Bulwark Takes - LIVE: Remembering The Best of Rob Reiner (w/ David Weigel & Richard Rushfield)

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Celebrate the life and work of Rob Reiner with The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol and Sonny Bunch, who will be joined by The Ankler’s Richard Rushfield and Semafor’s Dave Weigel tonight at 9 PM. He was one of the most versatile directors of his generation, with classics like This Is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, The Princess Bride, and A Few Good Men under his belt; come remember your favorites with us. Exclusive $35 off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/BULWARKTAKES. Promo Code BULWARKTAKES

I think we're live now. Hey, all right. Well, we're just going to, we're going to hang out here just for a few minutes let people show up. We were, we were discussing life stuff. It's been, it's been a, I tweeted something like it's been a bad weekend. It's been a really, been a really sad weekend. And it was. And I was really happy when Sam today DM me first thing before before our staff meeting was like, hey, I want to do something, I want to do something a little bit different today with a live stream. I want to, you know, get people together and celebrate, celebrate the life and the work of Rob Reiner.

And I thought it was a great idea. I'm glad we could round up this crack panel in such short notice. Bill Crystal is going to have a really great and funny personal anecdote to tell everybody. And I'm going to save that for the end. I'm teasing it right now. For the few folks who are here in the chat already waiting for this, it's going to be well worth your time. Stick around.

And we've got, I think you're supposed to lower, I think you're supposed to lower from the angler. Bill, I think you might be muted. Were you trying to say something? I was. Am I muted? Oh, no, we've lost Bill's audio. I hear it.

No, everyone else, you're the only one, Sonny. Do you guys hear him? Because I don't hear him. I do. Yeah, the others hear me. You'll have a good show without Sonny here, you know? Richard, take over. Let's have a real conversation, you know?

I'll tell your anecdote for you. Yeah, it's not that good at a good idea. All right, well, that's odd. Hold on one sec. Let me change something on my end. Dave, are you a big Rob Reinder fan? I was. And you're a movie.

I mean, you're a big film person, right? Yeah, although I don't have a excuse like Sunny. I write letterbox reviews, but it's always been just a hobby. I like watching them. I have a local, I have a collection at home, and we're the same, Sunday and I are at the same just embryonic experience watching every, every classic Rob Reiner movie, but then growing up in the period where his movies were not hitting anymore, and he was more of a progressive celebrity. Yeah.

It feels like, it definitely feels like that change. He was not, the Bush era, I remember him being one of the most visible progressive celebrities, and he still was doing that in the Trump years, but both. By that point, his canon was so beloved. I feel like people didn't want to mess with them. But I've seen most of it. I've even seen most of the post-peak movies. We don't know how much we want to talk about them

because we're going to venerate and not critique. But I just, I think part of it, he lives so long. You never saw anybody, even if they disagree with him politically, come away with a negative story about him, right? Even when he had a clunker, nobody said, there he goes, my enemy, Rob Reiner. It was, oh, that's very, it's good. The mensch list in Hollywood,

is really, it's basically through people. It's basically Rob Reiner, Ron Howard, and Tom Hanks, essentially. And just you never have a, you never hear a server have anything bad to say. You never hear someone to work with him, have anything bad to say. And he was just, you'd see him around town. It was just such a kind of a vuncular presence that he just lit up a room in the way that, you know, anyone else does no sonny's that's not we can't hear sonny right now we've lost you yeah oh the irony how about but you guys hear me now there it is yeah yeah all right great uh

richard let's start with you um you uh had a great piece for the angler today of course richard rushfield is the uh editor-in-chief at the angler it's the best it's the go to what's that mere humble columnist oh come on all right my colleague jane is at the at the angler He's, he is, uh, it's the number one newsletter, uh, on Hollywood, the business of Hollywood, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and it was a, it was just a really, it was a really nice moving column because you get to the, the, the, the, the menchiness of, uh, Rob Reiner. Why don't you, why don't you just kind of walk us through real quick? Um, what, what you said in your column and, you know, how it hits you. This whole weekend was just filled with bad news.

And it felt like the, this idea that Rob Reiner was not only dead, but had been murdered in his home. It felt like the world was crashing. Yeah, and I'd say for Hollywood, sort of before this weekend, it kind of felt like the world would, felt like we were living in the beside adventure already, that, um, we had hit the, which the big wave had struck and we were turned upside down. Uh, so we were already thrown over beam. And then, uh, the events of this weekend at Brown and, uh, Bondi Beach there happened and we're very upset. setting to people here in Hollywood is everywhere else. And then this happens, which is just so, I mean,

you could not have designed a more unsettling thing because the ending was so awful to someone who was so beloved. And so just known for his warmth and kindness. And to have, and had great accomplishments, and had done so much and was just such an eager presence, in people's life. And to have it come to this sort of end, it was just, I mean, I see people are just beyond shell-shocked right now. It's, uh, at Hollywood. It's, it's, it's a, it's an awful thing. It really is. And one thing you hit on in your, your news, your newslet of that I did not

