The Princess Bride: An Inconceivable Evening with Cary Elwes

 

It's rare that you find a perfect movie. A few years ago I had a post up about three films that I thought fit that category. When I say perfect I don't mean that it's the best film of all time, or that it's essential for everyone to see it, although I could never understand why somebody wouldn't want to go and see a perfect film. What I mean by perfect, is that it could not be improved by any changes made to it. The parts that are there, have been assembled in the correct way, they all fit together, and they work exactly as they are supposed to. “The Princess Bride” certainly belongs on the shelf with any film that could be described as perfect.

Once again I had the opportunity to see this perfection on the big screen with a receptive audience. On top of that, it was screening at my new favorite theater, The Paramount in Austin Texas. And just to add frosting to the cake, the star of the film Cary  Elwes, who wrote a book about the making of the film a decade ago, was there to share some stories after the film was finished. What can I say about “The Princess Bride” that hasn't been said by hundreds of people before me? This movie is funny and dramatic, full of the swashbuckling kind of adventure that I have loved since I was a child. It also has a heart to it that beats and moves us like no other film I can think of. When I was asked by my daughter what my favorite moment in the film was, I had to admit it's the last line when the grandfather, played by the great Peter Falk, says to his grandson, when asked to return and read the book again to him tomorrow,” As you wish.”

That moment gets me every time, because I think of my own children and my parents and grandparents and everybody who cared for those who came before them or after them. This is a story for everyone. And it's a story about true love, the rarest thing in all the world. And I'm not just talking about Wesley and Buttercup. We all get a chance to feel embraced by and loved by this film. It makes a Giant feel like a human being that we would want to be friends with, it makes us cheer when the bad guys get their  comeuppance, and we're all willing to sit through the kissing parts in order to get to the good stuff.

I saw this film originally when it was released in 1987, after my parents had gone to a screening at the studio. They enjoyed it but we're not overly impressed by it. My father's half sister Cherry Ann worked for Norman Lear, and she had arranged for my parents to go to the early screening. My wife and I were really jealous because we had looked forward to the film. In spite of my parents' lack of enthusiasm, we rushed to see the film as soon as it came out. And like those who have come after us, who scratched their heads and wondered why this wasn't a bigger hit, we could not understand why the movie was not being embraced by audiences everywhere. Frankly we loved it from the moment we saw it.

This was the middle screening of three showings of the film with guest Cary Elwes at the Paramount Theater this month. Of course we had bought our tickets when the first show went on sale, and then two shows were added, one in front of and one behind the screening that we were going to go to. A decade ago we went to a fantastic screening, also with the star of the film, when he was doing a signing of his newly released book,” As You Wish”. It was one of the best outings I had with my wife in the last decade of her life. You can read the story of that event here.

Mr Elwes, I'm sure, has told the stories that he shared with us many times before. However, as with all good storytellers, he enthralled us with details, spoke with voices that recalled the people he was talking about, and was thoroughly enthusiastic about the moment. There was nothing artificial at all about his conversation, even if it is something he's done a thousand times before. He recalled the story of his injuries on the set, and took full blame, even when others may have contributed a little bit to his on-site mishaps. He recalled with great fondness everyone's friendship with Andre the Giant, and he does a great impression of both Andre and director Rob Reiner. It feels a little bit after having listened to him, as if we were on the set as well and went through the adventures with him. Which is exactly how you want to feel in an event like this, with a movie that's perfect.

One of the great things about seeing a movie that you have already seen dozens and dozens of times, is experiencing it with others who feel the same way about it as you do. Last night a capacity house, laughed and cried and cheered as “The Princess Bride” took us on the adventure that we all know so well. We were all a little incredulous when we heard that Mr Elwes had only watched the movie three times. After all, collectively among the people in this audience there may have been a million views of the film. It's doubtful that any of the 1,000 or so people there had seen the film only a single time. Okay so maybe a million is a little hyperbole, but you get the idea, this audience knows the movie.

Like many of the films of this era, the special effects, production design, and cinematography make the film feel so much richer than it would be if it had been produced in the era of CGI. The Cliffs of Insanity and the Fire Swamp, looks so real yet it's clear that it is artifice. And we the audience are swept up by the fervor of those Charming effects, and the spectacular, beautiful, cinematography. Watching The Man in Black chase Fezzick, Vincini, Inago Montoya, and Buttercup up the cliffside, is thrilling. It's also funny, and filled with some of the lines that people have memorized over the years. It was easy for me to foresee that this film would have long-term legs, I once judged at a speech tournament where one round of the impromptu speeches were all quotes from this movie, and that must have been in 1989.

