A hunt for some good wedding readings led me to read Stardust. I’m a big fan of Neil Gaiman and thought it would be cool to have something he wrote at our wedding. There are only so many times people can hear Corinthian 13:4-7, right?

One Gaiman passage I found was from Stardust. I had never read it before and decided this was as good a time as any, so I took it out of the library, read the book and loved it. Unfortunately, I didn’t remember reading anything matching the passage I was thinking about using at our wedding. I looked it up on the web again and realized my error: it was from the movie, not the novel!

I immediately rented Stardust from Netflix.

I then immediately let it sit next to my TV for a month before I watched it. Side note: I need to reevaluate my disc subscription.

Stardust: the movie is great. In some ways, I love it more than Stardust: the novel. The dialogue was remarkably crisp, with a good deal of wit and humor mixed in, especially any time the ghost brothers were on the screen.

Robert DeNiro gives a performance that needs to be included in any career retrospective highlight reel. While his performance as Captain Shakespeare will never be as famous as his roles in Taxi Driver, The Godfather Part II or Raging Bull, his performance here might be one of the best comedic performances he’s ever given.

I can’t recommend Stardust enough. Unfortunately, it’s not available on Netflix streaming at this time, but it is available on Amazon Prime streaming (I subscribe to both). If you’re not an Amazon Prime member, you’ll have to hunt down the disc. But it’s definitely worth it. If you liked Time Bandits or The Princess Bride, then…well, why haven’t you seen this yet? Actually, I’ll tell you why. When Stardust was first released, I remember the marketing for it making it look like the cheesiest movie ever. It’s not.

Once you get your hands on the DVD, check out the deleted scenes and the special making of featurette with Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess. I’m usually not a fan of DVD extras, but the ones in Stardust are a very welcome exception.

In the end, I don’t think we’ll have a reading from Stardust at our wedding, but I’m very grateful for the journey that led me to this book and movie. Now to hunt down Stardust: the graphic novel.