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.
He enacted a specific agenda of extreme drug legalization. That killed and destroyed millions of Americans' lives, virtually all of whom could not afford the rehab that he could for his son. This is tragedy, but it is also irony. It was 1994 when I was assigned by my bosses to serve on the Georgia Board of the Rural-Urban Summit. Complete deincarceration, no enforced inpatient mental health care, and legalization, first of pot, and then all other drugs, were on their agenda. Plus open borders, which brought the drugs here. That was Reiner's agenda -- for others. And yes, he headed Rural-Urban Summit, not Norman Lear, who founded People for the American Way. so he imposed his personal trauma on millions of non-celebrity American families. He died horribly. I almost did once too, thanks to his activism to free violent prisoners. You want me to send flowers?
So it's OK that he funded and worked to legalize all drugs for other peoples' offspring, those who could not afford 17 rehabs? I considered not coming back here after hearing the ignorance, denial of easily discoverable facts of his nonprofit political actions, and preening feelings for a man who wouldn't hestitate to imprison you merely for your ideas. Of course it's terrible what happened to him. But let's be honest: he would celebrate your death just for voting for Trump. He has said so. You can pity and pray for the man. Who wouldn't? You can empathize with parents who have addicted and mentally ill children. Who wouldn't. I have.
But never forget what he would do to you and has done to you. I was in the room. You were not. They think you're nazis. Maybe that's why I use a real name and you quiver behind a fake one. Someone has to call them liars.
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.
My response to this comment feels mixed. Great films? Yes, though every time I go to the dentist, I obsess over Marathon Man for days. I lightheartedly disagree about the memoir: Shelley Winters wrote the best Hollywood memoirs of all time. Bygones. But to elevate the media while ignoring all the other decades of crap they did is insane.
Lana Turner, I think, was the real girl discovered in a soda shop, but Shelley Winters' autobiographies are great. And credit to Turner, the hardest-working sweater girl in Hollywood, Peyton Place was her masterpiece.
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.
Hasn't anyone heard of the activities of People for the American Way, Reiners's nonprofit? They funded anti-American terrorists and spent decades re-fuelling the radical Left.
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 agree art imitated life a bit there. But in the mid-90's, Reiner's leadership and funding for People for the American Way decided, quite rationally, that they needed to re-boot the radical and front Left to counter the then-dominance of the Gingrich revolution across media, academic, and political arenas. Reiner definitely fronted the movement. As part of my regrettable nonprofit work then, and my knowledge of coalition-building, my board made me a member of their board. I still have the training manuals with Reiner's agenda in them. I cannot access the nonprofit source Guidestar today -- I used it for free back then, but now it costs. But I printed out all their 1990s 990s and have them in my storage files. I am happy to look for them later, but I have other work today.
I sat in those meetings until I was thrown out for supporting the joint (and highly effective) Clinton/Gingrich welfare reform. In Georgia, the PAW money ran through Daniel Levitas of the Center for Democratical Renewal, which mainly promoted fake hate crimes and sued and were countersued by the ADL over turf battles, with lots of other questionablte financial and political behavior. A real piece of work. But it was Rob Reiner. It was my job to research nonprofits.
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.
Reiner spent the last several decades trying to destabilize America, eliminate incarceration, legalize drugs, open borders, and impose both socialism and a particularly Maoist form of cultural revolution among the young through People for the American Way. PAW is one of the most radical marxist recruitment organizations in the nation, partnering with Soros and amplifying his efforts to turn us into a lawless, borderless, drug-addled, violent, socialism for some state. So it's hard not to see this as anything but one chicken coming home to roost.
And, Paulus, it is true that Reiner kept his head down regarding his People for the American Way leadership. I can see how hard that material is to find online now. But he esssentially ran the activism branch of this very influential organization and was recently emerging as its real leader again. Wikipedia isn't a good source for this stuff. Reiner was always Lear's sidekick, and after Lear's recent death was taking over the organization again. For example, if you want to be called a Nazi and Klansman a whole bunch with no credibility, see his recent film, God and Country (there are a few films called that, so you have to search a bit). So he was dishonest as well, seeking a mainstream identity to market films while engaging in hateful and divisive politics. There are plenty of references to his work with PAW, though it would take me some time to pull up the hardcopy 990s. A coward, even for a two-faced Marxist.
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..
The sort of passive initial reporting of "two bodies found in the home" made me think initially it was a murder suicide of some kind. But hearing that they had a son with an incredibly long history of serious substance abuse, well...there certainly are some people that have no ability to control themselves when it comes to drugs and what they will do under the influence. It really highlights the completely insane and inhumane approach to drug addiction/homelessness many of our largest cities take in the name of "harm reduction." The left really cares more about the appearances of kindness than actual results.
Kindness? He would call people like you and me Nazis.
I’m sure Reiner would have considered Leni Riefenstahl’s filmmaking talent when judging her character.
That is an interesting question. Whether we have to demonstrably mourn over him is a different question, not that it shouldn't be considered.
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.
His activism is precisely of the type that got him killed, so good riddance.
I thought only extreme wokesters talked like that. Shame on you.