The sound of laughter was also highlighted by regular applause when our heroes were introduced and our villains taken down. The occasional lone applause clap when Mr. Elwes was telling a story would be amusing because sometimes it was for something completely incongruent. For instance one member of the audience happened to have lived in the area where the movie was filmed. Mr. Elwes laughed at the single clap, and was gracious in acknowledging the beauty of the area. When questions were submitted by the audience ahead of time, they were read out loud by the interviewer, and Cary answered enthusiastically. The host called out one question in particular as his favorite, and asked where the little girl was who had submitted the question. Her family was quick to wave their hands, and Cary, left the stage and went over to talk to her personally to answer her question. But she was young, maybe eight or nine and the thought that a thousand people would be looking at her made her even more shy, Mr. Elwes did his best to minimize her discomfort, and draw attention away from her and back to the question. It was a moment of warmth from the star who was being considerate both in trying to see the girl personally and in withdrawing from her because of her shyness. It was a moment of complete sweetness, in keeping with the whole evening.

Three Film Mini Festival Everybody Wants Some/Sing Street/Elvis and Nixon

This is what happens when I am kept out of a movie theater for a month. It's the kind of thing that happens to addicts of all kinds, when their supply is back, they OD. Fortunately, I have not yet heard of anyone dying from seeing too many films in a short amount of time. That means that instead of turning up naked on the floor of the bathroom as a corpse, you get to encounter me in a good mood with nice things to say and great films to share. Comments might be a little briefer than usual because  you don't want to come down from your high to fast or hard.

Everybody Wants Some

We start with this Richard Linklater comedy which is billed as the emotional descendant of his classic "Dazed and Confused".  A movie like this should be playing on 3000 screens in the summertime, not 400 in the spring. The world however has changed and a raunchy comedy with sex, drugs and Rock and Roll, is not as welcome at the cineplex as it once was. Maybe the art-house reputation of Linklater from his last film, "Boyhood" scared the marketing and distribution divisions of the studio and they decided to play it safe. With a $10 Million budget and no stars, it begs for a wide and quick release with a front loaded marketing campaign featuring the hi jinks and nudity that the younger audience would want. Treating it as an art house release (we saw it at a Laemalle Theater) with a platform release, I'd be surprised if they get their money back. It's entertaining enough and provides the requisite laughs, but it is not going to have the word of mouth that builds it into a cult favorite like the earlier films of Linklater in this genre.

A cross between "Animal House" and "Dazed and Confused", "Everybody Wants Some" doesn't knock it out of the park, but it does score from second base on a long flyball to the outfield. In case you were unaware, the film focuses on the antics of a championship caliber baseball team at a Texas University in 1980. The movie is filled with wall to wall references to the times, including the changing music scenes and the college culture of the day.  The jocks occupy two adjoining houses near campus and enjoy many perks afforded star athletes on a campus like the one depicted here. The rampant sexism is played off as a symptom of the times and since there is ultimately a sweet story to go along with at least one character, it seems to be forgivable to me. Having lived through these times and been a coach on a college team debate, not anything sports related) i can say that the "in-group" mentality of the team is pretty accurately portrayed. Everyone wants to be the top dog, everyone wants to fit in, and the older members of the team, take it as the gospel truth, that the new guys don't know anything.

I already have all the songs that appear on the sountrack, so I don't need to rush out and get the song score for the movie,in fact, most of the music here I owned originally on vinyl. If you come from a more recent generation, just be assured that it is an accurate reflection of the musical tastes of the day.  This includes early rap, pop country, the last vestiges of disco and of course the straight forward rock catalogue of the day. The characters are familiar but they all have a shiny veneer that makes them seem fresh. The main protagonist is a decent guy for the most part, but capable of being a pig on occasion. There are locker room philosophers and pig headed bullies and sluts and "nice girls" all over the place. As an example of a culture it is a microcosm of every stereotype about jocks and drama kids you can imagine. It's a lot of fun but not as deep ans some people who smoked from a two chambered bong want you to believe it is.






So I mentioned that I saw this at the Laemalle in Pasadena, I just want you to know how art house this theater is. The bathrooms are decorated. That's right, there is art in the john. I liked it but I also thought it was indicative of how isolating the experience is going to be for our first movie.

You just don't see a lot of classic film poster reproduction above the urinals these days.

