I'm shocked and saddened to hear he died by violence. I had assumed he had succumbed to terminal TDS. He made some excellent films, so R.I.P. Rob Reiner.
Maybe it's just the writer in me, but the only one of these I think of as "Reiner" is Spinal Tap, maybe because he appeared in it.
Sure Thing, I had forgotten that was him. It's an above average '80s teen comedy, but otherwise not really that great.
Stand by Me is mawkishly sentimental, but quite good for what it is.
The Princess Bride I think is truly great and will be quoted forever, but I attribute that more to Goldman than to Reiner.
Ditto When Harry Met Sally: who was the real impetus behind that, Reiner or Ephron? I've always believed (or assumed) Ephron.
Misery (which I didn't like) = Stephen King.
A Few Good Men = Aaron Sorkin (don't like him either, but he sure can write). I actually saw this on stage at the Geary in SF before it was a movie. Believe it or not, it was better as a play. Wordier, but the dialogue was awesome. Some of the best lines got cut. And, this will be taken as blasphemy, Nicholson as a colonel never worked for me. Too old and nothing about him says "Marine."
The general assumption about screen entertainment is that writers rule TV while directors rule movies, but I am not so sure that is always true. However, I just saw for the first time a Kubrick movie I had never seen the other night and I was hooked without knowing why, despite the fact that the story was rather tawdry. I stayed with it until the end when the host said "And that was Stanley Kubrick's second film" and I immediately realized "Ah, so that's why I didn't click it off and walk away." Kubrick was one of those directors who had a style that superseded whatever material he was working with. Reiner did not. You sort of said this when you said he made many different types of movies, but that just makes him competent in a Hollywood way, not an "auteur" (what a pretentious word).
As for his hypocritical limousine leftism and hectoring anti-normie hyper-moralism, well, that always got on my nerves, but what a horrible way to go.
Then again, Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail, which are both basically remakes of When Harry Met Sally, but directed by Ephron, are inferior to When Harry Met Sally, which suggests that Reiner made some essential contribution to When Harry Met Sally.
OK, it sounds like Reiner had a decade long stretch of picking written material that, in hindsight, would work really well on the screen: Stephen King! Nora Ephron! Aaron Sorkin!
William Goldman had been a famous screenwriter for a long time (Butch Cassidy) but nobody else rushed to film his Princess Bride.
Don't forget Marathon Man and All the President's Men, which works both as leftwing propaganda and as an awesome movie. That's when reporters become cool, or at least prestige. And his memoir is probably the greatest Hollywood book ever.
Also don’t forget The Great Waldo Pepper, which makes an interesting case study in Goldman’s first memoir as a flop, but as an interesting flop. The aerial scenes are, fifty years later, still some of the best ever filmed; all real airplanes with real people flying them. Director George Roy Hill flew in WW2 and was an aviation nut.
Bringing this back to the late RR: I tend to see him as a decent director, when he wasn’t preaching. But without a great script…no way. Spinal Tap was basically a very early Chris Guest ensemble movie, no? At least when you look at the Guest movies, Tap seems to fit right in. And as was said, The Princess Bride had tip-top writing talent, plus a great cast, plus one of the all-time great theme songs - “Story Book Love” written (not for the movie!) and performed by the late great Willy DeVille; the Oscar performance was beautiful and moving. Kudos to RR for finding it.
So, yeah, RR had some mojo, but he needed really good collaborators. And after he lost his mind to left-wing politics…a lost cause.
Mink DeVille was the band for which Willy DeVille was the songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist. The band was mostly whoever Willy grabbed to go into the studio or play at a club though; lots of turnover. Eventually he just started going by Willy DeVille.
They were there for a lot of the New York City punk/New Wave history though; despite being a Latin-tinged rhythm and blues act instead of a punk band like the Ramones, or a semi-artsy guitar band like Television, they were one of the main house bands as CBGB’s for several years.
I didn't know that A Few Good Men began as a play. In 1983 I interviewed with the CIA in the hotel directly across the street from the Geary/Curran. I didn't get the job.
I enjoy "A Few Good Men" but the plot holes bug me, particularly the stuff about lactic acidosis. Just goes to show you can make a fun movie even if it's flawed and political.
