devarim

Last night at midnight, right after The West Wing ended on Bravo, we were prevented (prevented, I tell you) from shutting off the television by the appearance of a "coming next" segment for...The Princess Bride. We figured it couldn't hurt to leave the TV on for a few minutes, just for a scene or two (or three). It would give me a chance to show off my ability to recite every line of the movie from memory, something that Julian truly appreciates because he thinks it gives him the right to tickle me.

Oh, how it hurt.

They cut stuff! Short clips here and there, and they did a good enough job of it that if you'd only seen the movie a couple of times before you may not have noticed. (If you've never seen the movie at all, you deserve to be shot, or else tied down and made to watch it and then shot for making us go to all the trouble, but at least your last moments were nice.) The three cuts that remain in my memory as of this morning:

• In the opening scene in The Boy's bedroom, they did not show the closeup of the eighties-licious baseball video game that he was playing. They cut right from the title screen *cough* *cough* to his mother coming into the room to announce The Grandfather's entrance.
  
• When Prince Humperdink introduced Buttercup to the people in the square, he went right from, "She was once a commoner like yourselves," to, "Would you like to meet her?"--skipping the line: "But I think you will not find her so common now." It's a great line, and Chris Saradon delivers it wonderfully. How could you deprive us of that joy just to save a few short seconds?
  
• As Buttercup comes across Vizzini, Inigo, and Fezzik in the forest, they ask her about a nearby village. In last night's showing, Buttercup merely said, "There is no village." No way, lady. What about "Not for miles,"--did you forget that? Oh, right, the evil Bravo people stole it from you.
  

We shut off the movie after "Anybody want a peanut?" because (a) it was getting late, and (b) I just couldn't take it anymore. Yes, you may call me obsessed now. If only I could remember constitutional law the way I remember this movie.