Fiction Friday: The Princess Bride
In hindsight, I probably should’ve consulted my sister first. But we hold these truths to be self-evident, that the book is always better than the movie. Or perhaps the exception proves the rule, though I’ve never understood how this could be so.
In any case, The Princess Bride is a charming film, perhaps one of the mostest charmingest ones of all time. (I just gave it to a friend as a late, late Christmas gift, due to his having never seen it.)
The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure, by William Goldman, is not charming, and it’s rather shocking and disappointing just how uncharming it is.
Positioned as a redaction of an earlier work by S. Morgenstern, the book has a looooong introduction, stretching to about fifty pages of tiresome descriptions of the author’s history with the book and his struggles to pass his affection for it on to his chubby son. And no, I didn’t mention chubby randomly. The fatness of his fictional son is a major topic in the introduction. Tiresome.
Of course, the entire introduction is fictional, except perhaps the parts about the filming of the movie adaptation. In my mind, though, it was a mistake to even mention the movie, because it’s actually hard to believe the screenplay and the novel were written by the same person.
Actually, I didn’t find the introduction nearly so offensive as I’m coming off here. For the first ten or fifteen pages, that is. In fact, I was actually taken in a bit by the fictional history of the book at first. Until the first few mentions of Florinese history were made. I’m not the most credulous person, so I did a quick Wikipedia search and found what I suspected: the “history” was all fiction.
And don’t get me wrong here, the fictional history thing is actually somewhat charming as far as it goes, but then it keeps going and going. And going.
Nevertheless, I slogged through the introduction, figuring that it would be a somewhat tedious setup to one of the all-time charming books. Alas, no.
I actually found the prose in this book to be strikingly similar to that of Ladies and Gentlemen: The Bible!, which if you recall was the worst book I read last year.
It’s not that the writing is bad, so much as it’s just not to my taste. Authors are not obliged to please me with their writing, so that’s fine, and others may find the writing readable. I just didn’t. It was filled with asides and parentheticals (from “Morgenstern”), in addition to Goldman’s “notes” about his abridgement, the latter of which never did anything but annoy me.
But it’s not just the writing, either. I didn’t care for the characters. Buttercup is a twit, Westley is something of a chauvinist, and Inigo is a bit full of himself and his mad sword skilz. (I can’t say anything bad about Fezzik, however.)
Vizzini was enjoyable, of course, and I can’t say there were no passages I liked in the book. In fact, I’m forced to admit that after enduring a one and a half hundred pages or so, I adjusted to the style and enjoyed some passages a bit. Who’s not going to enjoy the Battle of Wits? Or Fezzik’s fight with Westley?
(The fight which contains a modification of one of my favorite lines, after Fezzik asks the Man in Black why he wears a mask, wondering if he was burned by acid or something: “Oh, no, it’s just they’re terribly comfortable. I think everyone’ll be wearing them in the future.”)
Still and all, the little highlights don’t add up to much. The book fails by every comparison to the movie, and it’s a cryin’ shame. I’m still not sure how the screenplay could be so brilliant and the novel so inane. It’s a mystery.
A quick warning about the ending, too. It’s left somewhat ambiguous, but it’s ambiguously negative, which fits after the author’s frequent asides about how life isn’t fair. So if you were looking for the ending with the Top Kiss of All Time, you won’t find it. The Kiss is described on page 59, and it’s Buttercup and Westley’s first kiss.
Of course, I invite disagreements or commiseration from anyone else who’s read this book. Maybe I’m being too tough on it. Lob me a comment if you’re in either camp.
(Oh, I should probably also mention that this edition of The Princess Bride included the first chapter of Buttercup’s Baby, the supposed sequel. I didn’t read it. Maybe I should have, but I was just not inclined to read any more that I absolutely had to. It would’ve been seventy (!) pages I’d never have gotten back.)
Avatar, Road Runner
You see what I did here? I went from Monday Morning Musings to MMM to MM, and now nothing at all. Which means I can do this on Tuesday if I want to. And I do.
So I finally went to see Avatar, probably one of the only movies I’ll see in the theater this year. My Esteemed Partner in Pavement Pounding and I caught the 3D version, though three hours later than we planned (earlier show sold out).
