Making a List

Not that kind of list, denizens.  I have everything I need or I want and Santa is focusing on the littlest member of the clan, while being certain that the rest have socks and underwear to last a life time.

No, this list is for FlapJilly.  Her grandfather and I were sitting on Douglas, disgruntled viewers of gender stereotyped advertising on every channel we tried.  All the little girls were in pink... sparky pink... and most of them had tulle.  The ones with the biggest smiles were wearing tiaras or fairy princess wings.

Though Little Cuter went through a fairy princess stage in second grade, I think it had more to do with her friendship with Rachael than any real infatuation with spangles. Her wedding dress came from J Crew; it had pockets in lieu of lace. The notion of success through princess-ness is not part of her repertoire.

FlapJilly may have different ideas on the subject, and those will have to be treated with respect.  With that in mind, I started to make a list of Acceptable Princess Movies.

The first, most obvious, undisputed champion is Princess Bride.  True, Buttercup spends most of the movie being kidnapped and rescued and kidnapped and rescued, but it's the most quotable movie in our family pantheon, it's a good introduction to Christopher Guest, and the lessons it teaches are fairly perfect: sportsmanlike behavior, dedication to a cause, respect for genius, and, of course, believing in true love.

Next, I went to one of my classic Top 10 - Roman Holiday.  Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck and William Wyler and Rome.... what could be bad? as G'ma would say.  There is deception on both sides of the romantic equation, just as there is attention to duty and to a job well done. There are downsides to every career, princess-ing included, but Audrey manages to squeeze in one weekend of motor scooters and ice cream cones and haircuts before sucking it up and moving on with her life. 

SIR and Little Cuter treated us to Frozen on one of our visits.  I remember that it was beautiful and that the animation was incredible but I'm having a hard time recalling the story.  The kids were enthusiastic about it, and perhaps I will be, too.  But I've seen Princess Bride and Roman Holiday dozens of times; this list is too important to be added to randomly.  Ask me in a few years, after I've had time to watch again, and again, and again.

I know we'll watch Cinderella, because all those early Disney movies should be watched.  Big Cuter opines that in the first Star Wars Princess Leia is brave and heroic and he is my life line on anything Skywalker so I'll include it for sure. 

But that's as far as I can go.

There are Queen Movies we can watch when she's older, films like Elizabeth and Essex, but that list can wait for a while.  Can you think of others? 

It was a nice way to spend an afternoon, thinking back on movies that made me smile.  If you're so inclined, I'd love to know what you'd recommend.

Hello. My Name is Inigo Montoya.

You killed my father.  Prepare to die.

If you've seen the movie, you were saying it aloud to yourself after you finished reading the title.  I know.  I get it.  Best movie ever. 

Amster and Elizibeth and Miss Texas and Mr. 9 and Mr. 7-and-his-BFF-and-that-Mom-and-Grandma and I went to the Fox Tucson Theater this afternoon to watch it on the big screen.  It was perfect. 

(Spoiler alert - if you don't know that I'm writing about Princess Bride, 

continue reading at your own risk.)

I was the only one who'd seen it before, but the line at the will-call was full of "Mawwiage..." and "to the pain" and Miracle Max.  The smiles were beatific.  No one was in a bad mood.  Even the kids stopped fussing. 

Robin Wright (Penn-then-not-Penn)'s first film role was perfectly cast; she is Buttercup incarnate. Billy Crystal and Carol Kane ran around my kitchen, Humperdink-ing for as long as my kids shared a roof. The movie was a constant presence in our lives.

Mandy Patinkin's Inigo is Gene Kelly with a dark side; he lived in my house in the form of a little boy with a gleam in his eye and love in his heart for many, many years.  Actually, as I think about it, he's still in there, and not buried too deep, either.  No one was ever chastised for using the plastic sword holding the burger together as an epee... not as long as Hello... my name is Inigo Montoya was included in the duel. 

This afternoon, leaving the loge, the boys tried valiantly to escape my pointed finger as I warned them to prepare to die.  I'm not sure that we were the best behaved patrons in the theater; I know we were among the ones having the most fun.  I didn't want it to end.  With the double enticement of a new car (a loaner) and gelato, Messers 7 and 9 condescended to drive with me.

As we waited for the freight train to meander across the intersection, the conversation continued. Is iocaine real?  (No) What does develop an immunity mean and should we, could we try it? (Uh... no) The sportsmanship of bopping an opponent with a boulder consumed us as we took the short cut across Orange Grove to Skyline.  Westley's piggy-back ride gave Mr. 7 the giggles, although we all agreed that it was a fairly uncomfortable piggy-back ride.  

At Frost, the best gelato in the world, we wondered how Fezzik got that big (he was born that way) and discussed how pay back is like revenge. Over a small, a medium, and a large, Mr. 9 told us that he'd recognized Westley at As you wish; Mr. 7 didn't know until the mask rolled off at the bottom of the hill.  There was no brotherly I knew before you knew; we were more invested in the nuance than in the nudging. Anyway, neither of them knew that Westley was the man on the rope... the very strong man on the rope, even without carrying three people, too.

It was that kind of afternoon, and Rob Reiner's opus brought us there.  And, it gets even better. 

As we pulled into his driveway, Mr. 7 asked, "Is there a book of Princess Bride?"  

I'm picking it up at Barnes and Noble right after dinner.  It will be in his hands tonight, for Mom to read aloud.... because that's the perfect ending to a perfect day.