It is hard to remember how revolutionary When Harry Met Sally... was when it was released in 1989. Up until this point, all rom-coms were light, absurdist romps. This movie had all the tone and tempo of a rom-com, but it was much more honest about how men and women look at relationships.There are so many iconic scenes from this movie. My favorite is when Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal are goofing around in a park making funny voices, obviously attracted to each other. The gorgeous fall colors and pitch perfect chemistry between these two is such a delight to watch.The script from Nora Ephron was originally much darker, but Reiner decided to give it a happy ending and add in the adorable interviews with married couples. These two additions gave the movie a richer, almost documentary feel. Reiner's direction is tight and character centric. Each scene captures the mood of the main characters perfectly.This movie redefined the rom-com genre and showed what a masterful storyteller Reiner was.

Stand By Me is the first of two Stephen King adaptations Reiner directed, the other being Misery. At first the darkness of King's style would not seem to be a match for Reiner's TV-sitcom bred comedic approach, but there was a smart chemistry to their combination. Much of Stephen King's storytelling is informed by a sense of justice, and his stories often involve innately good people fighting the rottenness of the world and (just barely) surviving. No doubt Reiner, whose mindful All in the Family character was browbeaten each week by the bigoted patriarch of the household, understood the Stephen King mindset.Stand By Me is based on King's novella The Body, included in the anthology Different Seasons alongside the story that became The Shawshank Redemption (later produced by Reiner's company as well). Both stories (and films) involve characters in hopeless situations who choose, or are tempted to, end their lives.You wouldn't know it at first. Plot-wise, Stand By Me often seems like a sunny slice of Americana -- a memoir about young friends in a remote, early 1960s rural town near woods, fields, and traintracks. Under the surface, though, it's one of Stephen King's real-life horror tales. Rather than ghosts or evil clowns, the horrors include parents who don't love their children, kids demoralized by stigma and low expectations, and the adolescent realization that one is statistically more likely to become a hoodlum or loser than to grow beyond his unforgiving surroundings.I've seen Stand By Me several times, but I never thought much about the meaning of the story. It recently occurred to me that when the four friends hike 20 miles to find a kid's dead body, they are confronting their own deaths. Symbolically: death of childhood, innocence, and possibility. But literally too: A car crash already killed the brother of Gordie (Wil Wheaton), and the local gang leader (Kiefer Sutherland) is often threatening them in terms that seem less and less like bluffing.Despite the film's sunny outdoor scenes, a shadow of suicide hangs over everything. The gang leader plays highway chicken with oncoming trucks, Teddy (Corey Feldman) tries to stare down an oncoming train, and both Gordie and his confidante Chris (River Phoenix) feel worthless. "I'm no good," Gordie cries, and has nightmares that his own father (the robotically icy Marshall Bell) wishes he'd died instead of his older brother (played in flashbacks by John Cusack). Chris, a small-time criminal whose bad reputation is venally exploited by a local teacher, longs to erase his identity. When the boys find the body, are they seeing a kid who died on accident, or did he die out of a self-destructive impulse they understand all too well?Added to the mix is too-casual gun use, scenes evoking castration anxiety ("Chopper, sic balls!" and the bloody discovery of a low-lurking leech), and a near-fatal train encounter that suggests the overwhelming indifference of the larger world.I can't help but compare the foursome's journey with that of the hobbits at the start of The Fellowship of the Ring. As with that story, two of the travelers are bonded by friendship and a serious mission, and the other two are more comedic. (While Corey Feldman and Jerry O'Connell's characters debate Superman versus Mighty Mouse, Wil Wheaton and River Phoenix's character bare their deepest fears about adulthood.) I also see echoes of the story in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, imagining the Stand By Me kids growing up to sing The Mickey Mouse Club theme during search-and-destroy walks through Vietnam. In my mind, I feel like that movie's ill-fated Leonard character (Vincent D'Onofrio) and Stand by Me's "Lard-Ass" story are linked.The "Lard-Ass" scene is one of the most entertaining silly, yet cruel and cathartic, parts of Rob Reiner's entire filmography. Around a campfire, Gordie tells his friends a made-up story about an overweight kid whom the entire community taunts and ridicules mercilessly. Stephen King's vignette here is only a slight exaggeration of the real-life cruelty suffered by overweight and other people. It's not just the cruelty, though: It's the community's unanimous, giddily unquestioning cruelty -- the sort of group nastiness that you see in archival footage of, for example, racist towns during the same era. (The groupthink