As You Wish

I was first introduced to the movie The Princess Bride at a World Vision 30-Hour Famine gathering. A rather large group of high schoolers from various churches would gather every year at two churches (they were side-by-side) to do the famine and have fun together. One year, around 1990, The Princess Bride was our late-night movie. I loved it from the start and have watched it many, many times since then. As such, I was pleased to stumble upon As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes (aka Westley, the farm boy who became the Dread Pirate Roberts).

The book was an interesting and entertaining look into the making of the movie, starting with the day Elwes first heard he was being considered for the role of Westly. As he is the author, most of the story is his experiences, but Elwes also provides the backgrounds of many of the major (and minor) players in the making of the movie. I particularly enjoyed learning about Andre the Giant's life. There are also text boxes throughout giving the perspectives of various actors, Rob Reiner (the director) and William Goldman (the author) on different aspects of the making of the movie.

The book almost ends sadly because the movie was not marketed well and did not have great box office success. People who watched it loved it, but it was hard to get people to watch it. Then everything changed when the movie came out on video. Suddenly everyone was watching it and quoting from it, including strangers on the street, waitresses, Pope John Paul II, and President Clinton and his daughter. From box office disappointment to cult classic that is still loved today, 37 years later.

If you enjoyed The Princess Bride, I definitely recommend As You Wish as a companion to the movie. Learning about how it was made in no way detracts from the movie; in fact, I found that it adds to it as I read about the work that went into preparing for the sword fight, the challenges along the way, and the absolute fun they had making it.

I Agree

I agree with the the first statement frequently, and I completely agree with the last statement.

Go here to see what I'm talking about.

Books and Stuff

In my last email from Chapters, they had recommendations just for me: Blubber; Charlotte's Web; and A Wrinkle in Time. Yes: Chapters thinks I want nothing but children's books. I might need to change my ordering habits. I mean, at least Amazon once recommended Star Wars ice cube trays (because I ordered a season of The Muppet Show, if I remember correctly).

Hey...I just bought the newest Muppet movie last week from Amazon. Hold one while I check what they're recommending now...
Because I purchased The Muppets, Amazon thinks I would also like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, because everyone knows international, Cold War thrillers go perfectly with the Muppets. Of course, they also recommend all the other Muppet movies, as well as The Avengers and The Adventures of Tintin.

For the record: I bought the Muppets because I was buying stuff for school and needed something fun as well. It's good that I have it because for school I'm reading a terrible book by a terrible "pastor" who CAN'T WRITE. Seriously, I could handle reading a book that teaches something I think is completely wrong if it's well written, but this one might kill me. It's written at the reading level of a 5th grader and the emotional level of a junior high girl. I think I get stupider just reading it. And I will not tell you the name because even bad publicity is still publicity.

To recover I read Ephesians. Also, I'm reading Against The Tide: The Valor of Margaret Wilson by Hope Irvin Marston. It's part of the Chosen Daughters series. The series looks at Christian women in different periods of history and how they affected and were affected by what was happening around them. They're fictionalized biographies: their overall outline is true, and the women, major events in their lives, and the historical events and people around them are true. To make it a story, though, it needs to include some of what they were thinking, some extra characters...things that are fiction, but don't draw away from the historical accuracy of the stories. This story takes place in 17th-Century Scotland, a time when the Covenanters (who held that Christ alone was head of the church) were being persecuted by the king and his men who wanted them to proclaim the king as head of the church.

My recommendations: Watch The Muppets (and The Avengers, actually), buy whatever you want and prepare for the recommendations that result, and read the Chosen Daughters series.

Right Now

Right now I'm sitting in my apartment typing this while 2 of my girls are watching VeggieTales, Robin Good and His Not-So-Merry Men. Best lines: "never trust a rubber hippo" and "your face looks as long as a boring sermon." I like this version of Robin Hood because Robin Good fund raises from the rich to give to the poor and is very opposed to stealing. As much as I like the Robin Hood movies, I don't think he's a good role model.

The girls are actually over for the last of my discipleship classes. I've been teaching them about wisdom. Today they came over after church and we ordered pizza and now we're eating and watching the movie before we get to our session. Soon, though, the movie will end and I'll have one more chance to get some wisdom into their heads.

I'm Not Quite Sure How it Happened....

...but it seems I'm hooked on SciFi classics. A co-worker has mentioned that great SciFi Christmas classic: "Santa Conquors the Martians" and I was able to borrow it this year. It came in a set of 50 classic SciFi movies, so I've been watching some of them over the holidays while studying. They combine generally bad acting, impossible story plots, less scientific knowledge than even I possess (although in their defense, most of the movies are 40-50 years old, and the newest are from the '80s), and spaceships and martian outfits that look like a group of high school students made them. It sounds terrible, right? Ah, but they're so bad, they tend to be great viewing! Although the women tend to be either cruel despots or wimps who scream and swoon a lot (or both, in some cases).

Let me give you an example of one of the movie descriptions. This is from "The Sons of Hercules: The Land of Darkness." The sons of Hercules were, according to the theme song, "men as men should be," which I think means that they rescued beautiful damsels, fought lions bare-handed, and defeated entire armies on their own. At no time, however, did they manage to find where they had left their shirts. Anyway, here it is:

"Hercules falls for the daughter of a deposed king whose kingdom is held in thrall by an evil queen. The Queen captures our hero and orders him torn apart like a wishbone by wild elephants. He survives and the queen falls for him, but he is true to his love. The queen's subjects rise up in arms and her realm is engulfed in a volcanic eruption. Somewhere along the way Hercules and his chubby comic companion fight off lions, bears and an angry dragon."

Seriously, people, how could you resist? It's 81 minutes of pure entertainment!