the pivot on which Steven Spielberg's career turned. Before, it was all pure fun and escapism; after, his films are characterized by deep shadows.
Ostensibly, Empire of the Sun is the story of one boy's experiences during World War II as he survives internment in a Japanese prison camp in China, but more broadly speaking, it's about the end of childhood.
Childhood is characterized above all by a sense of invulnerability, the fantasy that you're the center of the universe, that everyone is watching you, everyone cares what happens to you. Growing up is largely a process of being disabused of this notion, from the first time you fall and skin your knee, to the dream that didn't come true, to the death of someone important to you. It's a nearly universal experience, that moment of passing through something and coming out the other end changed forever, so much so that when once in a blue moon, you meet someone who's never had life kick them in the ass, they're like freaks with two heads.
But their moment is coming. It comes for everybody eventually.
PICTURE (Drama) winner:Empire Of The Sun (prod. Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall)
PICTURE (Comedy/Musical) winner:The Princess Bride (prod. Rob Reiner and Andrew Scheinman)
PICTURE (Foreign Language) winner:Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire) (prod. Anatole Dauman and Wim Wenders)
ACTOR (Drama) winner: Joe Mantegna (House of Games)
ACTOR (Comedy/Musical) winner: Nicolas Cage (Raising Arizona and Moonstruck)
ACTRESS (Drama) winner: Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction)
ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical) winner: Cher (Moonstruck)
DIRECTOR (Drama) winner: Wim Wenders (Der Himmel über Berlin a.k.a. Wings of Desire)
DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical) winner: Rob Reiner (The Princess Bride)
SUPPORTING ACTOR winner: Peter Falk (Der Himmel über Berlin a.k.a. Wings of Desire and The Princess Bride)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS winner: Anjelica Huston (The Dead)
SCREENPLAY winner: William Goldman, from his novel (The Princess Bride)
Named for Katie-Bar-The-Door, the Katies are "alternate Oscars"—who should have been nominated, who should have won—but really they're just an excuse to write a history of the movies from the Silent Era to the present day.
To see a list of nominees and winners by decade, as well as links to my essays about them, click the highlighted links:
Remember: There are no wrong answers, only movies you haven't seen yet.
The Silent Oscars
And don't forget to check out the Silent Oscars—my year-by-year choices for best picture, director and all four acting categories for the pre-Oscar years, 1902-1927.
Look at me—Joe College, with a touch of arthritis. Are my eyes really brown? Uh, no, they're green. Would we have the nerve to dive into the icy water and save a person from drowning? That's a key question. I, of course, can't swim, so I never have to face it. Say, haven't you anything better to do than to keep popping in here early every morning and asking a lot of fool questions?
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