We all know Rob Reiner, right? Meathead on All in the Family. Son of the comedic great Carl Reiner. Of course, he went on to be a highly recognized director and producer.
A few weeks back I listened to a WTF with Marc Maron podcast where he talked with Rob Reiner. (Someday I will do a post about WTF. It was one of the first podcasts I started listening to. Maron spent the first few years of his podcast talking with other comedians. It was completely addictive and I never missed an episode. Now he interviews celebrities in general, and I look though his episodes and pluck a few out that look interesting.)
The WTF Podcast with Reiner was recorded back in the spring or early summer (2016), but it took me a while to get around to listening to it. Anyone who follows the movies knows that Reiner has done some good movies, but listening to the podcast where they kind of went through and discussed the Rob Reiner movie canon it really hit me how many GREAT movies he has done. What I call “suck me in” movies. You know, where you plop down to relax for a few minutes on a Sunday afternoon, but you happen to flip to one these movies and you can’t pull yourself away – even though you have seen it a dozen times or more. So you spend an hour or two watching a movie when it wasn’t really on your agenda.
Let’s just review this Reiner movie canon:
- Spinal Tap
- Stand by Me
- Princess Bride
- When Harry Met Sally
- Misery
- A Few Good Men
- Ghosts of Mississippi
Of course, this is just a brief list of highlights, but what a list! These are not just good movies, but outstanding movies that would rival the canons of some of our greatest directors like Scorsese. Plus – what impressive range: screwball comedies to rom-com to social-commentary drama. While Reiner is recognized as a good movie director, I never hear him put on the list with the elites, and he absolutely deserves to be.
And on top of all that, Reiner’s production company Castle Rock produced the greatest TV comedy of all time – Seinfeld. While Reiner readily admits he had little to do with the actual creation and production of the TV show, he did have a role in recognizing the talents of Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David and letting them do their thing. More importantly, after one season when NBC was about to cut the show, Rob Reiner went into a meeting with NBC execs to fight for the show. And in a desk pounding, shout-fest he convinced NBC to give the show more time to finds its voice. The rest is history.
Also, what really comes across in this hour or so discussion between Maron and Reiner is what a down-to-earth, humble guy he is. It does not seem like the decades of success as an actor, writer, director and producer has gone to his head.
So hats of to you, Meathead. Cause that’s some meat you got up there. Thanks for all the quality entertainment.
You can listen to the Reiner WTF podcast here: Or you can listen to it or other recent podcasts on the wtfpod.com website or download them from iTunes.
