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The Princess Bride (1987)
The Princess Bride (1987)
1987 | Adventure, Fantasy, Romance
Andre the giant (6 more)
Story
Wallace Shawn
Mandy Patinkin
Cary elwes
Robin Wright
Rob Reiner
Why it's taken me so long to see it (0 more)
Finally seen this movie why it's taken me so long to see it I don't know but now I'm glad I did I liked it it has drama comedy likeable leads plus Andre the giant in an acting role and plenty of lines u could quote back would I watch again yes
  
The Princess Bride (1987)
The Princess Bride (1987)
1987 | Adventure, Fantasy, Romance
Phenomenal Casting (2 more)
Terrific writing
Great scenery
Nothing (0 more)
Epic Adventure Awaits!
My favorite movie of all time. I have seen this movie over a million times it seems. I can never get enough. The chemistry between Mandy Patinkin, Andre the Giant and Shawn Wallace is amazing. Billy Crystal is Miracle Max, adlibbing his way through the movie is total genius. Who wouldn't love an adorable blonde pirate played by Cary Elwes and Buttercup played by Robin Wright, in her first movie role. This is a not to be missed movie. Fun for all ages.
  
The Princess Bride (1987)
The Princess Bride (1987)
1987 | Adventure, Fantasy, Romance
'Hello. My name is Inigo Montaya. You killed my father. Prepare to die'

'Inconceivable!'
'Why do you keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means'

'You fell prey to one of the great mistakes. There are two: one is never get involved in a land war in Asia ...' (I'm paraphrasing the intro there)

'Rodents of unusual size? I don't think they exist' (cue getting attacked by just that ...)

One of those perfectly cast movies, framed as been told by an elderly grandfather to his sick grandson, this is a 1980s classic and - quite obviously, in retrospect - almost perfectly provided the template for Antonio Bandera's Zorro (or Puss in Boots) in the character of Inigo Montaya, as portrayed here by Mandy Patinkin (who also, trivia fans, has the film's sole swear word: 'I want my father back, you son of a ...')
  
Life Itself (2018)
Life Itself (2018)
2018 | Drama, Romance
Love Actually with all the saccharine squeezed out.
Not the documentary of the same name from 2014 about the critic Rogert Ebert. This is an Amazon Studios/Sky Cinema Original Film (trying to follow where Netflix is boldly going), and as such it only had a very limited release in UK cinemas which I managed to miss.

The plot.
This is an anthology film in the style of “Crash” or – actually, “Love Actually” – featuring a series of inter-linked stories. We start with a depressed Will (Oscar Isaac) flashing back to his apparently idyllic life with pregnant wife Abby (Olivia Wilde). Apparantly? Well, perhaps the narrator is unreliable. So what actually happened? Where is Abby now? Where is his child?

Mid-film we switch into a Spanish-language section, set in Spain, featuring an ambitious olive-picker Javier González (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), his sweetheart Isabel (Laia Costa) and his employer Mr. Saccione (Antonio Banderas).

(“What the F!”, you are saying to yourself at this point, “How is this all related?”).

To say any more would provide spoilers: but, confused as you may be, it’s a journey worth sticking with.

Messing with time and your mind.
The film plays fast and loose with chronology and we zap backwards and forwards through the story which can be unsettling. It’s a film that keeps you on your toes, and you need to listen to director/writer Dan Fogelman‘s dialogue as there are clues as to where you are going next. It’s certainly not the ‘sit-back-and-relax’ “rom-com” that I mistakenly sold it to my wife as for our evening viewing!

A star of the film is the editor Julie Monroe (“Midnight Special“). There are some significant twists in the film, some of which are well signposted; others very much not so!

The turns
Has Oscar Isaac done a bad film? (I’m sure some haters of the latest Star Wars episodes might have an answer!). Here he has to execute an enormous range and he just about pulls it off. Olivia Wilde is also convincing as Abby.

In the Spanish section, Antonio Banderas is as impressive as you expect, and Laia Costa – an actress not previously known to me – is initially good as the young love interest, but I thought she was rather over-extended in the later scenes in her story.

Elsewhere, the rising star Olivia Cooke again impresses as a troubled teen; Annette Bening is a psychologist; “Homeland”‘s Mandy Patinkin plays Will’s father; and an f-ing and blinding Samuel L Jackson even appears at the start of the film (a blink and you’d miss it line of dialogue explains the context).

Good?
I wasn’t expecting to, but I really enjoyed this one. I’ve read some completely eviscerating reviews of the movie, but I’ve not sure where those were coming from. I found it a non-standard journey requiring a level of intelligence to appreciate the nuances of the script. My guess would be that many of the naysayers on IMDB never made it past the Spanish interlude. Others will not have liked the coincidence in the final reel (no spoilers). I do appreciate that it needs a suspension of belief. But this is a movie about the random coincidences of life. I remember running into a work colleague on the backstreets of Lone Pine in California, 5,271 miles away from where we both worked. Coincidences DO happen.

I’m not a fan of this whole new “almost straight to streaming” approach: I wish I could have seen this one on the big screen. But my view would be that it’s well worth catching if you have access to Amazon or Sky services (Sky or Now TV in the UK).