He enacted a specific agenda of extreme drug legalization. That killed and destroyed millions of Americans' lives, virtually all of whom could not afford the rehab that he could for his son. This is tragedy, but it is also irony. It was 1994 when I was assigned by my bosses to serve on the Georgia Board of the Rural-Urban Summit. Complete deincarceration, no enforced inpatient mental health care, and legalization, first of pot, and then all other drugs, were on their agenda. Plus open borders, which brought the drugs here. That was Reiner's agenda -- for others. And yes, he headed Rural-Urban Summit, not Norman Lear, who founded People for the American Way. so he imposed his personal trauma on millions of non-celebrity American families. He died horribly. I almost did once too, thanks to his activism to free violent prisoners. You want me to send flowers?
Be better.
So it's OK that he funded and worked to legalize all drugs for other peoples' offspring, those who could not afford 17 rehabs? I considered not coming back here after hearing the ignorance, denial of easily discoverable facts of his nonprofit political actions, and preening feelings for a man who wouldn't hestitate to imprison you merely for your ideas. Of course it's terrible what happened to him. But let's be honest: he would celebrate your death just for voting for Trump. He has said so. You can pity and pray for the man. Who wouldn't? You can empathize with parents who have addicted and mentally ill children. Who wouldn't. I have.
But never forget what he would do to you and has done to you. I was in the room. You were not. They think you're nazis. Maybe that's why I use a real name and you quiver behind a fake one. Someone has to call them liars.
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.
My response to this comment feels mixed. Great films? Yes, though every time I go to the dentist, I obsess over Marathon Man for days. I lightheartedly disagree about the memoir: Shelley Winters wrote the best Hollywood memoirs of all time. Bygones. But to elevate the media while ignoring all the other decades of crap they did is insane.
Shelley Winters' autobiography is great.
Lana Turner, I think, was the real girl discovered in a soda shop, but Shelley Winters' autobiographies are great. And credit to Turner, the hardest-working sweater girl in Hollywood, Peyton Place was her masterpiece.
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.
That activism destroyed countless lives.
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.
Or did you?
Just kidding.
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.
That makes sense to me. He didn't look right for the part; I agree.
Have they seen writers?
Have they seen Steven King?
[Snare-snare, rimshot, cymbal!]
He also made an excellent Meathead. May God rest his soul.
Hasn't anyone heard of the activities of People for the American Way, Reiners's nonprofit? They funded anti-American terrorists and spent decades re-fuelling the radical Left.
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 agree art imitated life a bit there. But in the mid-90's, Reiner's leadership and funding for People for the American Way decided, quite rationally, that they needed to re-boot the radical and front Left to counter the then-dominance of the Gingrich revolution across media, academic, and political arenas. Reiner definitely fronted the movement. As part of my regrettable nonprofit work then, and my knowledge of coalition-building, my board made me a member of their board. I still have the training manuals with Reiner's agenda in them. I cannot access the nonprofit source Guidestar today -- I used it for free back then, but now it costs. But I printed out all their 1990s 990s and have them in my storage files. I am happy to look for them later, but I have other work today.
I sat in those meetings until I was thrown out for supporting the joint (and highly effective) Clinton/Gingrich welfare reform. In Georgia, the PAW money ran through Daniel Levitas of the Center for Democratical Renewal, which mainly promoted fake hate crimes and sued and were countersued by the ADL over turf battles, with lots of other questionablte financial and political behavior. A real piece of work. But it was Rob Reiner. It was my job to research nonprofits.
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.
Reiner spent the last several decades trying to destabilize America, eliminate incarceration, legalize drugs, open borders, and impose both socialism and a particularly Maoist form of cultural revolution among the young through People for the American Way. PAW is one of the most radical marxist recruitment organizations in the nation, partnering with Soros and amplifying his efforts to turn us into a lawless, borderless, drug-addled, violent, socialism for some state. So it's hard not to see this as anything but one chicken coming home to roost.
Again, you're thinking of Norman Lear, not Reiner.
Please see above.
And, Paulus, it is true that Reiner kept his head down regarding his People for the American Way leadership. I can see how hard that material is to find online now. But he esssentially ran the activism branch of this very influential organization and was recently emerging as its real leader again. Wikipedia isn't a good source for this stuff. Reiner was always Lear's sidekick, and after Lear's recent death was taking over the organization again. For example, if you want to be called a Nazi and Klansman a whole bunch with no credibility, see his recent film, God and Country (there are a few films called that, so you have to search a bit). So he was dishonest as well, seeking a mainstream identity to market films while engaging in hateful and divisive politics. There are plenty of references to his work with PAW, though it would take me some time to pull up the hardcopy 990s. A coward, even for a two-faced Marxist.
Thank you. A clear-eyed appraisal of the man in whole is warranted.
https://x.com/i/status/2001192309233438740
Well, he is some evidence.
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.
Yeah. Too bad he worked so hard to legalize them.
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
Hell of a way to go. Spinal Tap is one of the five greatest comedies without question. He deserves a ton of credit for that - politics be damned.
People magazine is reporting that their druggie son killed them.
The sort of passive initial reporting of "two bodies found in the home" made me think initially it was a murder suicide of some kind. But hearing that they had a son with an incredibly long history of serious substance abuse, well...there certainly are some people that have no ability to control themselves when it comes to drugs and what they will do under the influence. It really highlights the completely insane and inhumane approach to drug addiction/homelessness many of our largest cities take in the name of "harm reduction." The left really cares more about the appearances of kindness than actual results.