Tuesday night, the New York Film Festival and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences hosted something that is likely a rarified event in the usually hallowed theater venues at Lincoln Center - a boisterous and rowdy crowd, but the event had a noted culture shift. The occasion was the 25th anniversary of The Princess Bride and a good chunk of the living cast showed up, including Robin Wright, Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Wallace Shawn and Billy Crystal in addition to director Rob Reiner as well as author William Goldman. Random shouts of "meathead" could be heard from the audience - all loving of course - when Reiner was introduced on stage as first coming to prominence as Michael Stivic in 1970s television show All in the Family. The Princess Bride was also likened to The Wizard of Oz (1939) - something Reiner fully embraced.
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What was Rob Reiner's last noteworthy film? Was it Ghosts of Mississippi in 1996? The American President, the year before? 1992's A Few Good Men? Reiner has continued to work steadily since a phenomenal mainstream movie run in the '80s into the early '90s that included, among others, This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally..., though you wouldn't be faulted for not having paid his recent output much mind. As a director, his tendencies toward sentimentality have thickened and clotted over the years, and films like The Bucket List and Flipped haven't had enough else to them to balance out what comes across as cloying and clumsy at best and shamelessly pandering at worst.
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"Inconceivable!" With a single word, unveiled at the close of last month's live-read of The Apartment, Jason Reitman launched AOUS (that's Anticipation of Unusual Size) for the December 15 installment in his brilliant LACMA/Film Independent series. Few films are so magical, so beloved, so instantly and indelibly quotable as The Princess Bride, Rob Reiner's 1987 fantasy-comedy, written by William Goldman, about a princess and her pirate and those involved in and affected by their adventure. And few live-read casting choices could be as inspired as Reitman's: Paul Rudd in the Westley role originated by Cary Elwes, Cary Elwes in the Humperdinck role originated by Chris Sarandon, and, performing the part of the Grandson first portrayed by Fred Savage over two decades ago... Fred Savage.
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