Sing Street

Much more in keeping with the surroundings was the second feature of the day, another music centric film from writer-director John Carney who brought us "Once" and from a couple of years ago "Begin Again". If the baseball college comedy we started the day out with was a combination of "Animal House" and "Dazed and Confused", than this film is an amalgam of "The Commitments" and "Billy Elliot". Just as the American film is set in the early eighties and features a song list that could be found on any jukebox in the States in 1980, this movie set in Dublin in 1985, features a mix of pop, new wave and rock that could have easily been played on a continuous loop on MTV. It also features some smashing songs that mimic the styles of the times and show exactly how music can be infectious and viral, especially at a creative level.

One of the things that perhaps differs my blog from other movie sites is that I have a very personal take on the experience. While I do sometimes comment on film making techniques or  performances, more than anything, I try to share my feeling for the movies that I see. My experience is informed by my personality and history. I am a sentimentalist and I did live through these times. I can see some flaws in this film. There is a too pat plot line that follows a dozen other movies. It is a coming of age story with rebellion, a seemingly hopeless romance and a "let's put on a show" mentality. All of it will strike you as derivative. What won't however feel that way is the cast and the songs. The young actors here don't feel like cardboard characters. The two brothers in the film are oddly different enough from each other that they are more believable as brothers as a result. The girl is lovely but I'm not sure that the "model" tag she puts on herself works, but video vixen does. The jump to songwriting perfection comes too smoothly for the lead and his musical partner, but since the songs are so winning and perfectly cast in contrast to the latest musical style the band adopts, you can forgive that story telling misstep. I loved this movie for it's sincerity and for it's heart. There is a perfectly realized music video that appears in the lead's head as he plays at a video rehearsal which matches the opening sequence in "Begin Again" for imagination and looking inside of a person's head.

It will be fun to revisit this movie at home because then I can rewind all the bits that were incomprehensible to me due to the local vernacular and accents.  The film does not shy away from showing some of the grimmer elements of life for these kids trapped in a place that they see as hopeless. The bleakness of life and the break up of the families that form the background of the story are passing references, not the main focus of what is going on. This is the first film I can remeber seeing a disclaimer for in the credits that apologizes for the way things might have been in the past. The real Synge Street School seems to be acknowledging that it was not a very forward thinking institution in 1985. It was an odd finish to a terrific film that lifted my heart with music and the kind of passion that everyone ought to feel about something in their life. That this fish out of water romance is also about the love of two brothers is just extra cream in the coffee.I'll be looking for these songs on-line, to add to my library,

Here is just a little taste of the joy you have in store.

Elvis & Nixon

If the first two movies from this orgy of film were music centered, the third manages to be so without featuring the actual songs of the music icon named in the title. Elvis Presley, the greatest entertainer to ever touch the stage, does not have a song of his featured in the movie bearing his name. The soundtrack of the movie is brimming with music acts from the 1970 year that the film was set, but the King is not one of them. A Elvis movie without Elvis songs is one thing, but how about an Elvis movie without a guy who looks much like Elvis?  Michael Shannon is an actor with a character face. He is not pretty in any way, certainly not in the way that the real King was. He makes up for it with personality and performance. After ten minutes you'll stop thinking about how little he looks like Elvis, but rather how much he seems to embody the weird things that we have heard about Presley. By the way, Kevin Spacey doesn't look much like Nixon, but he might want to brush up on his awards speech because he may very well be next years winner for Best Supporting Actor. His is more than an impression, he manages to get under the skin and show us the contradictory Nixon that has baffled his friends and opponents alike.

This film is based on the unbelievable but still true meeting between two of the most recognizable people on the planet in 1970. Such an unlikely duo just tickles the funny bone thinking about it. These may also have been two of the quirkiest people on the planet in 1970. Elvis may very well have been spaced out on some prescription meds when he decided to try to help America fight the scourge of drugs. Nixon was never a lovable teddy bear of a figure, but he comes off here as one of the more likable characters on screen this year. Nixon is a power figure, flummoxed by his inability to wield power in the presence of the King's monomaniacal vision. Almost all of this had to be imagined because  no recording exists of what the two spoke about, but there is enough detail in the personal recollections of the parties involved who are still alive to construct a reasonable semblance of the events as they played out, at least chronologically, if not completely historical.

