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Diversion of the Day: The Ted Pirate Roberts
Apparently Sen. Ted Cruz is a fan of The Princess Bride. A really, really big fan. While speaking at a Des Moines church Sunday, the presidential candidate reenacted a scene involving many of the film’s most loved characters:
Pretty good impression, if you’re into that kind of thing. I would have preferred a long riff from the vastly superior Rob Reiner film, This is Spinal Tap. Maybe the Artie Fufkin scene in the record store or a five-minute-long video of Cruz stumbling around backstage, shouting “rock ‘n’ roll!” (It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.)
Here’s where I need to offer my somewhat controversial opinion of The Princess Bride. Despite it being so adored by so many of my fellow Gen X-ers, I thought the movie was just … okay. Not terrible, not great, just kind of meh.
Of course, any time I say this, I’m pilloried by outraged fans (much like Kat Timpf suffered regarding Star Wars) who try to convince me of the film’s unparalleled brilliance by quoting its most famous lines at me, ad nauseum. Attack me if you must, but Spinal Tap was Reiner’s masterpiece. For anyone to think otherwise is inconceivable.
Published in Entertainment
I would have preferred any of the swordfights with Mandy Patinkin “You killed my father… prepare to die”
I love the film, too. Lots of fun, good lines, and over-the-top stereotypes.
I had the book read to me years before the movie came out. It was a WONDERFUL book.
By the way, we have an ongoing fight in our house. “Inconceivable” means precisely what he thinks it means. He cannot conceive of the things that happen, therefore they are inconceivable.
You keep using that word…
I had read reports of Cruz’s ability to recite dialog from certain movies but nothing prepared me this exhibition of talent. I had never seen The Princess Bride but Cruz verbally set up that scene and then made it come alive. He had me chuckling at a scene I had never seen.
OK, Cruz’s campaign needs to contrive getting him to do something like this on some late-night talk show. This could become Cruz’s Bill Clinton playing the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show moment. Or something like that.
Jeb!’s campaign = Rob Reiner’s North (see Roger Ebert’s review)
It is a funny, lovely movie with decisions that surprise. What turns it into a great movie is the abrupt change of tone when Inigo finally corners Rugen. Instead of a drama with a moment of comic relief, this movie is a comic with a moment of dramatic relief.
SPOILER ALERT ON THIS CLIP:
Also, read the book. You’ll see that Goldman’s book and script is ninety per cent responsible for how good this movie is. The book is itself a book within a book, with the author complaining about how much of the story is taken up by ridiculous genealogies.
The first half of The Princess Bride was absolutely masterful, but the second half was absolutely weak and forgettable.
I picked up The Princess Bride on DVD recently — it’s a family favorite — and was delighted to find a cast reunion in its special features. Less Andre the Giant, unfortunately.
YES. Wow. As for the rest of the movie, it was cute but meh. And I’m also Gen-X and have also been drummed out of the club a time or two for the heresy of not adoring The Princess Bride.
I do not understand women. Mandy Patinkin’s Inigo is the hottest character in the film by any objective measure. Dashing swordsman, brave in the face of impossible odds, pious, faces his death with quiet dignity twice, and the second time then decides, no -today is not a good day to die.
Westly is a Mary Sue of the worst order -with the rules of the universe literally bowing to make him the hero.
Yeah, I, as child of a divorce on which the ink was still drying when this film came out, felt those words “I want my father back, you…” with every fibre of my being. I don’t think I was alone.
It was written by William Goldman, a writer who really knows how to craft memorable work, with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid being perhaps his most famous original screenplay.
“Who are those guys???”
Thank you for this! I am also in the “Princess Bride is OK but nothing special” club. You would think that I am for serving kittens with a nice tangy General Tso’s sauce by the reactions I get from my friends.
By the way, the only truly brilliant way to send up Spinal Tap would be to have a candidate standing behind a 4″ podium.
So many people are turned off by Ted Cruz, but I just don’t get why. He seems very personable to me. I believe I would find him charming even if I didn’t agree with his politics. Marco Rubio is more charming than Cruz, but not hugely so. Rubio is better looking than Cruz, and I’m not sure how much that is a factor in how likable each one is.
I’m with you here. I like them both quite a lot and would rather the not snipe at each other during the primaries. Save your fire for the bad guys, men.
As a blondy, I would think you’d like that the ladies are preferring the blond over the dark, rico suave guy.
They don’t do Bill Clinton moments for Republicans. Colbert would probably turn it into an indictment. “Ha ha, very good Senator, nice impression. You’re very funny about health care to movie characters, so tell me why you want to take away American’s health care, you hypocrite? WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA, SENATOR???”
That descends from the ceiling, as he goes “Hello Cleveland!
Aargh! Even on Ricochet the Gen-Xers are woefully short on history. Were there no movies made before your births?
You want a really funny movie with innumerable quotable lines? Watch Airplane. “Hospital? What is it?” “A big building with lots of patients but never mind that now.”
Go back further in movie history and watch any / all of the Marx Brothers movies. Quotable for generations.
“One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I’ll never know.”
Now get off the lawn!
Airplane is classic. Someone the other day said “Surely,…” and I replied, “…., and don’t call me Shirley.” Classic, and so sad when people don’t understand the reference.
Actually not quibbling with this at all. Inigo is the real hero of the film. Elwes is simply prettier, and they gave Patinkin godawful hair.
I never said I wasn’t shallow. :D
I had no idea that the hero was good looking. I always assumed he looked like a tosser. And after the unbelievable description of the heroine in the book, I was disappointed by Buttercup’s appearance.
The movies is great because of everyone else.
But as a monastic professor, I am above such concerns.
Thanks to Mark Knopfler.
Yeah, he went a long way from The Princess Bride to Ella Enchanted.
Oh yeah, time has not been kind to Cary Elwes.
I’m glad someone else said it. I don’t get the appeal of Guest. Although he did appear in “Death Wish”, so bonus points for that. Not nearly as cool as John Derbyshire appearing as an uncredited thug in Bruce Lee’s “The Way of the Dragon”.
Actually since I was about 9 when this movie came out and a few years later would end up having a huge crush on Fred Savage, that is probably another reason I loved that movie, and binge watched it when I was in the 5th grade.
Ok, Francis… ;-)