talk about as much because the, his, his main career as an actor was a little before my time was his his time on all in the family. I mean, that, 10-year run of must-see appointment viewing, uh, that he was, you know one of the one of the key parts of i mean arguably that was the biggest show in the 1970s it was the first show in tv history to be number one for five years in a row we've got about 30 million viewers a week which is it was about 15 percent of america back then uh unimaginable and the the key to it was at the heart of it was uh his character who played a young a note-all professor, living with his loudmouth in-laws, especially Archie Bunker, the cab driver, and how the formula was every week. One of them teaches the other to see the world

in a bigger way. And it was a pretty simple formula, but they break in, I, and it was just his humanity in that, that he, his ability to, you know, it was, it was, It was formulaic, but he made it so real, passionate. Just before I went on here, I watched someone posted the scene from that where about five seasons in, he and Gloria, they moved to California and his goodbye to Archie Bunker, where he's just struggling to say, like, you've meant a lot of it. If you can get through that four-minute scene without breaking down, I had to, I'd wash myself up after that.

But he just brought such humanity to his work as an actor, and then to his work as a director and everything he did. You know, I'm so much older than all you guys here that I actually watched all the family in real time, and I was in college, I guess my freshman year, and so it would have meant maybe beginning of second year in 71. And those days, of course, no needless to say, no internet, no streaming, not really even DVRs,

I mean, you couldn't really tape thing. Maybe you could. It was a major technological challenge. So everyone assembled to watch. And that was about the, there were other shows that were famous and, you know, popular, obviously. But it soared to number one, very, very fast, as I recall. And certainly for us in college, I mean, it was a huge thing. And I think it was a huge thing.

You guys would know more about this than I've, Norman Lear. You know, it just was such a different show from the typical kinds of sitcoms or any other shows that were on TV. And, of course, Norman Lear is a great progressive. And he invented the show to kind, I think he wanted to show. be kind of a little bit edifying to the audience about how they should be a little more enlightened on matters of race and gender and other such things and then of course within about three you know episodes archie bunker is the hero and beathead is kind of the you know the the what's the foil i guess you'd say yeah and uh normal later to his credit decided hey this is a pretty good

i'm not going to mess with this formula even though the politics is quite going the way i wanted and it was a lovable thing so it wasn't really anti you know left or anything but it It was, I mean, it was a pretty, but it was so big. I very much agree with that. I mean, it's the kind of sociological matter. It was just huge in the early in the mid-70s. And again, everyone watched it at the same time, one day a week, and then you talk about it the next morning and all that famous cliches about the water cooler and stuff.

That really was true. Yeah, I don't know what the numbers are, but it must have been something like, I mean, when you sort of discount people under 50, you know, under 12 who wouldn't have watched it and people who were, I don't know, don't have TVs, they must have had something like a quarter of a, you know, I don't, what do you think, a fifth, a quarter of America? Like, maybe not quite that. I mean, I think it was 30 million people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Different universe. You know, there's three broadcast networks. That was kind of all there was to watch. Yeah. It's a, it's a different. Dave, Dave, you and I are closer. You and I are closer

in age. We're a little bit, you know, we're younger. You know, this is all ancient history to us. For me, Rob Reiner is, is the, is the beleaguered, uh, older, lawyer in The Wolf of Wall Street, the guy who has to sit down with the like kind of young punks and be like, you can't, you can't pay hookers with credit cards. That's the thing you can't do. You can't, you know, what is what, how much are we spending on dwarf tossing? Why are you trying to call me during the, what was the, what is your, what is your memory of Rob Reiner as an actor? Because I feel like he has these, he has these great kind of bit smaller parts in later years that anytime he shows up, it's like, yes, Rob Reiner. Oh, completely. So I guess I first connected him at born in 1981, so my parents are very into movies. We have a VHS as soon as I remember that being an option. And it was appointment viewing in the house. And the first time I realized, oh, this is an actor too, because I was too young for all the family, was this a spinal tab.

And so that's when I think of him acting, I think that he largely played himself. You read the Wolf of Wall Street as the dad was a spin on himself. But he played a version of himself, always an older Jewish guy or a guy named Rob Reiner or a guy goofing on the career of Rob Reiner. I remember him being made fun of in South Park. I think I think this is, and I was thinking about this before, he was incredibly important to liberalism, to post-New Deal liberalism in ways you might get into. And he's one of the celebrities in the Bush era who is campaigning for pre-K in California, taking a lead in politics, speaking out because he had the celebrity speak out. So I was seeing him as an actor playing very little difference from the guy I was seeing as a political activist. But when I would see him on TV, it was the Rob Breiner character.

I appreciate that he didn't try to stretch. I mean, he, uh, Wolf, Wall Street as, um, I had, um, forgotten just how good he is in every scene of that movie, because we were all doing the same thing watching, watching his, his, his greatest hits. That might, that might be though, my, uh, I, my favorite, my favorite appearance he ever did because he has to play a little bit mean, and it's surreal. Uh, like, he, you know, he played himself on, uh, he'll, he'll do some jerkiness when he's on 30 Rock or on Larry Sanders or, like, on a comedy show. But him as the

father in Wolf of Wall Street, I think one of the lines is going through the accounts and how they're listing some of their illicit expenses as sides. $28,000 for sides, the sides cure cancer, all that stuff. Yeah, but I like that he began to end his movie

