The question mark is there to relfect my own disbelief when I saw it. The news was buried by the other more important events yesterday, where normally a Hollywood double murder would be a headline. So finding it ten stories down had me thinking I was seeing a mistype.
I had just watched Spinal Tap 2 the night before, also adding to the disbelief. Rob seemed like a genuinely nice guy who has given the movie world unforgettable moments in films like Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally and A Few Good Men. I am not familiar with his wife’s work but no doubt her creative contributions were big also. May both rest in peace.
I think part of it was how late the news broke last night, because I know it was late when I saw the first headline drop, then follow-up stories came very fast.
Their son Nick has had a troubled history, something that was covered in the 2015 movie Being Charlie, which he co-wrote.
Yeah, that was a shock. It left me incredulous, like how I felt when I heard the news that Phil Hartman was murdered.
A law enforcement friend of mine said that most often, it is someone very close to the victim, in context of discussing a double homicide in a quiet Atlanta neighborhood.
I think our president said it best. (Mods: not political. This is our nation’s leader offering an olive branch to the memory of a celebrity who criticized him at every turn. Anyway, posting the reactions of famous people on Mudspike “RIP” threads is not novel.)
Not that I approve of the president’s post. Quite the contrary. But this has enough flammability lo get political very quickly. We have a place for that, so I recommend that it go there, where it can be debated ad nauseam.
OK, so I’ll turn it back. My favorite Reiner film: Misery. I watch about once every couple of years. It is funny, terrifying and has a Tarentino-esque ending that rocks (just like the book). Also, Stand By Me. The one that gets a lot of love but I never liked was “The Princess Bride”. I tried it again with my daughter when she was of “princess” age and still it just didn’t hit for me (she liked it). Yeah, Misery. Damn near perfect.
You’re far from alone. I’ve talked with friends who say it was maybe his most creative work. And I do see it. But somehow it just didn’t take. I love fantasy. I love Christopher Guest and Billy Cristal. Maybe I’ve just been in the wrong frame of mind. Also, let’s not forget “Meathead”! You and I are probably the only two old enough to remember “All In The Family”. It was the only essential viewing in my dad’s house.
Unfortunately, I’m old enough to quote and have favorite episodes of All in the Family. What a cast! What writing. It was on during high school and the years after. Great network television, when there was such a thing.
Edit: it needs to be said that at the time, I enjoyed Sanford and Son as much, or maybe slightly better.
That movie has had a massive impact on me from the first time I saw it- and it’s definitely had some influence in the work I’ve been doing the last seven or so years. Plus, that movie was Aaron Sorkin’s audition for one of the greatest shows of the last thirty years.
Rob Reiner has been a staple of American life for a couple of generations now. The fact that his life, and that of his wife, was so violently extinguished by their son, who suffered from an epidemic created solely by American greed, resonates with so many families and towns across America that have been similarly destroyed or left in tatters.