In case you have not guessed, this movie is a comedy. It is not a slapstick take on the delusional quest of a mythic figure to conquer the dark side of one of the most complex figures of the twentieth century. It is a comedy of manners. Two completely different worlds collide, the self important musical entertainer, used to getting what he wants because of who he was, and the shrewd political Machiavelli, who is thawed and ultimately charmed out of his natural persona to reveal a human with the same needs as the rest of us. I don't want to dismiss the work of  Joey and Hanala Sagal, who are listed as the primary screenwriters, but having read his recent memoir about making "The Princess Bride" and listened to him at a screening/book signing, I can say that actor and co-producer of this film Cary Elwes, brought some comic perspective to the story as well. Joey also has a cameo as an Elvis impersonator in the film, so he gets to show a little of his comic flair on screen as well as on the page.

Many people can take credit for turning this odd piece of history into an amusing film of less consequence than many but with a couple of huge belly laughs. Colin Hanks, plays Egil "Bud" Krough, the aid to the President that talks him into meeting with Presley and later was a key figure in the Watergate scandal. His comic double takes and perfectly placed exclamations of the "F" word, will bring a smile to your face. Johnny Knoxville shows up as Sonny West, one of the Memphis Mafia that were pals and employees of the King. He does not have a lot of dialogue but his slack jawed expression says volumes at times. The deadpan faces of the Secret Service guys trying to screen Elvis and the fan dazzled eyes of the women working in the Narcotics Bureau and the White House, also make this movie a lot of fun.

It's been a month since i saw a film in the theater, and that was "Batman v. Superman", a bloated but spectacular super hero film that does everything to show how epic it is except entertain us. These three movies don't have a tenth of the budget of that film, but each one supplied so much more pleasure that it should be embarrassing to Hollywood.

As You Wish: An Evening with Cary Elwes

When this book was first published a few weeks ago, it immediately popped up on my list of most desirable Christmas gifts to give or to receive. After all, "The Princess Bride" may be everyone's favorite childhood movie from the 1980s. It is beloved by millions and it is so endlessly quotable that it is probably recognizable, even to those who have not seen it, "Inconceivable."

My daughter Amanda is much quicker to act on some things than I am and she had the book ordered for her mother before I could say, "When I was your age, television was called books." We tried to keep it a secret from her that the book even existed. That was a tall task and it was likely she'd heard about it. Anyway, after the book arrived, my daughter received a Christmas gift from her friend Kili, a pass to a special screening of "The Princess Bride", along with a Q and A session with the man in Black himself, the star of the film and author of the book, Cary Elwes. "Lucky Kid" I cursed under my breath". Kili was going to go with her before she returned home to Hawaii to spend the holidays with her family. Unfortunately, the book tour schedule got changed and the date for the screening rolled back a weekend. Kili would already be gone and she offered Amanda her pass as well. Since it was a gift for her Mother, I insisted she take her Mom with her to the show.

My wife is a wonderful woman but she does have a couple of health issues that make some activities difficult. Vertigo, a bad hip and a neurological condition that influence her gait, make it hard to be as mobile as she would like to be. The screening was to be at an historic movie palace in downtown L.A., and they were not sure about the parking situation and the theater is not exactly handicapped friendly. They decided they would need some help, so they twisted my arm and forced me to buy a ticket to the event as well. Now they did not have to worry about parking and there would be back up on some of the hard to navigate parts of the evening.

So last night we went downtown to the Broadway district that the hipsters and others are trying to revive. I dropped them off at the theater, parked in a building structure that is part of one of the Jewelry Exchange buildings in the neighborhood and then i joined them in line to wait for admission. We got there early so the difficult issues could be managed, but the event did not open until 6 pm. A half hour wait was pleasant enough,and the busy streets at Christmas time felt very much like a Holiday evening.

The event is sponsored by a coalition of local eateries that sold their foods in the lower lobby of the theater. Wrist bands were provided for those who had purchased an advance copy of the book, which they received just inside the door, and then they were entitled to the priority line up to get their book signed. There was a second line for crashers like me who had only purchased tickets for the movie and Q and A. I had the copy that Amanda had bought for her mother and all three of us waited in two different lines.

The signing was to be done on the stage which meant that we entered on stage left, crossed the downstage area, got our signature and then exited stage right through the wings.The problem is that there is a set of narrow stairs leading from the auditorium up to the left stage area. The doorway at the end of the narrow passage is also undersized, this beautiful auditorium was built in 1911 and designed for Vaudeville before movies started playing a dozen years later. This was one of the tricky parts of the evening. The ladies with their priority wristbands went first and there were some especially nice volunteers from the organization that helped my wife navigate these obstacles with my daughter while I was far back in the other line. When I saw how much trouble they'd had getting up. I abandoned my spot in line and raced to the other side after they got their books signed and helped her get through an even smaller door on stage right.