career as Marty DeBerg. And so the one time, I guess my writing interacted with what he was doing was I wrote my book about progressive rock years ago. In researching that, one, I mean, progressive stars, rock stars, they all love Spinal Tap. They appreciate that some of the stories of Spinal Tap actually came from their bands. It was the band, yes, that had the

failing to find the stage at the Concert Hall story that became a gagged Spinal Tap. But they even, they dealt with a lot of rock filmmakers. Stephen Soderberg actually got his start, one of his starts making a yes documentary, and the Marty DeBurgy thing was this note perfect parody of the kind of guy who would hang out get this access to the rock stars be not worshipful exactly and clearly use the material he had to make them look silly. Again, with no malice. No other people I talk to did like that, but I remember some of them signaling out how good Rob Reiner was playing this affable, but also. smart enough to realize how good the material he was getting was director but always funny

and everyone watching this has the same take i'm sure you you saw him in something and your your mouth curled up because he was he was such a he was such a fun presence he was so warm and if he was interested in the script it must be pretty good well he must if you could induce rob riner either it was a good script or you were a friend uh or you were good enough person that he was friendly he wanted to be on the show ideally both um but i i he's like marty de bergen i i do as tragic as this is yes he he he will appears on screen for the final time in spinal tap two as marty de burghie trying to prevent spinal tap's final drummer from dying and nothing about this is is good but that that that that did that was the first smile i had after

this news is probably thinking about that yeah we had a there's a good comment on uh on substack here by the way if you if you haven't subscribed to the bulwark you should you can comment on the substack post you couldn't you know watch the video or sign up on YouTube. I just go sign up, go subscribe. It's a good service. We get to do things like this. But one of the early comments here is he had such a run of different,

the string of unrelated movies that this guy directed is just amazing. It's like he could create a story about anything and make it relatable and either very fun or very dramatic. And, you know, that run starts with the movie that Richard is wearing right now, Spinal Tap. Spinal Tap is not the first mockumentary. It's not the movie that kicks off the whole genre, but it's the first mockumentary anyone remembers. It's the first mockumentary that anyone watches and is like, oh, yes, this is very funny, and there should be more of these. And we can get into his career as a producer at Castle Rock Entertainment and the work he did with the Christopher Guest movies after this. But this is Spinal Tap is the first of about five movies in a 10-year stretch that is either the best of,

the genre or one of the best of the genre. When you go back and watch Spinal Tap, Richard, I watched it recently. I watched it not long ago, maybe three or four months ago. And what jumped out of me was just how fresh it all feels. It feels real and lived in. It's like, this is what the office guys are aspiring to, right? This is what all of the kind of modern sitcom styles are aspiring to and never can quite achieve.

They're just not, they're not quite. there. The reality of it was something else. Yeah, I mean, you had these guys who Christopher Guest and Michael McCain and Harry Shearer, who were the height of their comic powers, who just came up with these British heavy metal stars characters and just lived in them and loved doing these characters and thinking up these ridiculous situations for them so much. And it just, you know, the movie, I think, almost suffers from a success because it's so imitated and so quoted right now that now that you, if you've never seen it before and you've come to it, it's kind of like you're viewing the Declaration of Independence or something. It's just the stone on which so much is built. but it was incredibly funny and his performance was performance and directing and to have that be your

first directorial outing is a remarkable thing and this is like you mentioned this in your column richard but it's it's it's not like hopping from sitcom actor to a major feature director is a thing that ever happens. Like, that's just not, that's not a thing. And he managed to not only do it, but become one of the most creatively and financially successful directors of his generation. Yeah, I mean, he and Ron Howard are basically the list there,

and Ron Howard followed him a few years. And he, yeah, he not only made that leap, which I'm sure people scoffed at like Me Dead is making a movie. when it happened, but then just had this, that string of films that he has through the 80s and early 90s, that is as solid, that is as good a director streak as any director had in all of history. When you look at it, you have spinal tap and then the sure thing, just a great, a smaller one by great comedy, but then you have, don't have, listen from me, but Princess Bride, which is,

absolute classic, Harry Met Sally, which is one of the top rom-coms of all time. A few good men, I mean, that is a streak of the ages there. Yeah, you skipped over Stand By Me, which is kind of a defining adolescent coming of age story. Dave, again, you know, when I was growing up, how I described this run of movies is that these are the foundational basic cable classics, right? Like, these are, I grew up and I have seen these. I actually wrote down estimations of, I believe I've seen a few good men 56 times, I would guess, in various bits and pieces.

Stand by me 112 times, at least, over the years. You know, misery is another one. Misery is, you know, that was on a loop on TNT and TBS, and another kind of best of subgenre if we want to, you know, it's a horror thriller. But it's maybe the best Stephen King movie. There are movies that are quoted so much that people don't even realize they're quoting the movie anymore. It's just part of the language now.

I'll have what she's having. You can't handle the truth. So many lines from so many movies. Bill, we were talking before the show started here about when Harry Met Sally and how they kind of changed the ending of that film. It's a nice little anecdote that you hear from time. time to time but it's a you know does do you think that movie works if they don't get together at the end i mean i'm not a film critic and these sometimes things can surprise you and sad and you know there could be like what's a bittersweet ending or something sad ending and but no i don't know i feel

like i have a simple mind of view that if it's a romantic comedy maybe it should have a happy ending you know and i think people kind of expect that i don't know it'd be kind of weird but maybe not they could go their separate ways and sort of be melancholy you're you're overthinking yourself now do you just As we were discussing at the beginning, the thing that was great about Rob Reiner is that he understood what audience is wanted, right? Like he was not, he was not out there to wrong foot the audience. He was not there. And this isn't to say that he was easily predictable or that his movies were not surprising in interesting ways. But he was a guy who was first and foremost an entertainer.

