Satire?

Death Proof is awesome. Like, legit, unironically excellent.

I happened to rewatch it for the first time in a long while as part of Halloween festivities, and I was really surprised how good it is throughout. All the detractors make it out like everything outside of the ending car-chase is bad, or a waste of time, and this re-watch confirmed for me that those people are full of shit. I will grant that the opening 15 minutes drag badly, however, the moment Stuntman Mike walks into the bar, I think the writing is as good as any other Tarantino movie, and stays that way all the way to the end of the movie. Everything with Kurt Russell is absolute gold. Then it heads into the amazing "Psycho" mid-movie killing sequence which is great, and we're introduced to the 2nd set of girls. And I'll go on record here and say that I love all their conversations, and they do a great job of subtly laying exposition into casual banter.

I'm kinda baffled by all the shit these dialogue sequences seem to get online, and I really think there's a sexist aspect to it. Because it's 4 girls instead of a bunch of guys in suits, people want to get to the killing and think everything being said is a waste of time. Well I absolutely disagree, and in fact, I would say the final 4 girls' conversations in this are way more relevant to the plot of the movie than anything in the diner scene in Reservoir Dogs, and no less entertaining.

And of course, once it kicks into the car chase, it's an awesome extended action set-piece, all done practically with the real actors. And on top of that, it's something we have never seen before, a totally unique car-chase idea that's played out to it's fullest extent.

So ya, Death Proof rules. And for the record, I think Planet Terror is infinitely worse, a glorified 90 minute joke that stops being funny after about 10 minutes, whereas Death Proof establishes an identity of it's own and succeeds on it's own terms completely divorced from the Grindhouse concept.

Personally I don't even know why the idea of parody/satire is in the question at all when it comes to Princess Bride.

It's high concept.

What if there was a fairy tale story, but it's being filtered through a 12 year old boy? Then it tells a fairly by the book fairy tale (True love, a lover whisked away but returns in hiding, the evil prince stealing the true love, the trickster minor villian etc etc). It just so happens that the actual fairy tale they made up is actually really damn good, the characters are likeable and charming, the jokes land, and the action is great. SWo it winds up being a really really good by the numbers fairytale.

Obviously all that is a matter of taste, but I don't really see a need to look beyond that for some deep seated FEELING or MESSAGE it's trying to tell us about fairytales. Outside of this being a unique way of telling a rather good one.

Thing is, you add in the lovey-dovey stuff, and you basically have a renaissance era Disney fairy tale.

I'm not sure what you mean by unspoken rules about the characters?

The only one that I can really see (and I haven't seen the movie recently, so I'll admit I might be forgetting something), is the whole true love/destiny thing, but that's basically a magic bean of sorts (Okay these 2 people are maddly deeply in love, shit gets in thier way, go) and you accept it or not. Otherwise all of the characters are acting and reacting pretty naturally (inside the hightened reality of the fairytale of course) to what their character is.

Ya, the whole Princess Bride thing completely passed me by. When I finally tried to watch it I barely got through it. It's a satire of a genre I have no interest in, so it's just not my cup of tea at all. Galaxy Quest is truly great though. That's one I'd be really surprised if someone didn't like, as it totally succeeds as a movie in like 5 different genres simultaneously.