I just watched that the night before Reiner was stabbed. He was great in it. That guy plays angry-the-way-only-your-dad-gets-angry perfectly.
HBO just started showing "Mad Men" in 4k so I've been rewatching that for the first time. From a current day workplace perspective, the more "toxic" the work environment is portrayed, the more fun it seems.
When I watch MM the only thing that ruins the fantasy is all the smoking. I can't fully picture myself in the era. With WOWS somehow it makes me wish I enjoyed drugs and debauchery. I know a movie like that should officially be saying Jordan Belfort bad, but man, in practice it looks like he had more fun than anyone and came out of his prosecution better than ever.
Good job I subscribe to someone who can do my noticing for me. Like other commenters, I had associated him with TDS on social media but that list of films is pretty impressive. Kathy Bates character lives well beyond the film (forever in my mind confused with Louise Fletcher's Nurse Ratched) and seems a good reason to be afraid of hospitals, although I can't think of any specific lines. Getting a great characterisation from Jack Nicholson doesn't seem so impressive given there are so many but "you can't handle the truth" is a good one and Inigo Montoya must have launched a thousand memes and it's hard not to think that Mandy Patinkin must recall the role with a degree of fondness, mirrored by many of us. As you say, strange drop off yet he carried on directing for a further 30 years with some a lot of A-grade actors in some pretty forgettable movies. RIP
I don't like *Misery* all that much, either the book or the movie, but I agree that the Kathy B character is intense and memorable. I'd give Reiner some directorial credit for that one, because he certainly got a good performance out of her. I'm not sure how great an actor she really is; Mrs C has been watching the recent remake of 'Matlock', starring Kathy Bates, and she's awful in that -- schmaltzy, grating, insufferable.
Yes it's funny, I haven't watched it in a long time and I can't say that I actually liked the movie but there was something terrifying and visceral about that performance. I can't think of anything else I've seen her in so yes serendipity perhaps and credit to the Director for bringing out her best.
I find it unbearable, not least because Kathy B tries to replicate the Andy Griffith down home country boy accent, and does not really succeed. Mrs C is not a native English speaker, so the accent doesn't register with her at all. So that's one hurdle to watching cleared, I guess. Mrs C and I generally have compatible TV/movie viewing tastes, but we've agreed to disagree on this one.
By the way, speaking of IMDB ratings, just now I checked the new Matlock, and it gets a 7.5, so right there in between 'quite good' and 'excellent' in your breakdown.
As was discussed over on the old site, though, that scale is only reliable for movies, especially older ones. TV shows, particularly currently-running ones, tend to get overrated.
Right. New TV shows constantly get rated as if they were Godfather II, whereas IMBD ratings for old movies are quite reliable: E.g., The Sure Thing (7.0) is the least of Rob Reiner's Big Seven Movies, but it's still quite good.
William Goldman said in not quite so many words that “Misery” was let down because James Caan had too unintelligent a face for a writer and that he wished they had cast Richard Gere.
You are confusing Reiner with Norman Lear, creator of "All in the Family," on which Reiner made his name. I don't know that Reiner had anything to do with that organization. As far as Reiner's TDS, it undoubtedly damaged his mental well-being while having no effect whatsoever on Trump. That constant level of rage can't be healthy for a person.
I don't remember any of his nasty comments but I do know that people who talk the way RR spoke over mere political ideology are not too concerned about anyone's "happiness." Hateful rhetoric of the kind RR spewed adds nothing but hateful negativity to the consciousness of anyone who encounters it. EDIT Or, perhaps your comment is meant as bitter irony.
Two things. First, I don’t care about IMDB ratings; Princess Bride is a masterpiece. It’s an all-time great movie.
Second, while When Harry Met Sally was a great film, the beginning makes zero sense. If he is picking her up in Hyde Park at the University of Chicago, there is no reason at all to drive past the Hancock on Lake Shore Drive. What did he do, traverse a giant 45 minute northbound loop before driving past Hyde Park again? WTF. And it’s an own-goal; Meg Ryan is NOT a University of Chicago girl. I mean, she just isn’t. But she very plausibly could be a Northwestern girl. Have her go to Northwestern, and driving down LSD makes geographical sense.
