I hate being sick. I didn’t get to play frisbee on Sunday. I didn’t get to go bowling on Monday. Dammit, I hate being sick.

Still the best of the Jack Ryan movies.

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A pleasant movie that looks epic but actually really isn’t. I especially liked how for once you get to see that people DO go to the bathroom.

An aside, doing the IMDB search for the link, hey, this movie has been made quite a few times.

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William Goldman writes the screenplay to his own book, which he wrote quite a while ago prior to the film.

Naturally, this one is more accessible to everyone — because you don’t have to read. It also manages to keep the main points of the book and maintain the same humor, as well the added layer provided by Carl Reiner’s direction of a fine cast.

So everyone loves this film. Yay. Since I don’t have to gush about it, let me instead mention the differences with the book.

Outside of what I’ve mentioned about the book, the bits cut out involve Inigo Montoya and Fezzik’s childhood. There is substantially more to Inigo’s search for the six-fingered man than let on in the film, and Fezzik’s childhood and how Vizzini found him in Greenland (mentioned in the film as a great one-liner) is quite hilarious. You also get more of how Westley and Buttercup come to love one another, rather than the abrupt one minute intro in the movie. While funny, I can see why it was cut out, like the other bits. 90 minutes does that.

Goldman changes the role from himself as a father confused as to why his son hates the wonderful book his own father read to him as a child into a grandfather tending a sick grandson. Nice touch, though the film definitely shows its age when you see Fred Savage playing on his Nintendo Entertainment System.

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S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure (The ‘Good Parts’ Version)
by William Goldman

I concurrently watched the DVD while reading this — it made for some interesting observations.

The book is, of course, much more dense, containing a complete subplot concerning the purported author of this book, S. Morganstern, a highly esteemed writer of Florin famous for satirical prose concerning royalty. The narrator is Goldman himself, set up as an editor of the verbose original version which he has condensed to contain only the good parts concerning true love and high adventure. He also interrupts the flow with his own opinions of particular passages, as well as anything else he wants to add. On the whole, a thoroughly enjoyable book.

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Those of you who surprised me on Sunday, wished me well last night, and/or startled me this morning — thanks.

Pictures of the toy drive are here.

Pictures from my surprise birthday dinner are here.

The trailer made this movie look like crap. But c’mon, look at the cast! Okay, so I didn’t see it in theaters. I just happened to find it at the Blockbuster on Pico when I drove Kim over there so she could buy some VHS tapes that I thought, “”Well, it’s $9.99….”"

So I get home and pop it in.

And the damn thing is hilarious. Slow in parts, and definitely not as zany as the Zucker, Zucker, Abrahams films of old… but it is funny, and it has a few pieces in it that are just flat out bust your gut funny. I know people think my taste in film and music just downright broad and non-commital, making it hard for me to convince someone on the merits or faults of a film — so I’ll just not bother. I liked it. There.

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Cute movie. I liked Legally Blonde better.

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Cory Yuen misses. Now don’t get me wrong, this movie has some pretty killer action sequences. But I’ve seen most of them before in Yuen’s other films. I will say that I enjoyed the homage to Spielberg and Lucas in that last action block. Homage to others, okay. Repeating what you did before, not so much. Well, it’s Yuen, you just never know, is all. Bodyguard from Beijing and Fong Sai Yuk were great films for their genre. But High Risk and Fong Sai Yuk’s own sequel? Argh. Those films are torture… particularly High Risk.

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