What shall I say about the movie? Well, in terms of plot, I think this YouTube says it rather well:
Plot aside, it’s definitely something to see. I enjoyed the 3D experience, after an initial adjustment period. What I liked was that you didn’t get hit over the head with it. It just added depth to the imagery.
(BTW, Ender’s Game needs to be done in 3-D.)
As you’ve probably read in other places, most of the characters are cardboard cutouts. The Giovanni Ribisi character (slimy corporate exec) could’ve been written by a computer. And it’s a shame, because he’s a fine actor.
By comparison, Paul Reiser’s Carter Burke in Aliens looked like Hamlet. (Don’t get me wrong on Burke…he was a good slimy character.)
Stephen Lang, so brilliant as Stonewall Jackson in Gods and Generals, is quite underused as the grizzled “Kill ‘Em All and Let God Sort ‘Em Out” military leader. But he was totally believable in the role.
Sigourney Weaver was lovely, as usual, and her character actually showed some growth. Ditto for Sam Worthington, who nicely pulled off a character torn between two worlds, struggling to remember which was “real.”
But the real breakthrough of the movie was the fact that the performance-capture technology used to portray the Na’vi worked really well. I didn’t find myself thinking about the CGI when watching the “actors.”
I did think about the CGI when just enjoying the depth of the environment Mr. Cameron created. It really was astounding. I’ll be curious how it translates to the small screen, especially the small screen in my house, a 27” standard-def TV. I imagine it won’t quite work.
In all, the film succeeds on the level of pure spectacle well enough to outshine Cameron’s puerile political-correctness and some lousy scriptwriting.
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I’m officially a fan of Road Runner Sports. Until last week, they were my source for buying new Brooks Beasts. But no longer. My foot has been bugging me a bit, so I brought my Beasts into the store (while I was there picking up shoes for The Fair Elaine), and the Fit Expert asked me if I’d ever been on “The Thing.” The Thing is a cool techo-foot-analyzer-running-capture gizmo. They analyzed my arches and videoed me running barefoot on a treadmill.
(By the way, watching myself run in slo-mo? Horrifying. I hereby apologize to anyone who’s had the misfortune of seeing it in real time.)
I no longer have Brooks Beasts. I mourn somewhat, because “The Beast” is just a cool shoe name. I’m now in Brooks Adrenalines.
That’s right! They swapped out my more expensive shoes and gave me new Adrenalines and some money back. Keep in mind, I’d been running on The Beasts (my new ones) for several weeks. But they have a 60-day Perfect Fit guarantee. Awesome.
So now I have no excuse for slacking in my running.
Best Gig, Russell, Bleak House, Cranford, Blocks
Now that I’ve had my last Fireside Carolers gig of my first year, I can report that I plan on doing it again next year. For one thing, the time investment alone in learning the 50+ songs needs to be paid off. For another, I just love singing Christmas songs, and I really like the other folks in the group.
Saturday I participated in the shortest and best gig of the year for me. It was less than half an hour, but it was in a home, and we were a surprise for the guests. We sang to a room of appreciative and festive people, and if I might say, we sang brilliantly. I really wish I’d recorded it.
Sunday I was in my longest gig, singing at the Woodburn outlet stores for two hours, both in an octet and strolling with a quartet. It was a cool experience, but that house gig was just the kind of thing that really makes it worthwhile. Getting paid for it didn’t hurt, of course, but knowing we elevated the evening was even cooler.
It was a slow year, so I’m told, in terms of the number of gigs we had. At first, I was fine with this, because I thought it’d let me ease into things. But once I got into the swing of it, it was kind of a bummer that I didn’t get to sing more. There’s always next year, though.
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I’m not a rabid, crazy Survivor fan. I’ve even basically skipped a couple of seasons. But I know what I know. And I know Russell should’ve won last night. I’ve tried to see my way clear to Natalie winning, and I’m not saying she’s not at all deserving, because she was a beast in a couple of challenges, but Russell ruled this season. But I guess nobody should expect a Survivor jury to be objective.
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As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, we’re on a BBC trip right now. After thoroughly enjoying Little Dorrit, we took in Bleak House, which was written for the screen by the same writer as Dorrit.