That always bugs me too but having lived in many places where movies are shot I have learned that editors don't care if the geographic sequence makes sense.
"When Harry Met Sally" also doesn't make sense to me because I can't imagine a man and woman being friends for so long without deciding they were attracted to each other. I heard a comedian explain that a Platonic relationship is one between a woman and a man who desperately wants to get into her pants. I have two attractive daughters and every guy who claims he "just wants to be friends" with one of them starts making moves pretty quickly.
Right, but there are better views of the Loop skyline from the south lakefront than from the north lakefront. Thus, in "Nothing In Common," Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason start out at O'Hare airport on the northwest side, then are next shown driving north on Lake Shore Drive toward the Loop around South Shore. That route doesn't make sense, but it looks great.
Horrible, horrible news. My parents had a friend named Carl Reiner- he was no relation to the show-business Reiners, but growing up around him I couldn't help feeling some kind of connection to them. May their memory be a blessing.
RIP Rob Reiner, I had him sign my baseball glove once in Dodger stadium and he signed over Tim Salmon’s autograph. I’m not sure why I thought it was a good idea to get his autograph on a baseball glove..
Tina, I agree with you 100%. Reiner was despicable.
Shane!
Let’s just consider what Reiner would have to say upon hearing of the passing of our host.
Again, you're thinking of Norman Lear, not Reiner.
Thank you. A clear-eyed appraisal of the man in whole is warranted.
https://x.com/i/status/2001192309233438740
I’m sure Reiner would have considered Leni Riefenstahl’s filmmaking talent when judging her character.
I'm shocked and saddened to hear he died by violence. I had assumed he had succumbed to terminal TDS. He made some excellent films, so R.I.P. Rob Reiner.
I thought only extreme wokesters talked like that. Shame on you.
Be better.
Maybe it's just the writer in me, but the only one of these I think of as "Reiner" is Spinal Tap, maybe because he appeared in it.
Sure Thing, I had forgotten that was him. It's an above average '80s teen comedy, but otherwise not really that great.
Stand by Me is mawkishly sentimental, but quite good for what it is.
The Princess Bride I think is truly great and will be quoted forever, but I attribute that more to Goldman than to Reiner.
Ditto When Harry Met Sally: who was the real impetus behind that, Reiner or Ephron? I've always believed (or assumed) Ephron.
Misery (which I didn't like) = Stephen King.
A Few Good Men = Aaron Sorkin (don't like him either, but he sure can write). I actually saw this on stage at the Geary in SF before it was a movie. Believe it or not, it was better as a play. Wordier, but the dialogue was awesome. Some of the best lines got cut. And, this will be taken as blasphemy, Nicholson as a colonel never worked for me. Too old and nothing about him says "Marine."
The general assumption about screen entertainment is that writers rule TV while directors rule movies, but I am not so sure that is always true. However, I just saw for the first time a Kubrick movie I had never seen the other night and I was hooked without knowing why, despite the fact that the story was rather tawdry. I stayed with it until the end when the host said "And that was Stanley Kubrick's second film" and I immediately realized "Ah, so that's why I didn't click it off and walk away." Kubrick was one of those directors who had a style that superseded whatever material he was working with. Reiner did not. You sort of said this when you said he made many different types of movies, but that just makes him competent in a Hollywood way, not an "auteur" (what a pretentious word).
As for his hypocritical limousine leftism and hectoring anti-normie hyper-moralism, well, that always got on my nerves, but what a horrible way to go.
Then again, Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail, which are both basically remakes of When Harry Met Sally, but directed by Ephron, are inferior to When Harry Met Sally, which suggests that Reiner made some essential contribution to When Harry Met Sally.
Maybe the basic structure was Ephron's all along, but Reiner could do jewel-polishing?
OK, it sounds like Reiner had a decade long stretch of picking written material that, in hindsight, would work really well on the screen: Stephen King! Nora Ephron! Aaron Sorkin!
William Goldman had been a famous screenwriter for a long time (Butch Cassidy) but nobody else rushed to film his Princess Bride.
Don't forget Marathon Man and All the President's Men, which works both as leftwing propaganda and as an awesome movie. That's when reporters become cool, or at least prestige. And his memoir is probably the greatest Hollywood book ever.