runs so deep that even "the fat lady" gladly takes part.)The story-within-a-story builds to a climax of revenge that takes the form of "a complete and total barf-o-rama." As with the end scene of Knives Out, sometimes heartless people deserve nothing less than vomit in their face. As Gordie finishes this tale, his friends whoop and applaud with glee. Justice has been served in story form. Several of Rob Reiner's films contain similar stories-within-stories (it's the entire basis for The Princess Bride) that underscore the ways narrative storytelling can satisfy and bolster our desire for justice.One unfortunate meta-level aspect of Stand By Me ties into its opening framing scene when the Gordie character, grown up (as played by Richard Dreyfuss), is seen lamenting a news report about the senseless demise of one the friends we get to know in the main movie. This early mournful tone, for me, has additional weight due to actor River Phoenix's young death (in 1993, about seven years later). And now even moreso because of what happened to Rob and Michele Reiner.

This is Rob Reiner's most beloved movie, for good reason. It's based on a William Goldman book that has the conceit of being an actual lost fairy tale, and it sure feels like an authentic classic. Rob Reiner had a way with framing devices (see also: When Harry Met Sally's interviews, or Stand By Me's word-processed childhood memoir) but this one is the best of all, with a sick-in-bed Fred Savage reluctantly acceding to let his crusty old grandpa (Peter Falk) read him a hardcover "kissing book" even though he'd much rather play a video game. The first moments of the movie are the melodic beeps of "take me out to the ball game," which is pretty funny considering how much the movie ain't remotely like baseball.This is another Reiner movie where gaps between generations are brdiged. Makes sense considering Reiner's noted closeness with father Carl Reiner. The Princess Bride starts as a young woman and young man romance drama, but it's also a grandparents and grandchildren story, a tale of a man avenging his father's killer, of rhyme-loving rogues exploited by a smarmy little bully, and even agitprop as corrupt royalty exploits an arranged marriage to manipulate gullible subjects into supporting war.A friend of mine died last year, and I think of her because she always loved talking about her fondness for The Princess Bride, and how her own will to live was bolstered by Westley's insistence that the distraught Buttercup not damage her "perfect breasts" hara-kiri style. In Peoria, Arizona, I met a bartender who -- while mixing vodka-cranberrys -- showed off photos of herself with Cary Elwes at an event, as if she'd been knighted by Westley himself. To many women, Westley symbolizes the ideal suitor whose "As you wish" means "I love you," and he's equally willing to hand over a water pitcher or scale the Cliffs of Insanity to prove it. Oh, my Westley!When she hears Westley has died, the young woman (Robin Wright, both natural and storybook magical) is so heartbroken she "will never love again," and agrees to marry a sour-apple prince out of sheer miserable apathy. Her inner conscience appears in a dream as an old hag who shouts "Boo! Boo! Bow down to the queen of filth!," in one of the movie's many great quotable moments.Quote-wise, nothing beats Mandy Patinkin, Andre the Giant, and Wallace Shawn's trio of troublemakers in the movie's early scenes. Andre's rhyming habit ("Anybody want a peanut?") and Patinkin's vow of revenge ("My name is Inigo Montoya...") are only matched by Shawn's infinitely quotable one-word "Inconceivable!", which should win a record for the most movie-linked single word in the English language. Meanwhile, the stalling Westley's litany of put-downs toward Prince Humperdinck ("you vomitous mass") are the best run of insults since the French taunter in Monty Python's Holy Grail.Reiner pulled together a non-stop series of enjoyable moments, all in a storybook fashion that maintained the light touch of a grandpa reading to his grandson. The "thwup" of the book closing has the same satisfying feel as each scene. If some of the mid-movie scenes aren't quite as perfectly entertaining as the earlier ones, who cares? Reiner seemed to be having a blast, and his choice of his Spinal Tap star Chrristoper Guest as the movie's nastiest villain was antoehr csting coup. Some of the smller players, like Billy Crystal talking about mutton, Peter Cook drunkenly talking about "mawwage," and the weirdly mole-faced whatsisname roll together until the movie has a nice final payoff and Inigo Montoya finds his six-fingered man and the kid who hated the "kissing book" decides that a kissing book isn't a bad thing after all.A note about the music: Mark Knopfler's pretty guitar compositions are good enough to mingle with Pachelbel's Canon and Vivaldi's Spring at weddings. I've heard complaints about the synthesizer sound used elsewhere in the movie (such as during action sequences), and I think those criticisms miss the point: The movie's scenes, and its music, are what would be imagined by a child as his grandfather reads the story to him. That's why the Rats of Unusual Size look so goofy, and why the music's synthetic style echoes the boopety-boop sounds of the baseball video game the flu-recovering kid plays as the movie fades in.

