Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Finding the Princess Bride again

Last night, my husband and I had Dog Whisperer on as kind of background noise/filler as we were both working. It's a favorite of ours (in spite of the fact that we don't have a dog), and when the show was over, there was an ad for Cesar's book. At that point, my husband turned to me and asked for it for his birthday.

Since his birthday is a month away, I was a good wife and promptly got on Amazon to order it. I tossed in a cd from my wishlist, found a cookbook that was on sale that looked interesting, and realized I needed to spend just a little bit more to get the free shipping. So I went to look at DVDs that were on sale.

And lo and behold, they had the 20th anniversary Princess Bride DVD on sale.

I love this movie. It's on my list of top 10 favorite movies of all time. I love its innocence, its romantic soul, its humor. Fred Savage always cracks me up with his wry little face and, "Is this a kissing book?" I loved this so much when I first saw it that I went out and bought the novel the movie was based on. And it's exactly like the movie, which means I love Rob Reiner for recognizing a gem when he saw it and not tampering with all the best parts. I had always assumed the Billy Crystal/Carol Kane sections were created to utilize the actors' skills, but no, Miracle Max and his wife are *exactly* like that in the book.

As much as I loved the central romance (though maybe not the characters on their own), the character that gets to me every single time is Inigo Montoya. Ah, now there's a hero worthy of a romance. Driven his entire life to look for the man who killed his father. Falling into hard times when it looks like he's failed again. Rising to the challenge when he finally gets his chance. All Inigo needs is a romance, though I can just hear Pepper whispering, "You know Inigo and Fezzik are secret lovers, don't you?"

There is one serious drawback to dwelling on my adoration of this movie. It inspires plot bunnies, which just makes my idea list for stories even longer. Maybe I'll pull out my old VHS tape and give it another go today. I'm feeling nostalgic for it today.

"Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while."

How can you not love that?

3 comments:

Cathy M said...

This movie makes my top ten list too, my kids just bought the dvd for my Christmas present. Though, I did have to promise not to watch it while they were home, lol. What's with that!!

Vivien Dean said...

This is one of the movies I'm going to introduce to my daughter as soon as it arrives from Amazon. She just turned 8, so I think she's finally at an age where she can appreciate it.

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