Shelley Winters' autobiography is great.
Also don’t forget The Great Waldo Pepper, which makes an interesting case study in Goldman’s first memoir as a flop, but as an interesting flop. The aerial scenes are, fifty years later, still some of the best ever filmed; all real airplanes with real people flying them. Director George Roy Hill flew in WW2 and was an aviation nut.
Bringing this back to the late RR: I tend to see him as a decent director, when he wasn’t preaching. But without a great script…no way. Spinal Tap was basically a very early Chris Guest ensemble movie, no? At least when you look at the Guest movies, Tap seems to fit right in. And as was said, The Princess Bride had tip-top writing talent, plus a great cast, plus one of the all-time great theme songs - “Story Book Love” written (not for the movie!) and performed by the late great Willy DeVille; the Oscar performance was beautiful and moving. Kudos to RR for finding it.
So, yeah, RR had some mojo, but he needed really good collaborators. And after he lost his mind to left-wing politics…a lost cause.
Is Willy DeVille the same as Mink DeVille?
Mink DeVille was the band for which Willy DeVille was the songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist. The band was mostly whoever Willy grabbed to go into the studio or play at a club though; lots of turnover. Eventually he just started going by Willy DeVille.
They were there for a lot of the New York City punk/New Wave history though; despite being a Latin-tinged rhythm and blues act instead of a punk band like the Ramones, or a semi-artsy guitar band like Television, they were one of the main house bands as CBGB’s for several years.
I think I was around 8 or 9 years old when I saw Waldo Pepper, and I have to wonder what effect it had on my developing brain.
I didn't know that A Few Good Men began as a play. In 1983 I interviewed with the CIA in the hotel directly across the street from the Geary/Curran. I didn't get the job.
I enjoy "A Few Good Men" but the plot holes bug me, particularly the stuff about lactic acidosis. Just goes to show you can make a fun movie even if it's flawed and political.
RIP. Unfortunately, like Stephen King, his over the top TDS tainted all his works to me.
This real video of Reiner was pretty amazing. Maybe it was more than TDS.
https://x.com/i/status/2001192309233438740
Rob Reiner was great in The Wolf of Wall Street: https://x.com/dpinsen/status/2000422913598791974?s=20
He was also pretty good in a TV restaurant melodrama The Bear.
I just watched that the night before Reiner was stabbed. He was great in it. That guy plays angry-the-way-only-your-dad-gets-angry perfectly.
HBO just started showing "Mad Men" in 4k so I've been rewatching that for the first time. From a current day workplace perspective, the more "toxic" the work environment is portrayed, the more fun it seems.
When I watch MM the only thing that ruins the fantasy is all the smoking. I can't fully picture myself in the era. With WOWS somehow it makes me wish I enjoyed drugs and debauchery. I know a movie like that should officially be saying Jordan Belfort bad, but man, in practice it looks like he had more fun than anyone and came out of his prosecution better than ever.
Good job I subscribe to someone who can do my noticing for me. Like other commenters, I had associated him with TDS on social media but that list of films is pretty impressive. Kathy Bates character lives well beyond the film (forever in my mind confused with Louise Fletcher's Nurse Ratched) and seems a good reason to be afraid of hospitals, although I can't think of any specific lines. Getting a great characterisation from Jack Nicholson doesn't seem so impressive given there are so many but "you can't handle the truth" is a good one and Inigo Montoya must have launched a thousand memes and it's hard not to think that Mandy Patinkin must recall the role with a degree of fondness, mirrored by many of us. As you say, strange drop off yet he carried on directing for a further 30 years with some a lot of A-grade actors in some pretty forgettable movies. RIP
I don't like *Misery* all that much, either the book or the movie, but I agree that the Kathy B character is intense and memorable. I'd give Reiner some directorial credit for that one, because he certainly got a good performance out of her. I'm not sure how great an actor she really is; Mrs C has been watching the recent remake of 'Matlock', starring Kathy Bates, and she's awful in that -- schmaltzy, grating, insufferable.
Yes it's funny, I haven't watched it in a long time and I can't say that I actually liked the movie but there was something terrifying and visceral about that performance. I can't think of anything else I've seen her in so yes serendipity perhaps and credit to the Director for bringing out her best.