By strange coincidence, a friend offered me a blu-ray of A Few Good Men on the Sunday before the bad news emerged of Reiner's passing. I hadn't seen it in decades, but the main reason I accepted the blu-ray is because I remembered that it's a Rob Reiner film.As soon as possible I watched the movie again. I'd forgotten it's an early work by celebrated screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. I'd also forgotten how much it resembles a stage play, with fast, information-heavy dialogue scenes in only a few locations -- in particular, the military courtroom where the third act's fireworks explode so very colorfully ("You can't handle the truth!").I quickly remembered why A Few Good Men is such a classic in the full Hollywood tradition, fit to watch alongside Twelve Angry Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, or Billy Wilder's Witness for the Prosecution.Rob Reiner did a couple of amazing things directing this movie. For one, he got a full-on quality performance out of Tom Cruise, who was still pretty green and untested as a lead actor. Though you can see Cruise pushing a little too hard at times, mostly he's respectable and commanding under Reiner's guidance. Reiner also got a performance from Jack Nicholson that ranks among his career best. Also impressive is how well Demi Moore proves herself in her supporting but pivotal role. Moore was a star from Ghost (1990) but in this film she was essential, as the Naval officer who convinces Cruise's character to prosecute the Martine colonel played by Nicholson.The story, which involves a military hazing ritual gone wrong, is really about how important it is for people to stand up to unchecked power. Nicholson's character, a decorated and established authority figure, is loaded with self-justifications, and he intimidates anyone who dares to hold him accountable. Cruise's younger character, who lackadaisacally goes through the motions of a legal career based in expedience, is challenged to take justice seriously and actually take a stand on principle, even if it means risking his ass. Moore, the heart of the movie, is the one who won't let him get away with excuses. We could all use somebody like Moore to pump fresh oxygen into our commitment to do the right thing, especially in a time with so many excuses, diversions, and rationalizations blasting at us like hot gas.