The Palace theater is one of a number of old movie palaces in downtown that have been largely abandoned but for which a conservancy has struggled to save. There are a lot of restoration features to admire, and it has two balcony suite area above the main floor. There are some gorgeous old style paintings on either side of the stage and the proscenium is also very impressive.

There are several inserted pieces of art in circular cutouts on the ceiling as you can see here.

Another reason for my presence at the event came when my wife needed to visit the bathroom. It is not located on the main floor. There are bathrooms on the balcony level and in the basement area. Each choice offered two sets of deep stairways that are rife with danger for the vertigo afflicted, it was at least thirty steps regardless of which direction we chose and there is no elevator. We took the stairs down and it took a couple of minutes to get there. We also had to maneuver around the traffic of people purchasing and eating dinner and desserts from the restaurants that were participating that night. The Gentlemen's  room was large with marble stalls and modern fixtures, but my wife told me that she broke out laughing when the first stall in the ladies room was marked "Handicapped". Without an elevator, unless someone in a wheelchair can apparate as they do at Hogwarts, it is unclear who gets first call on that location.

When it was my turn to make way through the narrow left stage area and meet Mr, Elwes, I was happy that I decided to come after all (sarcasm is intended here). The line got shorter, my chance to shake hands and say thank you for all he did in the movie and for coming to the event arrived and he was charming as all get out. Maybe the British accent makes the common pleasantries we might exchange in a situation like this feel more significant, but it was still a fun moment.

My daughter user a better phone camera than I had to capture the moment from the audience perspective, so that is me in the burnt orange shirt, lumbering over to greet the Man in Black.As he signed I mentioned that I had heard him on the "Mark and Lynda" podcast and appreciated that he was using some new tools for reaching the audience he wants to connect with. He smiled and said thank you and the moment was officially over.

After a longer than expected break between the signing and the start of the program, Cary Elwes came back out on stage and showed again that he is quite the raconteur. I had listened to him promoting "Saw" ten years ago on the Mark and Brian radio show and he was hypnotic when he told the story of being a p.a. on "Superman" and essentially having to wrangle Marlon Brando. He was a guest on their show several more times was was always gracious and interesting. Last night was no exception.

Having chosen a very appropriate wardrobe for the evening, he answered a few questions from the Organization's representative for the evening. She wisely let him range all over the place as he told several interesting behind the scenes stories about the making of the film. 

Mr. Elwes frequently did spot on imitations of several of the participants in the movie, including director Rob Reiner and Co-Stars Wallace Shawn and Andre the Giant. If you read the book you will know the story of Andre the Giant's intestinal eruption on the first day he was shooting. Cary got at least five minutes of laughs from this scatological moment and no one seemed the least offended. If anything they were even more endeared with Fezzick after this.

A second story involved Andre the Giant in a more peripheral manner. He basically egged Cary on to take a ride on his three wheeled ATV on the set one day. That short moment ended up with an injury that might have threatened Elwes job and put the movie substantially off schedule. That it was all worked out with an amiable director, a paranoid actor and a somewhat understated set nurse is one of the miracles of "The Princess Bride".

Everyone enjoyed the stories he told of Billy Crystal's shooting days and the improvisational way that he made "Miracle Max" come to life. The fact that Cary and Rob Reiner basically got booted from their own set because they could not contain their laughter while Billy was riffing during his scenes is also very funny. The tribute he paid to Wallace Shawn was great and if you can imagine it, we were spared the sight of Danny DeVito as Vizzini because of costs but also because Rob Reiner just thought Shawn was funny in the way he spoke. The insecure Mr. Shawn it seems was told by his agent that they had originally wanted DeVito, and the specter of his ghost hung over Shawn's head for the whole time he was on the set.

Since the Interview started late and went longer than expected, there was not time to take audience questions but no one was grousing.  We had all been entertained by a masterful story teller about some of the episodes that occurred during the film of a favorite film. He closed and introduced the film by asking us all to "have fun storming the castle,".