On the whole, it was a good production. The acting was still terrific, and there were definitely memorable characters. But I definitely preferred Little Dorrit. In part, I think it’s because I loved the main two characters in it, and in Bleak House there was really only one character who provoked anything like the same affection.
(By the way, I was very impressed with Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock. At times I actually had to remind myself she’s not English.)
One thing about Bleak House that we found distracting was the directing. There were so many fast cuts and weird sound effects during transitions. Not sure what the director was going for, but it didn’t always work. (The sound effects reminded me for all the world of the popping sound preceding the Flame Spurt in the Fire Swamp in The Princess Bride. And when you’re watching Dickens, you don’t necessarily want to be thinking of ROUSes. Just saying.)
I should dutifully point out that regardless of our impressions of the series, “Oh, my bones!” and “Shake me up, Judy!” have made it into the Heasley lexicon.
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So we enjoyed Bleak House, though it didn’t measure up to Little Dorrit. On the other hand, Cranford was simply wonderful. I loves me some Dame Judy Dench, so the production had some built-in Seth-appeal. (See what I did there? Seth-appeal. It’s the new Internet buzzword. Or not. But “baby fishmouth” is sweeping the nation. Now, did you recognize not one, but two When Harry Met Sally references there?)
I will say that Cranford is somewhat, shall we say, estrogeny? Which makes it fairly hilarious for a guy who grew up in a household with four women in it. Actually, it was entirely hilarious in a few places. “There’s lace at stake!” It was also profoundly sad in places, so I don’t recommend it if you’re averse to sad. But it’s not Summersby or anything, so don’t worry about it having a bad ending.
Oh, and if you haven’t heard of Alex Etel, you probably will in the future, because he’s an amazing child-actor. Just incredible.
I just found out there’s another Cranford series out there, so we’ll be taking that in just as soon as my Library Hold Request goes through.
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Somehow, we’ve resisted getting a game console system, even though it seems most folks have one. I can think of a few reasons.
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We have a computer, and we can always get games for it.
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I’d rather not spend the money.
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I really don’t need to want to play video games more, and I’d rather read.
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I never had one growing up. Uphill. Both ways!
On the other hand, it might be fun to play with the Pancake-Eating Son sometimes. But then I’m reminded that sometimes, it’s the simplest kind of interaction that works best.
The other day, Ethan and I got out the wooden blocks. We made the Taj Mahal. Or at least that’s what we called it. Then we took turns running a die-cast car through the bottom of it, seeing how long it would take before we accidently took out a key support member.
Sixteen minutes, by the way.
(Ethan also made the Eiffel Tower, which he called the France Tower. Pictures of our wooden block creations can be viewed over on the Fair Elaine’s daily picture gallery.)
And now the boy frequently asks to build stuff and knock it over. We have approximately a bazillion Legos, and he wants to build with wooden blocks. So I guess we won’t be getting that Wii anytime soon. I don’t grieve over this.
Potluck, Shopping in a Tux, Robbie the Reindeer
Another week, another Fireside Carolers report. This weekend I got to drive out to Camas, WA, in questionable weather. (Though not so questionable as the onslaught of local weather coverage had hoped predicted.) It was my first quartet gig, and it could hardly have been less intimidating. We were basically background music at a party, and only a few people seemed to really notice we were there. So we got to sing some of the more challenging pieces and not worry about if there were some rough spots. So it worked as a rehearsal of sorts.
Sunday, I sang in an octet for Potluck in the Park, and that was awesome. It’s one of our outreach events where we volunteer our time, and it’s definitely a worthy cause, providing some cheer while anyone who shows up gets a hot meal. The place was packed and both the volunteers at the potluck and those being served were very appreciative of us. What a privilege to be involved in this kind of event. (BTW, it’s every Sunday that Potluck in the Park is put on.)
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After both the Saturday and Sunday gigs, I did some shopping in a tux. It was part, “it’s on the way home,” and part social experiment. And here’s my conclusion from the experiment:
Non-whites are just more friendly and open.
Seriously, if I think back to all the people who made comments about how I looked, I think there was only one white person over eighteen who made a comment who wasn’t actually working in a shop I was in. And the folks working in the shops might be expected to chat up the customers a bit.