The most Reinerey of all his movies, because he plays the documentary director at the heart of it -- he's a mockumentarian playing a documentarian. The format parodied of Martin Scorsese's movie about The Band, which makes it all the funnier, knowing it took the piss out of Scorsese as well as the era's most pompous cock-rockers.There's a new Spinal Tap movie in fall 2025, and that takes Reiner's movies full circle form his early great to his final film.This Is Spinal Tap shows Reiner's humanistic streak well. As ruthlessly as he mocks and roasts rock-and-roll's self-importance, you also sense a love for musician-performers, and even some sympathy for their man-child haplessness. Comedy is funniest when it "taps" into something true.The scnee where the band gathers around a radio out of excitement to hear their old song "Cups and Cakes" being played, only to get an emotional punch in the gut when the deejay says "They're currently in the where are they now file..." is the kind of bait-and-switch from warmheartedness to dejection anyone can relate to. It's like when you think your crush likes your joke but turns out to be laughing at the food in your teeth.The singer guy and his girlfriend is clearly at least somewhwat modeled on the troubles of Yoko/Lennon, and legendary infighting and romance woes in groups like the Mamas and the Papas or Feeltwood Mac and however other many bands. There's something extra funny when Fran Drescher shows up and says "Bobby Fleckman!" and unleashes her voice everywhere, and I'm pretty sure Paul Shaffer is in there being hilarious too. The whole thing is funneir than shit, based on hundreds of hours of improv pulled together.The backstage maze scene, the "Spinal Tap and Puppet Show" sign (or is puppet show first?), the line about "Boston isn't a big college town" with the manager lying and Spianl Tap's members having no clue what a lie that is, etc. ....all so funny.Two of the aboslutel funniest moments come courtesy of Chrsitoperh Guest, which no doubt is why Guest ended up in Princess Bride, and no doubt spurred his later brilliance on things like Waiting for Gufman:-- Nigel Tufnel compalining about the food backstage. Especially the meat that doesn't fit the crackers, or the olive missing its pimento.-- Tufnel playing a moving piano song, with Reiner noting is beauty and asking what it's called, and the answer being "Lick My Love Pump." I read that Reiner had to re-take the improvised scene because the first time he broke character and busted out laughing.

If Stand by Me is Reiner's excellent handling of a Stephen King story, then Misery is the next step up -- Reiner fully handling a Stephen King novel. It's both a bigger horror story and also more of a chamber piece ala the stage-play-like A few Good Men. With the exception fo a few outside characters, Misery really comes down to just two people: The well-established James Caan, and then then-newcomer Kathy Bates. The whole movie rises or falls on their performances, and both of them give all-out star turns. It's one of the best movies of all time where the two main characters are completely at odd, and every step of the drama is about how they interact and play off of each other's. Poor James Caan gets stuck under Bates's care after a car accident, and it turns out she's his "biggest fan" and obsessed with the recurring character in his stories.There is no possibility of talking about Misery without gushing about Kathy Bates. Not only does she have a ready-made horror-movie name (Bates, echoing Norman Bates from Psycho, another dangerous shut-in at a secluded house), but she has a kind of goofy, All-American rustic style that suggests a Pennyslvania Amish woman as much as an ankle-crushing maniac. Bates didn't hold back from letting herself become completely, loathesomely ridiculous, and some of her best scenes are suggestive of a boiling, steaming kettle that is whistling at full volume and then just outright explodes. Even if you've seen the movie, it's worth watching again jsut to see Bates say the word "cockadoodie" again.I saw the movie when it came out and, even seeing it in a desert town of 100-degree heat, the snowly location and ice-cold cruelty on display chilled me to the marrow. No movie has so fully given me a feeling of both claustrophobia and panic-inducing suspense, as when the leg-fractured Caan has to crawl and scrape his way up across wooden floors and stairs while Bates's character drives her car away from and returns to her snowy house.

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Reiner's string of successes came to an abrupt end with North, though I haven't seen it. But the movie wasn't a hit, and worse it received one of the most downright angry reviews that Roger Ebert has ever written. Ebert 's dismissal of North is almost legendary in its invective, and it seems Reiner may have finally simply run out of steam in terms of his full-on connection with what works wwell for audiences. Audiences of the early 1990s wer enot the same as audiences of the 1980s, and may also have moved on in terms of expectations.Reiner still delivered some good films though, and got good notices from The Ghosts of Mississippi and other proejcts. But he really seemed to hit his stride again with The Bucket List. Not only does the movie's title become a household phrase, but people now routineley group their life plans by the term "bucket list." You can thank Reiner for that.It reminds me of a joke : Q: Whats the last thing my grandpa said before he kicked the bucket? A: Hey, watch what happens when I kick this bucket.