At this point, because the structure I parked in closed at ten and the difficulty of exiting while the movie ran because of my wife's walker and vertigo, we decided to skip the screening of the movie. I walked her to the foyer and told her to wait while I got the car, our daughter went downstairs to use the bathroom, and Dolores was standing there alone. Sure enough, while the movie was playing inside, Cary Elwes came out front and saw her standing there and started talking with her. He was incredibly kind and she told him how she reads the novel of the book to her students in the third and fourth grade classes she teaches and then how the kids write letters to the characters. "Buttercup" is frequently told she can trust the Man in Black in those letters. He was amused and quite impressed with the activity. He thanked her and another teacher who had come out to the lobby and came up to them while they were speaking. That woman also taught in the same city as my wife although in an adjoining district. He said he really appreciated the hard work that teachers do and wished them both a nice holiday as he left. Of course my daughter and I only saw him walking away, so this turned into a very special moment for Dolores, which is what got this Christmas present started in the first place.

"Let me explain.
No, there is too much. Let me sum up."

It was a wonderful evening.

Saw 10th Anniversary Release

Some how I managed to go a decade without seeing this or any of the sequels (of which there are six, they came out annually for six straight years). I had no intention of seeing it today either but when we went to see John Wick yesterday, the AMC theater had mini-posters to give out and I'm afraid I'm an impulse buyer.  My kid likes horror films, there was an early show at a discount price, and I had to ask myself "why are you avoiding this?"

The answer is that I am not interested in the "torture porn" version of horror that this movie seems to have launched. I have no desire to watch human suffering for pleasure. When gore or dismemberment are done in pursuit of a story, then I can get behind it, but a slow scene with detailed moments of painful suffering brought to us by the SFX wizards of movies does not attract me. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that at least as far as the first movie is concerned, this is not horror based but rather a thriller with horror elements. It turns out this movie was far less graphic than a lot of other films I have in my past, and the disturbing scenarios are played out largely off screen.

So I"m ten years late to the party and telling most of you something you already know, "Saw" is an effective, low budget thriller that is full of plot holes but survives on the tricky premise it is based on. A serial killer who has the brains to engage in elaborate puzzles that lead to self inflicted death seems to be a stretch.  Most serial killers that are featured in film and television could qualify as geniuses and may be able to earn a doctorate at MIT. None of them seems close to the real life monsters that John Wayne Gacy, Angelo Bouno and Kenneth Bianci, or Richard Ramirez. The best character of a serial killer was Hannibal Lecter and he even he did not engage in the complicated "game-playing" that seems to be required of every new entry in the genre. Still. it is a movie only, and the idea of a two character drama played out in a locked room has all kinds of things going for it. There is still a lot of material outside of the room that has to be dealt with, but the main focus is on the two victims and their efforts to solve the puzzle of their imprisonment.

Co-screenwriter Leigh Whannell matches up well with veteran Cary Elwes as the two men, chained in a room and prompted to betray each other while at the same time trying to help each other. Elwes gets some pretty trite dialogue to spout, but he does it convincingly and in the last quarter of the movie, his desperation feels real. "Adam", Whannell's character, seems more genuine and the performance is much more solid from the get go. Danny Glover as the obsessed detective ends up chewing too much scenery in the final third of the film. Before his character goes off the rails, he seemed to be part of a legitimate police procedural. In a rush to wrap up the story, too many silly things have to happen.

To be honest, the most hard to watch scene for me was Adam's search for a clue in the toilet next to where he is chained up. A similar scene in "Trainspotting" is actually more vomit inducing. The kills are also not worse than any slasher film featuring Jason, Freddy, or Michael Myers.  All of "Jigsaw's" previous killings are only partially shown and the toilet scene was the one incident in the movie that the director seemed to linger over. The dramatic scene with the saw is much more implied than shown and the movie makes the right choice in avoiding becoming a gore fest, although the posters, trailers and other promotional material sell it that way. I don't know that this choice will be sustained in the other pictures in the series.

I'm not sure I will ever see any of the sequels. It seems unlikely that the simplicity of the concept will sustain itself for long before the need to satiate the morbid demand for audience shock begins to outweigh story considerations. I have to admire the execution of the plot and the direction of the film under modest financial circumstances. Some of the reviews from 10 years ago suggested that this was a vile film. Those comments were way over the top and in comparison to some of the things that have come after, Saw pales in the grotesque department. I appreciate special releases of older movies and the week that this was in theaters for Halloween was fine for me. Now next year, for the Fourth of July, could we please have the anagram version of this movie in theaters for a week to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of it's release. Seven days of Brody, Hooper and Quint chasing after a shark is at least as deserved as this this anniversary release was.