February Film Club

Howdy folks!

Wow, it's February already, January seemed to fly by, now, if only the cold and gray would fly by as well and get on with Spring, but such is life in the Midwest.

In keeping with past February Film Clubs, I thought I would show another romantic film.  Some of the past years have included: Casablanca, (500) Days of Summer, and The Purple Rose of Cairo.  This year (and kind of coincidentally) I have chosen another film directed by Rob Reiner.  We will be watching The Princess Bride.

The Princess Bride is a 1987 American romantic fantasy-adventure comedy film directed and co-produced by Rob Reiner, and starring Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, and Christopher Guest.  Adapted by William Goldman from his 1973 novel of the same name, it tells the story about a farmhand named Westley, accompanied by befriended companions along the way, who must rescue his true love Princess Buttercup from the odious Prince Humperdinck.  The story is presented in the film as a book being read by a grandfather (Peter Falk) to his sick grandson (Fred Savage), thus effectively preserving the novel's narrative style.

In 2016, the film was inducted into the National Film Registry, being deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."  The film received critical acclaim.  On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 97% certified fresh rating based on 64 reviews.  Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film "two thumbs up" on their tv show, and Ebert gave the film 3 and a half stars saying this in his review, "The Princess Bride reveals itself as a sly parody of sword and sorcery movies, a film that somehow manages to exist on two levels at once:  While younger viewers will sit spellbound at the thrilling events on the screen, adults, I think, will be laughing a lot.  In its own peculiar way, The Princess Bride resembles This is Spinal Tap, an earlier film by the same director, Rob Reiner.  Both films are funny not only because they contain comedy, but because Reiner does justice to the underlying form of his story.  "Spinal Tap" looked and felt like a rock-documentary-and then it was funny.  The Princess Bride looks and feels like Legend or any of those other quasi-heroic epic fantasies- and then it goes for the laughs.  Part of the secret is that Reiner never stays with the same laugh very long.  There are a lot of people for his characters to meet as they make their long journey, and most of them are completely off the wall.  The Princess Bride was adapted by William Goldman from his own novel, which he says was inspired by a book he read as a child, but which seems to have been cheerfully transformed by his wicked adult imagination.  It is filled with good-hearted fun, with performances by actors who seem to be smacking their lips and by a certain true innocence that survives all of Reiner's satire."

We will be meeting Thursday, Feb. 16th at 6:15 pm

I hope you can come on out and join us for this wonderfully fun and funny film.

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtj_Ix5IUo8