And I'm sure he gets some of this from TV. But that's also just who he was, right? That is like the kind of guy he was. He wanted to entertain people. I mean, he came from his father, Carl Reiner was one of the, your show of show writers was one of the founding writers of television. So he was immersed in this entire world from birth. And, you know, with the interest to go back to the dawn of Hollywood there. And you look at that lineup, of the movies he made, it's like their classic Hollywood films.

It's like they're, you know, full. movies for the whole family, for everybody made with great grace and wit and just a light touch to them. He never became this, you know, his subjects became more serious, but he never became sort of serious about himself and serious about the film. He never became like a capital Auteur, must be taken seriously. He was always sort of self-deflating in this avuncular way. To suddenly what you were saying, yeah, what we're talking about are people who were kings in the monoculture, which is gone.

The extent we have a monoculture, you'll notice people talk more about a show if it's put and put on HBO Max or Netflix. But that was quite inheritance that Rob Reiner had in the 70s with all in the family. And Julie Kavanaugh was part of this, the Rhodocast. the Norman Lear Rob Reiner universe had vast influence, which he used, the whole, Norman Lear and him both used this to advance progressive views. But also, it had to be pretty good in order to succeed. And yes, I think Rob Reiner did good by the trust he was given by the American public in making these defining, these defining films. I'd like you from this household that would watch them. We would watch the good new middle brow Rob Reiner move. I've noticed some people saying he didn't win an

Oscar, true. He also, I think, is ignored, he's ignored by the sight and sound list. He's ignored by a lot of the great films of all time list because these are seen as middle brow films. And, but why were they so popular? Why are they last? Why were they so influential?

You already said it. I'm just thinking there, the disappointment I think some people had in his later films, which weren't as good came from how you could trust for two decades. or if he was involved with something to make it the best of class for comedy. Miseries, it's not a comedy. It is a horror movie.

But I think the first modern horror movie to get somebody an acting award, right, for Kathy Bates. Yeah. And we're almost three decades later. If there is a good female performance in a horror movie, the first, and to said, you think of is this as good as Kathy Bates? Is this Jessica Lang performance as good as Kathy Bates? Is this Samara Weaving performance as good as Kathy Bates? For him to do that, that is a heavy burden because a lot of people can have a couple

hits and then the next few don't work. But for him to be able to produce best of class movies and find really good talent because he basically makes Aaron Sorkin, right, through finding, through adapting few good men and then through American president showing the world and Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin that he could make a political drama that strikes all the Americans of courts. I see the end of the monoculture and the rise of conservative response to that. A lot of that is trying to unbuild how successful Rob Reiner and Aaron Sorkin were in creating this idealized political culture.

That's, I mean, this is this enormous achievement. And I can see why it irritated some people that he was so good at it. It's funny. We here at the bulwark, me and JBL and Sarah Longwell, we did a podcast. cast in a video on a few good men a month or two back. So I did kind of a deep dive into it. And there's this, there's this very funny moment in one of the special features on the 4K disc,

which of course I bought because I have a social, I'm a physical media snob. I need to hold it in my hand. If I can't hold it in my hand, it doesn't exist. But there's this, there's this very funny moment where Rob Reiner, or I think it was actually, Aaron Sorkin was talking about how Rob Reiner, you know, was, we was like, this scene doesn't really work because it's just two people sitting

around and then it's two more two people sitting around in another place and they don't they're not really together why don't we why don't we have them walk and talk at the same time there's a very real chance that rob sorkan invented the aaron sork and walk and talk i think it's i think we have to we have to give him credit for that if nothing else it's a it's a real thing and of course this is used to great effect in in in the west wing but also in the american president which rob bryner would direct a couple of years after a few good men which again like it is a it's this it's a it's a it's a fascinating film to watch now because, yes, it is a, it's a liberal film, and yes, Rob Reider is this liberal icon, but it's this film that is filled with the idea, Bill, that people

in politics can work together and get things done. And that is a hopeful vision, that is a humanist vision that seems to be very much lacking at the moment in the world of politics and kind of everywhere else. Bullwork takes is sponsored by ORA Frames. We're now getting down to the wire and holiday shopping season. Hanukkah's already started and you're getting close to that window for Christmas, that window's closing basically. It's time to get serious

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That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com. Promocode Bullwark Takes. This deal is exclusive to listeners, and frames do sell out fast. So order yours now. To get it in time for the holidays, you are running out of time. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. I mean, my sense is that he, I got to know in the sort of anti-Trump world and conferences and so forth.

