As You Wish by Cary Elwes

Attention all you fans of The Princess Bride, the beloved cult classic is now available to stream on Netflix! And another reason to rejoice: recently,  Cary Elwes, Westley himself, wrote a book about the production of the movie. As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride is an oral history written with the collaboration of almost everyone with whom Elwes worked.

Written in roughly chronological order, Elwes first mentions that he had always loved the book, and director Rob Reiner expresses similar feelings, which led to Reiner telling the studio it was the next movie he wanted to make. The executives were hesitant, but fortunately author/screenwriter William Goldman had a good reputation in Hollywood for having written Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Goldman was a fan of Reiner's directorial efforts This is Spinal Tap and Stand by Me.

Cary Elwes was very nervous about his audition but was exactly what Reiner was looking for. He was excited to be working with industry giants Billy Crystal and Mandy Patinkin, and literal giant Andre. This leads me to my strongest criticism of As You Wish; it often feels like a fluffy DVD commentary in which the cast and crew gush about each other and how amazingly fun it was to make the film. That being said, I kind of like DVD commentaries so the book wasn't devoid of merit.

There are interesting anecdotes within, like the amount of effort Elwes and Patinkin put in to their swordfight, which Goldman's screenplay insisted be "the greatest sword fight ever filmed." Any time they were not filming, they'd practice the combat for eight hours a day. Elwes also recounts a story of Andre the Giant's flatulence ruining a take, and all the cast mentions how gracious the late wrestler was on set in general.

Those who haven't seen the movie won't get much out of this book, but it's a must-read for the film's loyal fans. After nearly three decades, The Princess Bride is still a go-to classic and Elwes' book is a worthy tribute.

Hail, Caesar!

Joel and Ethan Coen have done a Hollywood satire before in Barton Fink, and they've made George Clooney act like a buffoon before (Clooney has called O Brother Where Art Thou, Intolerable Cruelty, and Burn After Reading his "idiot trilogy"). But there is no movie quite like the tribute to the Golden Age of Hollywood that is Hail, Caesar!

Clooney's character, actor Baird Whitlock, isn't actually the main character in this, that honor belongs to Josh Brolin's Eddie Mannix. Mannix is a "fixer" at 1950s Hollywood studio Capitol Pictures, whose job it is to keep all his directors and actors happy and out of gossip-worthy trouble. When Baird Whitlock gets kidnapped off the set of the latest religious epic, Mannix chooses to quietly pay off the ransom. I won't mention who the kidnapping group turn out to be, as that reveal leads to some of the best material in this movie.

As many stars as there are on the Coens' poster, most of them don't show up for more than a scene or two, and relative unknown Alden Ehrenreich gets almost as much screen time as Clooney. Ehrenreich plays an actor who talents are well suited to stunt-filled westerns, but struggles when cast in Laurence Laurentz's (Ralph Fiennes) costume drama. Scarlett Johannsen is an Esther Williams type whose pregnancy throws Mannix into reputation-protection mode. Channing Tatum is a performer in a navy musical whose dance scene is truly stunning. Also among them: Tilda Swinton as twin reporters (one for a legit paper and one for a gossip rag), Frances McDormand as a film editor, and Jonah Hill in a cameo I feel I shouldn't say a word about. While Mannix is putting out fires all over Capitol Pictures, he's also being tempted to leave the studio and join the Lockheed Corportation.

I'm pretty confident that I haven't revealed anything that would take away from one's enjoyment of Hail, Caesar! because most of the humor comes from how these situations unfold and intersect. You might have to had seen movies from that bygone era to appreciate some of the jokes, but I think there's something for everyone. This isn't the best comedy the Coen brothers have made but that's a high bar; I do think it will stand as one of the funniest of 2016.

The Martian (film), directed by Ridley Scott

As I said in my review of the book, I was very much looking forward to this adaptation. If you want a spoiler-free recommendation, I will say the film did not disappoint and will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time.

For the rest of this space I'm going to discuss the differences between the book and the movie, so let that serve as your warning if you prefer surprises left intact.

First I'd like to address the elephant in the room: Yes, Matt Damon also played a stranded astronaut in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, which also starred Jessica Chastain. So let's pretend The Martian is like Murph Cooper went back to rescue the unethical Dr. Mann! Oh, did I just digress into spoiling a whole other movie? Rest assured, Damon's character here is completely different from Mann and you won't be comparing this film to Interstellar while sitting in the theater.

The first difference from the book, I noticed in the very first scene. Andy Weir's book begins on Sol (solar day) 6, but Drew Goddard's screenplay has the fateful sandstorm occur on Sol 18. I couldn't think of a reason that this minor change was made

The next difference was made in the interest of keeping a PG-13. Due to the MPAA's arbitrary guidelines for strong language (that's a whole different blog post), it can vary how many uses of the F-word are allowed in a PG-13 movie. It would seem The Martian was allowed exactly two instances and used them up in the first five minutes. The rest of Mark Watney's moments of colorful language, given free reign in the book of course, were either censored in text with dashes, translated via other characters' euphemisms, and in one case silenced by the vacuum of Mars. I'm not going to say it was necessary to hear all the F-bombs, but the edits of them seemed all the more obvious and occasionally jarring, considering much of the dialogue was taken verbatim from the novel.

Some aspects of the adaptation process were absolutely necessary and welcome, such as making Watney's daily written logs into video logs, which is preferable in the visual medium of film. There were a few too many scenes of characters reading aloud while they typed or received messages, but this was justified by the other characters in the room needing to hear what the correspondence said. It was also a little awkward when NASA authorities were shown making important decisions very quickly without much deliberation, while in the book a few days were allowed to pass. There are also fewer obstacles encountered during Watney's journey from Acidalia Planitia to the Schiaparelli crater. In the book he encounters another sandstorm, a loss of communication with NASA, and a devastating tumble of his rover into the crater, which are not depicted on-screen. However it is understandable to do this for more economical storytelling so these were understandable sacrifices.

The largest changes come during the rescue sequence at the end of the story. In the book, Watney makes a joke about flying around like Iron Man by poking a hole in his spacesuit glove, while in the movie he actually carries out this plan. At the same time, the movie's Commander Lewis (Chastain) goes outside the Hermes to grab Watney herself, but in the book this is done by Dr. Beck. One aspect that gave me a laugh was that the whole crew comes to join Watney after he's pulled in; this must be a nod to the quote in the book in which Watney says: "If this were a movie, everyone would have been in the airlock, and there would have been high fives all around. But it didn't pan out that way."

The screen version also adds an epilogue after Watney is rescued, similar to something Weir says he had in the first draft of his book, and deleted when he decided it felt too artificial to introduce a time jump. However, in a movie it doesn't feel unnatural to see what each of the crew members did after they returned to Earth.

Overall, the movie stuck pretty close to the book, and those making it clearly put as much research into the scientific accuracy as Andy Weir did. The few tweaks made by the filmmakers can serve as an example of the right way to adapt a text to the screen. Both the book and the film are proof that science fiction can be intelligent and realistic, while remaining highly entertaining.