I did get a few questions, mostly from teenaged girls, about whether I was getting married. But mostly, it was non-whites who just came right out and told me I was lookin’ good. It made me want to make sure to shake off some of my own interpersonal inhibitions and pay a compliment when one’s called for, even if the target is a total stranger.
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Somehow, movie lines are funnier when spoken with British accents. Such is definitely the case with the animated film Robbie the Reindeer in Hooves of Fire. I should warn at the outset that there’s another version of the film in which the voices are provided by such luminaries as Ben Stiller and Britney Spears. Nothing against Ben Stiller (Dodgeball cracked me up), but I can’t imagine the American version is anything but dreadful.
The story, and there’s not much to it, but who cares, is that Robbie, son of the famous Rudolph, joins up with the sleigh team, much to the chagrin of Blitzen, who feels that Rudolph gets too much press that should rightly go to him.
He doesn’t think much of Robbie, either, and expresses his feelings to the rest of the crew in these terms:
“I say we…crush him! Grind him into dust! Then feed the remains of the dust to the wolves! Then…blow up the wolves!”
This has to be one of my favorite movie lines ever. And on that topic, perhaps I should lay out a few of my other faves. (Unattributed, so it’s a fun game to play at home. Movie/Character/Actor if you really want to show your skilz.)
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“Say…that’s a nice bike.”
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“Crush your enemies, see them driven before you and to hear the lamentation of their women.”
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“Man, now that’s a real shame when folks be throwin’ away a perfectly good white boy like that…”
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“Yeah, vision is highly overrated.”
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“Lane, I’ve been going to this high school for seven and a half years. I’m no dummy!”
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“Alright, we waste him. No offense.”
As a couple of hints, two lines are from the same film. Two other lines are from the same director, and he’s got a new film with blue people in it coming out soon.
Anyhow, the film was funny and silly. And done in stop-motion, Wallace and Gromit kind of animation. There was a bit of innuendo, so adults might want to preview before showing it to kiddos, although I think it’d mostly go over the heads of the younglings.
More Carolers, Little Dorrit, Music Theory, Sixty-seven
Another Monday, more Musings, more Carolers updates. I’ve now been out on two paying gigs with Fireside Carolers, and they both went pretty well. Actually, no song sounded anything like a train wreck, and I felt like I held my own.
They were both octet gigs, so I had to hold the first tenor part all by my lonesome.
Next weekend I get to sing in a quartet to a bunch of kids, which should be awesome, and then on Sunday I’ll be in an octet at Potluck in the Park (one of our Outreach –--unpaid--– events).
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I can’t remember who recommended Little Dorrit to us (the Fair Elaine informs me it was Heidi from Mt. Hope Chronicles), but we’re grateful for the tip.
If you’re at all into English Literature as Film (Pride and Prejudice, Emma, etc.), I’m passing the recommendation on. It’s a BBC production of the Charles Dickens book of the same name, and it’s something like 400 minutes long. (Much like the Colin Firth P&P.)
The story is interesting if not overly easy to follow at first, and the performances are uniformly brilliant. It’s variously sad, hilarious, touching, and mysterious. But the layers to the story and the characters are where it really shines. Few, if any, of the characters are merely what they seemed at first.
(My favorite character is Mr. Pancks, who steals every scene he’s in.)
I found the website for the production and tried to embed their trailer, but it no workee for me, so I’ll just send you there yourself. I’m not certain the trailer works in the U.S. though.
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It’s come to my attention that I know very little about Music Theory, and I’d like to bolster my lackluster knowledge. To that end, and probably not surprisingly, I’ve requested a few books on the subject from the Library.
Anybody out there who knows more than I do (and that’s a large number of people), feel free to recommend a resource for me. I’m also looking at taking a class or two if possible.
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And speaking of books, do I ever mention that I like to read? Well, as of yesterday, I’ve matched my all-time high in book consumption, at a cool sixty-seven books read this year, not counting audio-books.
Of course, I’ve actually only matched the number of titles read, not the actual number of pages read. Yes, because I’m just that geeky, I track not only the number of books, but the number of pages for each. Eventually I’ll need to put some kind of difficulty index in there, because three hundred pages of Koontz is not the same as three hundred pages of Grand Theological Title or Science Book Which Could’ve Been Thinner.