And then we did this ad. We could talk about a minute. But I mean, I went back when I met him and dealt with him some and we became sort of friendly, exchanged emails and stuff, you know, occasionally and followed each other on Twitter and that kind of thing. I went back and did a little reading up about him. I mean, he was a little more than your typical fashionable progressive type. I mean, he worked hard about political things. He was very important. I mean, on same-sex marriage, I think he was, I don't know if it's his idea, but he was really in the rooms as, you know, of the six people plotting to get David Boyce and Ted Olson together, the lawyers from each side of Bush v. Gore to have the strongest possible bipartisan crew to go to the Supreme Court and win the case.

I mean, he was very, and my own dealings with him on politics, you know, he was more sophisticated than many, but also he was genuinely, you know, the progressives can sometimes go off. a little more stress on how terrible everything's been in America for a couple of centuries, then we want to, you know, we cherish America, we want to approve it. He was very much on the cherished America and we want to approve it. I don't think that was just rhetoric, you know. I mean, he really was, that was his father's world. That was his father's world, is my impression. That's the world of a lot of, you know, Jewish immigrants of his father's generation,

understanding what a great thing it was to be here in that world of the mid-20th century. And I think he never, I do think he never lost that. And in fact, regained it really in the, in the battle against Trump. So, yeah, I found him both, I mean, Richard said earlier, he was a real mention. That was my very limited experience with him, but very much my experience as well, but also, I think, a real American. Oh, go ahead, Richard.

I'll just say, American president, you know, it loves the presidency. It loves the white, there's no better depiction of a greater homage to the White House, to living in that circumstance and what's like there. Beyond the politics, it gets into, which is it just has real reverence for the institution and the office there. Yeah. Bill, I tease this at the beginning, but it is such a fantastic story. You have to tell us about the time that Rob Reiner taught you to be a great actor. He directed you. He was, you were one of his, one of his stars. sort of his failed very minor failed project it's you've overly hyped the story study but unless no so we in 2020 some jewish democrats decided that there would be something funny could be done with bill crystal and bill crystal and and you know be like he's billy crystal was a big liberal

and i was a conservative we're both supporting Biden and that could be done and so they got rob rider to sign out i think he and billy crystal were very good friends and um and suddenly just on this mentioning, I would say, both Reiner and my dealings with them, and this was on Zoom, which during the pandemic, you know, there were many, some pre-meetings and there were the, we did the commercial a couple of times, and they were both incredibly easy to deal with. I mean, I kind of expected, oh my gosh, super famous Hollywood big shots, I'll be, you know, there'll be seven aides on first to make sure I'm seated properly before they even come into the room, you know what I mean, kind of, you know, sort of like the way the big shot senators

or White House types, you know, they, they, they don't want to waste any time, but they weren't it all that way and so i actually talked a lot with both of them we all had new york stuff in common since uh reyner grew up in new rochelle i believe rob did and billy crystal on the on the island and i was upper west side of manhattan so we could do a lot of new york talk you know anyway so we have this ad and so the concedive is it's bill it's billy crystal but they book the other bill crystal but they book bill crystal and they were both there and then we both decide we're for biden so and it was it was okay i think um it was they showed it in florida they put a maybe a few hundred thousand dollars behind it i was supposed to appeals quickly to jewish voters

and it made no difference by the lost florida so that was that was the so much for that ad however i enjoyed doing it and when i say what i learned from that is i mean this is so obvious i always feel stupid uh saying well i learned that ryner as i said as rob was a really a nice man um but also i mean i never i've never acted i'm no good at it i never did it i didn't even do it in high school i just it's not you know and i don't know much about it either just as a even as an observer. So they sent this little script, people tinkered with it a little.

I had one or two thoughts. I learned it. It's very 30 seconds. It's not very hard to learn. And I thought, you know, I've got to, okay, I should pause here maybe or I should emphasize this thing here. I thought I was doing what actors do,

you know, to make it more believable. It's not something you think about when you're just on TV talking on a panel discussion about politics. Maybe I should have thought more about it, but I never did, you know, all these years. And so we go on and we do the first run through. and I'm doing my little lines

and Billy Crystal is doing his lines and I sort of noticed, realize, Billy Crystal sort of has much more ability to kind of make this more real and human than I sound like someone who's memorized a few lines and I'm saying it. And Rob was, he said,

that was a good first run through. Now, then he said to me, Bill, I had just a few suggestions, you know. And then very lightly and deftly, you know, pause a little bit between this first second sentence and second sentence. So the audience is not quite sure what you're going to say. Emphasize this word here, because it's a little more surprising.

But you're doing great. Just maybe move a little in that direction. And he did it incredibly gently and in a humane way. He didn't say you're awful. By the end, I was still very bad, honestly. And it's, you know, Billy Crystal did not need a whole lot of help. And so it's kind of a slightly ridiculous ad in that way, one good actor and one not good actor.

But I've got to say, just as a human thing, he could have been slightly annoyed that I wasn't better. he could have been sort of imperious about it. He was very humane, and so I really appreciate that. Also, it got some sense. I mean, this is, again, sounds so naive for me to say it this way, you guys study this kind of thing, but it gave me a sense of what a director does, you know?

I mean, why it matters, like why a movie directed by Rob Reiner would be better than a movie directed by generic human being, you know, whatever, because he had such a deaf feel, this is just a 30-second thing, but such a deaf feel for how you would frame, He changed a couple of things, he had one of us interrupt the other. I mean, he was just very kind of deaf way of understanding, I think, what would make it a little more, make it more effective.