This is Reiner's most underrated movie from the "great run" series of hits he had in the 1980s. Fresh off of This Is Spinal Tap, Reiner helmed this terrific rom-com for the younger crowd, which undoubtedly was a seed for Reiner's later hit When Harry Met Sally...The Sure Thing's title and premise are rooted in the era of 1980s teen-sex comedies (such as Porky's), but the underlying story recalls classics such as It Happened One Night (1934). There's also a parallel to stories such as what's depicted 1985's A Room With a View (based on the 1908 E.M. Forster novel), with the female character torn between a bookishly insulated man and somebody who, though less refined, is genuine and actively engages with the world.The title refers to the romantically frustrated main character (college student John Cusack) being set up by his friend (Anthony Edwards, in obnoxious party-preppie mode) with a woman who is a "sure thing," sexually speaking. Apparently the gal (played by Nicollette Sheridan) has what Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother described as "daddy issues," and is thus easy to take advantage of. It's an offensive plan, of course, and it's the only movie I can think of where the MacGuffin is an easy lay. But the story has a much more wholesome plan.Cusack is on the East Coast, and the willing woman is on the West Coast, and in fantasy sequences he imagines her poolside in a sarong counting the minutes till he arrives. To get there, he needs to share a car ride with other California-bound students, including the uptight smarty Daphne Zuniga, who considers Cusack a jerk. (Tim Robbins and Lisa Jane Persky are hilarious as the duo whose showtune-singing ways inspire a response on par with Mike Starr's "Guys, guys, guys!" exasperation when Jim Carrey unleashes "the most annoying sound in the world" in Dumb & Dumber.) Cusack and Zuniga end up rideless and stuck together, having to hitchhike their way cross-country like Steve Martin and John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles.As charming as their hard-won, conflict-hewn romance is, what I like most about The Sure Thing is its third act. The setup has a great payoff. For one, Reiner doesn't make Zuniga's choice of the everyman (Cusack) over the intellectual (played by Boyd Gaines) easy. I couldn't help but feel bad for the Gaines character. Much like Daniel Day Lewis in A Room With a View (also stereotypically a wearer of glasses), he spends time in denial before attempting to accept rejection with a level of dignity and composure he can barely muster. The saddest thing I've ever seen is the poor guy trying to entice Zuniga with his assortment of teas. "I have Darjeeling..." Oh, you poor fellow, outmatched by a guy who has taught the lady to shotgun cans of beer. "Do you love him?" he asks her, sadly, as if already knowing the answer.Meanwhile, Cusack has to decide whether to follow through on his "sure thing." He's built her up in his mind as a Bo Derek-like dream lover, but when he meets the young deflower-me girl (sweetly played by Sheridan), he sees something else entirely: A vulnerable person who has been misled, and is at serious risk of emotional harm if he takes advantage of her. She's willing to offer herself to him, but needs to hear him say he loves her too, and Cusack realizes how awful it would be to fake it just to "score."For its time, it was a genuine surprise for a teen comedy, at first seemingly glib about carefree lust, to show its character making a consequential moral decision. The Sure Thing crosses a long path to tell young men to embrace the "unsure thing" beyond fantasy and physical gratification. As with other Rob Reiner movies, the entertainment factor comes first. When the moral message arrives, the movie doesn't bonk you over the head with it -- it hands it off to you gracefully.The Sure Thing's final scene, full circle to the writing class where the story began, is notable not just because of Cusack's "Do you love me?" response, but because like many in the teen movie audience, several of Cusack's classmates are unhappy with his answer. But it's the right answer. Unfortunately, I've known plenty who would have chosen otherwise.

This movie came out in 2023 and I want to end on it for the simple reason that it is recent, but also it shows Reiner's root psychologoy and why he was great: Because it was never all about him. Here he has crafted a loving and generous tribute to another talented comedic director -- a richly deserved one. Albert Brooks was a contemporary of Reiner and in a lot of ways they shared the same basic mindset: Both linked by family to entertainment, both rooted in crituqie of politics (Archie Bunker for Reiner, lots of thins for Brooks), both made early mockumentaries (Brooks's Real Life is a little known underrated gem that may have inspired Spinal Tap), and both with a lot of smart conceptual elements to their movies. Albert Brooks's Defending Your Life is a minor classic that coule easily be watched as a souble feature with When Harry Met Sally, but it's also a philosophical movie on par with Groundhog Day.