For now, though, I’m still five thousand pages shy of equaling the true record of 2005. My Bible read-through will fill in a third or so of those pages, upon its completion in the next few weeks. It’ll probably be close, but I’m not certain at all that I’ll make it.
MM: Aliens, Fall Ball, World Series
There are several Ultimate Guy Movies that I absolutely love. And James Cameron managed to direct two of them: The Terminator and Aliens.
Now, I recognize that most movie critics find Alien to be a superior film to its more booty-kicking sequel, but in terms of good old fashioned blowing-stuff-up, Aliens wins in a walk.
Besides, Ripley is one of the all-time great Guy Movie Heroes.
But there’s something that’s been bugging me for some time, and I’m hoping that someone familiar with the film will help me understand how this isn’t a plot hole.
Who was piloting that big gun-shaped ship the Marines and Ripley arrived on? Because it seems like they could’ve helped out the planetside folks. Or are we really to believe that big ship was just sitting up in orbit, on autopilot, waiting for the Marines to come back and fly it home? (Seems like it’d have been piloted by some Navy folks.)
Or were the folks on the ship the ones expected to rescue everybody after they’d been overdue for seventeen days?
I realize a good percentage of Internetters won’t have a clue what I’m referring to, but I’m hoping somebody can help.
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Well, Fall Ball is finally over. Which means we get a good six hours per week, at least, added back to our Time Available For Doing Other Stuff. With AWANA, Baseball, and Swim Team, our schedule has been packed lately.
The last game was muddy, and it was a defeat. But our guys got a lot better over the course of the season, and Ethan definitely enjoyed it and honed his defensive skills quite a bit. He pitched again in this game and struck out at least one batter. He also threw somebody out at first.
So now we’ve just got to practice, practice, practice and get ready for Spring Baseball. Wooo!
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So, the World Series will be the Phillies and the Yankees, just as Ethan predicted. I’m hoping for a long series, and though I’m pulling for the Phils at least a little bit, I don’t really care who wins. I can root for the players of any team, even if I don’t particularly like the team. How can you not like Mariano Rivera?
I could see these games having football scores, given the potency of both offenses. If there’s going to be a major pitchers’ duel, Game 1 is a good bet, with the two former Cleveland pitchers (Cliff Lee and C.C. Sabathia) as the starters. Other than that, I’m expecting an absolute slugfest.
MM: Flash Forward, Ethan’s Picks, Indian in the Cupboard
I’ve been watching ABC’s Flash Forward mostly because I read the book, Flashforward, back in April, which book I read because I heard about the series. So sometimes my book reading and movie/tv viewing becomes a recursive loop. Chicken and egg and all that.
The series made some substantial changes from the book, most of which actually make sense. For instance, in the book the Flash was more than twenty years in the future. So the rest of the book was people wrestling with what would happen a long time from now. Hard to accomplish in a series, that. So they went with six months. And it totally works, especially in the case of Dmitri Noh, who had no Flash, and therefore concludes that he’ll be dead in six months (which is complicated by his upcoming nuptials).
The other good move the series made was to shift focus from the scientists who caused the Flash in the book to the people trying to figure out what caused it in the series, and I figure the cause will be different in the series. In the book there’s really no mystery about who caused it, even if the cause isn’t fully understood. Keeping it a mystery makes sense in the series.
But enough about that. Watch it if you want. But this past week, I noticed what might be a subtle (well, actually blatant) reference to Dean Koontz’s sci-fi-time-travel-love-story Lightning. Agent Benford (portrayed by Joseph Fiennes) travels to Munich to meet a former Nazi who claims to have information about the blackouts.
When Benford arrives at the prison where the Nazi is being held, it’s quite stormy, with lightning featured rather heavily. And his liaison? One Stefan Krieger.
For those who haven’t read Lightning, first of all you should. Second, Stefan Krieger is one of the main characters in the book, and he happens to be a German SS Officer.
I seriously doubt it’s a coincidence.
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Last week, I asked Ethan who he thought would win the MLB Playoffs. Yes, a couple of the series are over, but I promise these are Ethan’s Picks:
Division Series Picks:
Yankees-Twins: Yankees (Bingo! Three-game sweep. Sorry, Tyler)
Angels-Red Sox: Red Sox (Could not have been more wrong here. Three-game sweep the other way. Still not sure how that happened.)