And obviously, this is a tiny instance compared to doing a serious 90-minute or two-hour movie with major stars and so forth. So I very much, I got to like him very much, and we stayed in touch. And that's just awful that it ended this way. But what a life, what a life. One thing that you, one thing that you hear about, when you when you hear actors talk about him particularly younger actors the the cast of standby me always had the nicest things to say about him you know he was he was he was very gentle with us he

understood you know how to how to work with younger actors i would even defend i will controversially defend the film north which is one of the most hated films of all time but he gets he gets a very nice performance out of elijah wood who is a young actor he would he did not have a ton of experience at that time and he's he is very good and surrounded by like bigger brighter stuff could have easily been an overwhelming thing for him, and Reiner guided him through that nicely, is just that gentleness, that, that humanity. This is the word I keep coming back to with Rob Reiner,

and it's why I think his movies strikes such a chord with everyone. It's why the Princess Bride is a defining kind of fantasy comedy for people of a certain age is because it is suffused with this human interest and love for people that is that is not rare i guess but it is it is hard to to do well um it just it's so as as you say bill i don't want to dwell on the sadness of his his death but it really is just such a it's such a strikingly awful way for such a decent and beloved person to go that i was very much shook up by it oh shook up and his and his wife who I didn't know, she was on one or two of the Zooms, you know,

kind of joking around a little bit and teasing Rob and stuff. Tim Miller, our colleague, had dinner with two of them in New Orleans about a year ago. Maybe they were there for the spinal tap two, I think, maybe. And it says a slightly funny story about, yeah, she was, they were both, but very apparently wonderful marriage, and also, I think she was also very a mensch, or whatever female munches, what is it? I don't know. That's not, Richard, one thing I did not really discuss in my obit at all, and I haven't seen a lot of people talk about, is his work as a producer for with Castle Rock Entertainment.

So, like, this is a business, this is the business part of the industry that, you know, folks may not be that interested in, except that if you lament the loss of the kind of like mid-budget adult movie, what you are lamenting is the decline of independent production labels like Castle Rock Entertainment. You know, he made, Castle Rock Entertainment made the, the Whit Stillman movies, Barcelona, and Last Days of Disco and Clint Eastwood movies. He made, he made, he made other, there were other Stephen King adaptations, right, like Dolores Claiborne, one of the great ones. There, there was just all of these, these really interesting movies that would, again, go to cable and they would become beloved on cable and people would watch them over and over again. And we really don't have a studio like that anymore. It's he was, he was, again, he's just being the change he wanted to see in the world, right? He was making things he wanted to see. His label was making things that he and his partners wanted to see.

And we have lost that. We've lost the ability to make those. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we don't have companies like that anymore. These, you had these kind of mid-sized companies that just became the home for different directors. and different, different filmmakers. And the list of great films and shows that Castle Rock make,

it's kind of more than any studio has great films than any studio has made. You had city slickers, you had in the line of fire, Barcelona, the Shawshank Redemption, you know, the list, it's really an endless list there. And it was just about nurturing and developing different directors that he became a trusted place for them. And Hollywood does not, Hollywood recognized at that time that empowering these producers to kind of take care of people under their roof

and sort of have paying these middlemen to shepherd projects to the studio was something valuable. Because you'd have someone, you'd have someone outside of the studio who was really in charge of making this thing good and would fight for that project above all else, whereas a studio executive has got to watch the overall budget and other things. And Hollywood decided somewhere in the last decade,

yeah, we don't need that anymore, and they've eliminated that. And the result is there's no giant studio that has as many great films as Castle Rock did. in in this decade or so yeah i mean it's uh the the you know what do we have now we have pre-awareness we have you if you don't if you don't have a brand if you don't have ip behind it it's not getting made it's not getting resources put behind it uh and you know it just is a it's a it's a it's a it feels weird to say that about you know a a label that was in existence

Not long ago that Castle Rock Entertainment, you know, kind of was its heyday, but it just does not, there is nothing like it. I mean, there were a few of them. There was sort of a consolation of those companies, you know, I would say seven or eight of them that were similar to that on scale. They also created Seinfeld, which we should not leave out, which ended up giving fortune to Steve Bannon also. So that's a unintended consequence of. Yeah, right. That's one of those weird moments. Maybe we don't dwell on that too much.

In the comments on the YouTube, Kelz-D-L said, as a kid, my dad introduced me to the Princess Bride and Spinal Tap, and there remained some of our favorite movies throughout my life. And Dave, again, like, this is kind of my experience with Rob Reiner was, you know, I watched Spinal Tap with my dad, and we laughed at it. And it was very funny. And, you know, kind of this goes to a left. becomes the, you know, puppet show.