Yeah, the new "Matlock" seems terrible in the 90 seconds I watched.
I find it unbearable, not least because Kathy B tries to replicate the Andy Griffith down home country boy accent, and does not really succeed. Mrs C is not a native English speaker, so the accent doesn't register with her at all. So that's one hurdle to watching cleared, I guess. Mrs C and I generally have compatible TV/movie viewing tastes, but we've agreed to disagree on this one.
By the way, speaking of IMDB ratings, just now I checked the new Matlock, and it gets a 7.5, so right there in between 'quite good' and 'excellent' in your breakdown.
As was discussed over on the old site, though, that scale is only reliable for movies, especially older ones. TV shows, particularly currently-running ones, tend to get overrated.
Right. New TV shows constantly get rated as if they were Godfather II, whereas IMBD ratings for old movies are quite reliable: E.g., The Sure Thing (7.0) is the least of Rob Reiner's Big Seven Movies, but it's still quite good.
William Goldman said in not quite so many words that “Misery” was let down because James Caan had too unintelligent a face for a writer and that he wished they had cast Richard Gere.
Have they seen Steven King?
[Snare-snare, rimshot, cymbal!]
That makes sense to me. He didn't look right for the part; I agree.
He also made an excellent Meathead. May God rest his soul.
You are confusing Reiner with Norman Lear, creator of "All in the Family," on which Reiner made his name. I don't know that Reiner had anything to do with that organization. As far as Reiner's TDS, it undoubtedly damaged his mental well-being while having no effect whatsoever on Trump. That constant level of rage can't be healthy for a person.
He seemed like he cared about happiness a lot. Sad way for such a life to end.
I don't remember any of his nasty comments but I do know that people who talk the way RR spoke over mere political ideology are not too concerned about anyone's "happiness." Hateful rhetoric of the kind RR spewed adds nothing but hateful negativity to the consciousness of anyone who encounters it. EDIT Or, perhaps your comment is meant as bitter irony.
Two things. First, I don’t care about IMDB ratings; Princess Bride is a masterpiece. It’s an all-time great movie.
Second, while When Harry Met Sally was a great film, the beginning makes zero sense. If he is picking her up in Hyde Park at the University of Chicago, there is no reason at all to drive past the Hancock on Lake Shore Drive. What did he do, traverse a giant 45 minute northbound loop before driving past Hyde Park again? WTF. And it’s an own-goal; Meg Ryan is NOT a University of Chicago girl. I mean, she just isn’t. But she very plausibly could be a Northwestern girl. Have her go to Northwestern, and driving down LSD makes geographical sense.
That always bugs me too but having lived in many places where movies are shot I have learned that editors don't care if the geographic sequence makes sense.
"When Harry Met Sally" also doesn't make sense to me because I can't imagine a man and woman being friends for so long without deciding they were attracted to each other. I heard a comedian explain that a Platonic relationship is one between a woman and a man who desperately wants to get into her pants. I have two attractive daughters and every guy who claims he "just wants to be friends" with one of them starts making moves pretty quickly.
Well, I do have longtime female friends with whom I am “just friends.” But none of them look like Meg Ryan.
Yes, if there's zero attraction it can work. I can't picture the man who wouldn't be attracted to the young Meg Ryan.
I can picture such a fellow, but he’s gay.
Right, but there are better views of the Loop skyline from the south lakefront than from the north lakefront. Thus, in "Nothing In Common," Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason start out at O'Hare airport on the northwest side, then are next shown driving north on Lake Shore Drive toward the Loop around South Shore. That route doesn't make sense, but it looks great.
Horrible, horrible news. My parents had a friend named Carl Reiner- he was no relation to the show-business Reiners, but growing up around him I couldn't help feeling some kind of connection to them. May their memory be a blessing.
Apparently the Reiners were killed by their drug addicted son. Reminder that drugs are really, really bad for you and everybody around you. Tragic.
RIP Rob Reiner, I had him sign my baseball glove once in Dodger stadium and he signed over Tim Salmon’s autograph. I’m not sure why I thought it was a good idea to get his autograph on a baseball glove..
Odd that it happened the day after Dick Van Dyke's 100th birthday.
Hmmm. I wonder if there is a connection. lol