Phillies-Rockies: Phillies (Phils are up 2-1, so this is looking good)
Dodgers-Cardinals: Dodgers (Again, bingo on the three-gamer)
And his League Championship Picks:
Yankees-Red Sox: Yankees
Phillies-Dodgers: Phillies
Which leaves us with the World Series between the Yankees and the Phillies. Ethan has the Phillies winning it.
So sub in the Angels for the Red Sox and we’ll stick with Ethan’s picks and see how it comes out.
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Since Ethan so enjoyed The Indian in the Cupboard that we decided to check the 1995 movie adaptation out from the library. It was fairly well done, but in case you wanted to know, it had a lot more questionable content than the book. We don’t recommend it.
Language was definitely coarsened (nothing that you mightn’t hear on TV, but that’s hardly good news), and somehow a Motley Crue video was featured. Really? And the little bit of a Western the boys watch (following the disgusting Motley video) is a bit rougher than I’d pictured. Yes, it makes a good talking point, but it was a bit much.
So in case I’ve been less than clear, read the book. Forget the movie.
Wordful Wednesday Afternoon: Fight Club
I know that, according to the Rules, I shouldn’t even be writing about this. But technically, the First and Second Rules say, “You do not talk about Fight Club.” So I’m good. Writing about it is totally different.
I read Fight Club for a couple of reasons. First, I enjoyed the film, vulgar and violent and strange though it was (it had Edward Norton, our Japan Breakfast Buddy in it, and that didn’t hurt). Second, the author (Chuck Palahniuk) is a Northwest guy (he lives in Portland).
That’s pretty much all it takes to get me to read something.
The novel is very much consistent with the film (I suppose it’s the other way around), not deviating on any major points (well, the ending is different-ish). The twist is still intact, and I won’t reveal it on account of not wanting to spoil it.
I had a difficult time not hearing Edward Norton while reading, since the book is told from his character’s perspective. Oddly, we never actually know his name, though I suspect it’s Joe, given lines like this:
I am Joe’s White-Hot Rage.
But I can’t be sure if that’s his name.
Palahniuk specializes in what’s termed transgressional fiction, defined by Wikipedia (and how could it be wrong?) as “a genre of literature that focuses on characters who feel confined by the norms and expectations of society and who use unusual and/or illicit ways to break free of those confines.”
This kind of fiction doesn’t have to be serious or anything, given that Office Space is a pretty good example of a transgressional fiction film. Yeah…
For a quick plot recap, Joe (we’ll just call him that) is a Product Recall Specialist for a car company, and he hates his job. He’s also an insomniac, only finding solace in attending Support Group meetings for maladies he doesn’t have.
Eventually he meets Tyler Durdan, an enigmatic character who works minimum wage jobs and does his best to do bad things while working. When Joe’s apartment is blown to bits, he moves in with Tyler. But Tyler only allows him to move in on one condition:
“I want you to hit me as hard as you can.”
Long story short, they start Fight Club, and it changes everything. And there’s a girl named Marla who keeps complicating things. And Fight Club takes on a life of its own. And Tyler isn’t who Joe thinks he is, but that’s as far as I’ll go.
Fight Club is a fairly short book, and it’s an easy read over a weekend. You’re not going to feel you’re a better person after reading it, but it’s entertaining.
You’ll also not necessarily feel like a better person after watching the movie, but the trailer actually makes a pretty good recap of the book:
Too Funny Tuesdays: A Real Shame
"Better off Dead" is one of those movies that reminds me of Junior High. (Which makes sense since it came out when I was in Junior High, so at least I'm not dealing with false nostalgia here...)
Anyway, it may be the most quotable movie ever, and I really wanted to embed a clip of the Geometry Class (find the quote here), but all I found was this trailer (still funny, and stick around for the last line, quite possibly the greatest movie line ever):
Too Funny Tuesday: One Slight Disadvantage
Danny Kaye was the Man. I won't say that all his films were brilliant (Up in Arms, for instance, I have no use for). But in his Court Jester, Wonder Man, Walter Mitty, White Christmas, and Kid From Brooklyn form, I can't think of anyone who matched him for musical and comedic chops. Here's an example from one of his Walter Mitty daydream sequences (RAF Wing Commander Mitty):