Like everything, there were 17,000 different little lines that just become parts of our communal language. And obviously, not just me and my dad, it's me and the culture at large. You mentioned watching the movies with your family. Is that also kind of the experience you had? Oh, completely. That you can just, if the mood is darkening,

you can quote one of those lines and get back into it. I would also give, we're talking about Castle Rock, I give them credit to pander to you for hosting. Castle Rock is also the co-produces Whit Stillman's movies. I think not Metropolitan, but once he goes, okay, let's get Whitstilman to a larger audience. He's got, he's got that. Before Sunrise, the Linklater movie, which is, to me, it's not a romantic comedy, but a movie about young romance, I think, is peerless. just the i want to keep giving him credit for the the the talent that he that he raised um and yes so in i found that it wasn't that we went around quoting them they were just benchmarks for

uh for comedy it city slickers was again not his movie but the crystal and i and i i'm getting a better appreciation as all the stuff goes away or it's absorbed by different uh members of the Ellison family for how these productions do companies work. But they, they, in, in the Weigel household, these were just foundational texts. There's, uh, the, the new international version of the Bible. That was important. And then, um, city slickers and the rest, the rest of these films. But it was just, it was a, it was a, it was understood that if there was, it was, if you

saw the Castle Rock logo, pretty much that, that, that, that close. If you saw the Castle Rock logo in a trailer, you marked off. that you'd go see it and you were confident that when you were catching up with your friends over the holidays or any normal time you could mention what would happen and you could mention something quote something from a rob Reiner movie or something he was connected to from this larger comedic comitic monoculture and everyone would get along with it maybe you could have a really interesting conversation have one person who disagreed with you but and then gang up on them because they wanted to but the like I don't want to make this a whole quoting

festival. I do miss that because I'm old enough to watch this stuff and old enough to not like what is replacing it, which is not just from, it feels like from big studios, IP and from independent creators using AI to put their IP into dumb videos. I don't think that's a good improvement on creative people coming from, you know, starting, growing up in New York and then this transition to L.A. as, as comedians got established the film industry and made more comedy about the LA lifestyle. What did this mean to Methodists in Delaware where I grew up? Did we understand New York culture? Did we understand LA culture? Not really, but the way that these movies and these scripts and these actors invited us into the world and showed us their

problems, there was always a point in some of these filmographies where it got a little bit too insidery. We didn't quite get it. This is not a James Earl Brooks discussion, but there's that it's all going great until I'll do anything. And there comes a point where it's a little too much about the business of Hollywood for anyone else to understand. But when they told these human stories in these milieu, it met a lot to people with very different, very different experiences. And I really do miss it.

I don't think there's anything, anything that's thoughtful that connects in the same way. When I find, because a DC cliche is everyone wants to talk about their job and that's the opener, oh, what do you do for a living? it's much more fun to bring up something that people have enjoyed recently and can kind of guess. And it often is it's not, did you see that great thing that happened in that original screen, that original movie based on somebody's idea or life and not a cartoon? It's, did you see that terrible article? Did you see that stupid YouTube?

Did you see that stupid TikTok? I really have lost something, which is the ability of people to write these, these enriching, meaningful stories for people who, for people who, have only the only thing they have in common is they're humans and they want to get married and have kids. Apart from that, they have very different lives. I miss these creators who could find that stuff. I'm not erasing this a spinal tab. Again, people who spent their lives in the music industry live by that movie for 40 years. And we'll quote that movie. That was made by comedians who were not themselves rock stars until they form that band. I don't know who has that ability anymore beyond like aping what came before who who is that original i can't think of someone

who is that that good at creating something new and and mass popular not just niche thing that we that we see and forget about in a week but that's popular way that we all talk about a year later dismissed his middle brow at the time but i mean compared to what we have now it's like molyere so i mean they're not stupid movies at all they they never took no his movies never talked down to their audience. He never dumbs it down. They're, they're middle of far, because they're sort of straightforward storytelling, without a lot of

you know, tour theatrics attached to it. But it's, you know, they're smart and witty and very adept, uh, storytelling there. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. I'm just, I was

just, I was just. Oh, we lost. He was scrolling so fast that he scrolled right off the screen there, you know. It's a mutiny. We've overthrown him. Yeah, I know. Who's in charge, though?

It's like, it's like one of these coups, then we should have a falling out and fight for control of the screen. Here he's coming back here. Stop talking about him. Yeah, okay. Forget what you just said about Sonny. You didn't miss anything, Sonny. Oh, now you're sound is off. Now he sounds off.

So that's good, yeah. We need your sound. all right how about that okay good now sorry technical snafu done um i're probably giving us the signal that it's time to time to talk that was a subtle the subtle bulwark signal with sunny he likes to do these four or five hour discussions you know and film by you know scene by scene through movies that are 30 years old so they they pulled the plug of strip t's the castle rock uh entertainment film um we're gonna uh i i I do think it's about time to wrap up here, though. The one thing I would say, I do think we should, like, I don't want to, again, dwell

on the insipid nonsense of Donald Trump. But it's striking that his truth post today has inspired more backlash than I think anything I've seen him put out there. Like, even, you know, the kind of standard, the typical right-wing folks are like, come on man let's not there's no reason to do this um and i i don't think i'm not gonna i'm not gonna sit here and say this is the tipping point this is this is it they're gonna finally turn against him because they never will that's not gonna happen that's not that's not what what is going to happen here but i do think that he has uh he has crossed a line here that even his supporters are like

what the hell man and that is and that is that's as much a testament to i think rob brighter and the work he did as it is disgust and distaste for Trump, which is, you know, kind of if that's his, if that's his final gift to us, then, you know, that's not the worst thing, I guess. I had that thought today that Rob would be pleased that he's causing a lot of discomfort for Trump and for Trump supporters. A bunch of senators were busy explaining today that they haven't seen what Trump said and they haven't had time, very busy people, and they can't read a four sentence, you know,

