"Inconceivable!" ~ a Princess Bride Reunion for NYFF
Monday, September 24, 2012 at 11:31AM Hot off the presses! And given our wee Carol Kane tangent recently, we'll have fun storming this castle...
The director and cast of the adventure comedy classic The Princess Bride (1987), including Rob Reiner, Billy Crystal, Cary Elwes, Carol Kane, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon and Robin Wright, will reunite for a 25th anniversary special screening and Q & A at the 50th New York Film Festival on Tuesday October 2nd at 8:00 PM! Tickets will undoubtedly go fast for this one.
Oscar Trivia: It's worth noting that the Academy's bias against "light" movies can often cast them in an unflattering light historically. The Princess Bride only enjoyed one nomination -- a Best Original Song nomination at that -- in its year. It didn't even get a screenplay nomination which seems to strain all belief in hindsight. 1987's Oscar favorites were far from an anti-populist crop (Two Best Picture nominees, the wondrous Moonstruck, which definitely holds up in 2012, and the thriller Fatal Attraction were both blockbuster hits and Broadcast News was a major success, too) it's arguably The Princess Bride that remains 1987's most universally beloved film.
Miracle Max (Billy Crystal) and his wife (Carol Kane) in The Princess Bride (1987)
Does it make your top ten list from 1987? It made mine.
Reader Comments (26)
Not just top ten, it makes my ballot and comes up just shy of the win! 1987 was a superb year for film, but this beloved classic is one for the ages. It is the perfect blend of camp and wit, creating a film I can laugh at and laugh with. It's SO MUCH FUN, not to mention one of the first films my wife and I bonded over. Our mutual love of this film is one thing I can hold on to forever ;-)
I never get he love for this film,i have tried and tried to see the speciallness in it and just can't.
Not at all.
The Princess Bride is my Bronze for Picture, beat by Withnail & I (plot is fairly thin, but it's lightning fast with the dark humour and that's before we get to the truth that the central thematic conceit is that the whole film is a meditation on the disintegrating viability of asexual awareness sparking into the sexually decadent 70s and 80s, ending on a scene I think often gets misinterpreted: The ending scene's not meant to indicate Withnail's a great actor (though I admire normal people thinking that, showing how well loved Withnail is as a character in Britain), he's just using a Shakespeare speech to admit his asexuality to an audience of wolves. Which might as well be people considering he's walking into the 1970s. Thought about like that, it actually seems a bit darker (in some ways) than that original "killed drinking from a wine filled gun" ending, doesn't it?) and Evil Dead 2 (an even thinner narrative that, mostly, serves to show off Bruce Campbell's physical dexterity) taking Silver Picture and Gold Actor and Gold Picture and Silver Actor respectively.
Yes, it does. Not sure what else I'd stuff in the entire top 10 for that year, but it would surely include Fatal Attraction, Raising Arizona, Moonstruck, Broadcast News, Dirty Dancing (shut up), and The Witches of Eastwick (be quiet). But, all of my friends loved it too. (I was born in the mid-70s ... don't know if that had anything to do with it) For a while, I thought there was something missing, that there was an epic-ness not there that should have been. But, then its quaintness won me over. There was an innocence that appealed to my snarkier self. So, maybe it's a nostalgia thing (for me). It was just cool that Rob Reiner was able to collect THAT CAST of actors and direct a whimsical tale that hadn't over-saturated the culture like today's fantasy's do.
So, now that I've revealed my top three, here's the rest of my top ten:
Raising Arizona
Fatal Attraction
The Untouchables
Good Morning, Vietnam
Radio Days
Predator
RoboCop
I still have so much to see from this year, but my current top ten looks like so:
1) My Life as a Dog
2) The Princess Bride
3) Wings of Desire
4) Broadcast News
5) Raising Arizona
6) Au Revoir, les Enfants
7) The Dead
8) Full Metal Jacket
9) Fatal Atraction
10) Throw Momma From the Train
I don't really believe in the idea of a 'perfect' film.
But if I did? The Princess Bride would be one.
There are still some movies from 1987 that I have to see, but of these are my favorites from the movies I've seen:
(in alphabetical order)
Empire Of The Sun
Full Metal Jacket
Moonstruck
Planes, Trains, And Automobiles
The Princess Bride
Raising Arizona
River's Edge
Withnail & I
Princess Bride had a song in it? I've seen that movie dozens of times of times and don't remember a song. Wait, maybe some kind of instrumental?
