Following the shocking and tragic news of the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, it seems fitting that the best way to honor his memory would be to watch his movies, either for the first time or as a rewatch.
Most movies he directed, and in which he acted (he was very good in Postcards from the Edge and as in Sleepless in Seattle), are available in Israel on Apple TV+, and many can be seen in the US on Amazon and other streaming platforms. He also played a business mentor/guru on the fourth season of The Bear, which is on Disney+ here, and he stole every scene he was in.
Yes announced that on December 20, it will show several of Reiner’s movies on Yes Drama during the day, including When Harry Met Sally and The American President, and that these and other Reiner films are available on Yes VOD.
As the tributes have poured in following his death, many who knew him have commented on how nice he was, what a mensch he was, and you can see that in the characters he created.
His movies were filled with some of the greatest dialogue in movie history. Reiner did not write all the screenplays for his films, but he knew how to get the best writers in the movie business to work with him, such as Nora Ephron and Aaron Sorkin, and how to showcase each word and make it count. So here is a list of some of his best films and the lines to listen for.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that his greatest film was The Princess Bride (1987), simply because he’s the only one on the planet who could have made it. William Goldman’s novel, on which it was based, is a quirky modern take on the fairytale genre, filled with romance, action (the screaming eels!), and revenge, all done with a kind of sweetness and humor that were Reiner’s trademarks.
It had a brilliant framing device, with a grandfather (Peter Falk) reading the story to his grandson (Fred Savage), who is sick in bed and demands a story, but one with no kissing. The boy doesn’t exactly get his wish, but comes to believe in true love through this charming tale. This movie has won over some of the most cynical people I’ve ever known, myself included. It made a star out of Robin Wright, and it was Mandy Patinkin’s best big-screen role. It also featured one of the greatest casts of comic character actors ever, including Billy Crystal, Carol Kane, Wallace Shawn, Andre the Giant, Peter Cook, and Christopher Guest.
Then there’s the oft-repeated sentence that Wesley (Carey Elwes), the farm boy-turned pirate hero, uses to win over Princess Buttercup (Wright): “As you wish.” This line also ends the movie, when the boy tells his grandfather that he would like to hear the story again tomorrow, and Falk responds, “As you wish.”
When Harry Met Sally… (1989), considered by many to be the greatest rom-com of all time, earned its screenwriter, Nora Ephron, her sole Oscar nomination, and features two famous lines. One comes at the end of the iconic moment where Meg Ryan’s Sally fakes an orgasm at Katz’s Deli to show Billy Crystal’s incredulous Harry how easily it’s done, and an older woman at the next table, played by Reiner’s mother, Estelle, says, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
But there’s a heartfelt line that everyone remembers: “I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”
It wasn’t only comedies for which Reiner will be remembered. A Few Good Men (1992) is a gripping military courtroom drama, starring Tom Cruise as a brash young lawyer and Jack Nicholson as a high-ranking officer who is concealing a key fact. When Cruise’s character demands that Nicholson tell him the truth, he responds, “You can’t handle the truth!” The line wasn’t just showy – it revealed the conflict in ethics that was at the heart of the film, and it was arguably Nicholson’s single most memorable line in a career filled with them.
No look at Reiner’s career would be complete without the iconic “mockumentary” This is Spinal Tap (1984), with Reiner playing the director Marty DiBergi (a parody of Martin Scorsese in The Last Waltz), making a movie about an abysmal British heavy metal band led by Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) and a constantly changing cast of drummers, who all seem to die in freak accidents.
Almost every line in the film is memorable, but few would make sense out of context. Still, some stand out. There’s a line from their hit, “Big Bottom”: “How could you leave this behind?” And there’s the legendary exchange, when David says, “It’s such a fine line between stupid and, uh, …” and Nigel jumps in with, “Clever.”
Apple TV+ also features the recently released Spinal Tap sequel, Spinal Tap: The End Continues, with Reiner and the main actors all reprising their roles. If you liked the original, you’ll enjoy this, too.
It’s a sign of the times that Yes has decided to release a military comedy, Canteen Commando, which premiered on Yes Comedy on Thursday and is available on Yes VOD.
The idea is that now people can remember that soldiers are not only heroes, and that it’s OK to make fun of them. There is a lot that goes on in the military, which is a huge bureaucracy, that is absurdly funny. The more you know about the IDF, the more you’ll enjoy this series. If you’re not an IDF veteran, you might want to watch it with someone who can explain the acronyms to you, because every second word is a military reference.
Amir Tessler, who made his debut as a child in Natalie Portman’s A Tale of Love and Darkness, plays Rani, a nerdy recruit who is in training for a combat unit but who wants to stay as far as possible away from anything that requires heroism.
The constantly bullied young man is on this track because his father, Baruch (Eran Zarahovitsh), is a sergeant who has created a kind of comfy fiefdom for himself in a Special Ops unit. Baruch keeps finding new titles for himself that will allow him to do less and less work.
He is also having an affair with one of the female soldiers, and he snuggles up with her to watch military movies like Operation Thunderbolt; the contrast between the heroism he watches and his real-life military work couldn’t be clearer.
The last thing Baruch wants is for his son to be anywhere near him, but that’s just what happened when Rani gets his longed-for transfer to the only military job that could suit him: running a canteen, which happens to be on his father’s base.
Now, Baruch has to hide his girlfriend and a lot of other things from Rani. Meanwhile, Rani finds himself falling for the secretary on the base, who is indifferent to the macho men around her. He tries to find a way to prove himself to her, as the tension between father and son may drive them further apart or bring them closer together.
The series was created by Eretz Nehederet writer and actor Zarahovitsh, with Moish Goldberg and Ilan Shefler, and it plays with the various male military stereotypes that are very much on people’s minds, but it uses the military motif to tell a universal story of father-son tensions. Rising star Yadin Gellman, who was in Image of Victory and Arugam Bay, has a role as one of the tougher guys on the base.