post and have no opinion, apparently, about Rob Reiner, who, you know, presumably they saw all these movies just like we all did in TV shows, right, when they were young. I mean, it is, Trump's, you know, he's a terrible demagogony, but he's somewhat successful in beating up disfavored groups, minority groups, you know, popular groups, people who he can demonize and caricature and, you know, talk about how they're all criminals and so forth. Rob Reiner, we've just been saying this, right, was in the most popular TV show of the 70s, made unbelievably popular movies in the 80s and 90s,

was then the producer and ran a studio that made a zillion other popular movies. They were not particularly partisan. They weren't partisan at all. And we're watched by tens of millions of Americans who enjoyed them, including people from conservative liberal backgrounds and middle America and the coast and so forth. So I, Trump missed, I don't know if he thought much about it,

he's just being Trump, but it's a miscalculation to think that you can. If Rod Reiner is somehow not part of what makes America great, really and what makes America enjoyable and a happy place to be, hopefully, then you're on the wrong side. You know, that's what Trump put himself on the wrong side of that equation, I feel like. The two times he's come, he's really come at Hollywood stars in a serious way. He loves, he traditionally loves to fight them, but the other, the first time was Jimmy Kimball. And then this is really the second time. And they both, yeah, the Jimmy Kimmel moment was a real turning point, certainly for Hollywood here.

And this is not going to win him any new fans, I think. So he's, say Hollywood is 2 and O against him right now. I'd just briefly add that, again, just covering politics and being aware of Rob Reiner in the 2000, 2010s, it just felt like there were. is an understanding. Yes, Rob Reiner is a famous liberal. He's going to go on TV. He's going to say liberal things. He's going to make fun of Republicans. And Republicans didn't say, how can we punish him? How can we jail him? How can we hurt him? It was, there goes meathead. It's just I remember I heard how many Rush Limbaugh segments where he'd make fun of that. It was just not, it was part of the

game. It was an understanding that he was liberal and it's too bad if you were conservative that somebody with his politics made such great movies, but it wasn't nasty. It certainly wasn't vicious about the idea of him dying, and that everyone except who I guess as a non-Republican member of Congress had a problem with Trump. I had a problem for all the normal reasons, but also for that, it was not that long ago where he was, you were allowed to have these sorts of politics and people would kind of shake it off and say good games at the end of it. have we already lost that or is this a very situational thing for the for the president? I noticed the vice president didn't chime in.

So maybe it's situational about Trump. I hope it doesn't last because it was the idea that this is something that happened in this era where support for one for one candidate, one in particular was a, a firing offense. I get I get that happened. I'm not saying one event's going to roll it back, but just I have strong memories. of the years when people could attack Rob Reiner, he could attack back, and that was it, and it wasn't any meaner than that. I am, as nostalgic for that as I am for every single minute of spinal tap. Yeah, yeah, better time. All right, guys, thanks, thanks for joining with

this. Thanks for everybody in the comments. Sorry, I couldn't get to everything here. Richard Rushfield, of course, of the Angler, he was great. Richard, I just, I do want to read one comment from Kerry on Substack, who says, says that Richard's column made me cry today. So you've got one cryer out there. Thank you or I'm sorry. How I meant that? Yeah.

No, it was a great, it was a great column. And it was, again, it was just, it's been such a, such a bad couple of days. And hopefully things get a little bit better here. But Dave, thank you as well for joining us. You've got all sorts of things going on right now. I'm glad you could, you could swing by. and Dave Dave of course at Semaphore

We haven't even mentioned Semaphore Great, I also subscribe to Semaphore I subscribe to everything I love all of my my journalist friends I subscribe to everything Everything represented on this YouTube Including YouTube

But more importantly the Anchler Yeah Likewise to all of you And Bill of course Who is always here He's a piece of furniture So thanks for Thank you

Thank you for coming everybody Thank you I hope this was helpful and good for everyone. Have a good night and be safe. Go watch a Rob Ryder movie. Go watch the Princess Bride. Quick, roundtable, as we leave, what Rob Ryder movie are you going to watch tonight?

Richard. The sure thing, because it's a movie I have really fond memories of and haven't seen for a really long time. I think the rewatchables tease that they're going to be doing that over at the Ringer. Good podcast, if you like that. Dave, what are you watching? Actually, I'm going to say a sure thing, too, because I haven't seen that. That's the one in the classic run I haven't seen.

And I've seen Spontap too many times. Bill, are you also watching the sure thing? Is that when Harry met Sally? So I could be into it. New York nostalgia, you know? Cassis Deli, Cafe Luxembourg, the whole thing, you know? I'm going to go with the mood of the moment. Misery.

That's what I got. That's what I got on tap. So I'm going to enjoy that tonight. I think that'll be fun. All right. Bye, everybody. Thanks for stopping by. everybody have a good night we'll see you soon go subscribe to the bulwark go sign up at the

youtube hit like subscribe all that stuff i don't know i'm not good at this is the part of the job i'm bad at uh but uh but uh go sign up and and subscribe and help us do what we do help us bring these things to you um that's what that's what we like to do thanks thank you thank you very much