Not in my top ten of that year but pretty close. It's one of those movies that even my undergrads know lines from, even though it was made before they were born
Beau: I agree that there's no truly "perfect" film. For me, though, there's sixty-one A+ films that come as close as humanly possible. Evil Dead 2 (34) and Withnail & I (56) you know already. The rest are:
1. Eraserhead
2. Dr. Strangelove
3. M (no genre is more indebted to sound than the thriller)
4. Pandora's Box
5. Bicycle Thieves
6. It's a Wonderful Life
7. The Bride of Frankenstein
8. The Night of the Hunter
9. Far From Heaven
10. Kind Hearts and Coronets
11. Sunrise
12. The Man Who Would be King
13. Brazil
14. Amelie
15. Miller's Crossing
16. A Clockwork Orange
17. Before Sunset
18. Local Hero
19. A Matter of Life and Death
20. I Am Cuba
21. Seven Samurai
22. Spartacus
23. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
24. Schindler's List
25. Taxi Driver
26. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
27. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
28. Harold and Maude
29. 2001
30. Fitzcarraldo
31. Lawrence of Arabia
32. A Man for All Seasons
33. The Thin Red Line
35. Andrei Rublev
36. Come and See
37. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
38. Oldboy
39. Citizen Kane
40. 8 1/2
41. Blue Velvet
42. Once Upon a Time in the West
43. Pulp Fiction
44. Once Upon a Time in America
45. Heat
46. The Godfather
47. Edward Scissorhands
48. Fight Club
49. The Big Lebowski
50. LOTR Trilogy
51. Raging Bull
52. Donnie Darko
53. The Wages of Fear
54. Heimat
55. The Third Man
57. Apocalypse Now
58. The 400 Blows
59. Chinatown
60. On the Waterfront
61. Touch of Evil
Volvagia -- back on topic, man ;)
Christine -- i seem to remember lyrics? it was called "Storybook Love". maybe i'm imagining it? anyone?
everyone -- i'm glad to see that people still remember The Dead. and Moonstruck. Moonstruck so needs a revival in public. it's just perfection. and so modest, really but every moment...
Christine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ifSUhwmIMU
(I didn't like it originally, but boy did I eventually fall in love with it)
Princess Bride was at the top of my list for 1987!
I was in about 6th grade then, so most of my favorite films from the year are firmly rooted in childhood nostalgia.
- Steve Martin was my comedy GOD in the 80's and his performance in Roxanne will always be one of my favorites.
-Adventures in Babysitting cemented my boyhood crush on Elizabeth Shue.
-Mary Stuart Masterson was heartbreaking in Some Kind of Wonderful. Was Lea Thompson in love with a-holes in every film she made?
-Can't Buy Me Love cemented my boyhood crush on Patrick Dempsy.
-Spaceballs!! Genius.
-One of my all time favorite guilty pleasures is Mannequin.
Then a few that made the list after I got older...
-Christian Bale in Empire of the Sun.
-The epic beauty of The Last Emperor.
-The "how the F did his first Oscar nomination not come until 2011" performance by Gary Oldman in Prick Up Your Ears.
-Snap out of it! Cher was so amazing in Moonstruck. I didn't understand the film at the time, but she was captivating.
1. broadcast news
2. raising arizona
3. prick up your ears
4. the princess bride
5. hope & glory
6. law of desire
Not in my top 10 but somewhere in the top 15. That list would probably run:
1. 84 Charing Cross Road
2. Baby Boom
3. Adventures in Babysitting
4. Moonstruck
5. Maurice
6. Broadcast News
7. Suspect
8. Outrageous Fortune
9. No Way Out
10. Stakeout
11. Prick Up Your Ears
12. Overboard
13. Radio Days
14. Princess Bride
15. Roxanne
It makes my list, and Mandy Patinkin (how was he not in the line-up last night for Homeland?) takes home a bronze for his performance as Inigo Montoya. There's no way this movie wouldn't have won an Ensemble SAG if they'd been around back then...
Nope still don't get it.moonstruck is my best pic for 87.
I liked Moonstruck, and felt that Olympia's Oscar win was glorious, but it just isn't one of my favorites. Cher was great, but I don't even think she'd make my ballot.
Robin Wright does though.
Only 9 for 1989!
Any chance When Harry Met Sally could make your 10?
Moonstruck, not to get off topic, is a superb film. Shanley and Jewison created an opera in modern day New York. Everything is bigger than life because they're trying to make the most of it. Best thing Cage ever did.
Diane Keaton should have been nommed for Baby Boom. She is sublime in this!
Its official I despise Cher's victory. Why? Aside from being the weakest nominee in the category—I just found out that Glenn Close's favorite Madonna album is Erotica.
The criminally underrated Christine Lahti should have snuck onto the list for Housekeeping. Bill Forsyth's gem was powered by Lahti's brilliant underplaying.
Wow. I had forgotten that 1987 was such an amazing cinematic year. The Princess Bride is truly one of the most delightful films ever, and certainly right up there with the best of the year! Often, when our household is crazy, I yell out "the cliffs of insanity!" (with the lisp, of course.)
This is why I love your blog, Nathaniel! New, old, foreign, actress-y, beefcake-y, and yes, Moonstruck needs a revival. "Do ya love him, Loretta?" ..."Oh, that's too bad."
To Brookesboy: Great shout-out for Christine Lahti in Housekeeping. I love her, and like Kate Nelligan, I wish she was in more screen stuff. Can't always make it to Broadway.
Pam, Christine has never gotten the acclaim she deserves because she's never gotten the roles she deserves. She's one of the best...I also think she was snubbed for Sidney Lumet's fine drama Running On Empty. For this, she was crowned best actress by the LA Film Critics.She should have gotten an Oscar nom. I know 1988 was a tough race, but I would have taken off Meryl and put in Christine instead.