Tuesday, December 16th, 2025, and it's very difficult sometimes to reflect on an artist's career after they've passed away, especially when an artist like Rob Reiner passes away in the manner that he did. It feels, I don't know what the word is, it doesn't feel right in the aftermath of such horrible tragedy and while so many people close to him are suffering and tormented now to be talking about Stand By Me. But I've been asked, when I think about Rob Reiner, and I've got a legacy, I will say, a history with Rob Reiner, not personally, never met the band, don't know him, but when I was an undergraduate at NYU Cinema Studies in 2000 to 2004, one of the things I used to always argue with professors about, and I'm still doing to this day, getting my PhD across the river at Rutgers, is I used to always argue with professors that we were teaching the wrong films. That we were so married to a world of aesthetics and so in love with, especially art house European cinema, that we were not meeting the students where they are. We were not communicating, whether that be broad theoretical concepts or technical concepts, we were not communicating these things through the films that were having true emotional powerful impact in the lives of students and I lost all these debates. But the debate, for me, always centered around Rob Reiner. So for some reason, and I would argue the success of Jaws, the commercial viability of his work soon after, Steven Spielberg has always been studyable. He has always been considered by the film studies world a fertile ground, but Rob Reiner has not. And if you think about Rob Reiner's career, it is one of the most remarkable careers in the history of entertainment. He is on the definitive, the definitive sitcom, All in the Family, a sitcom that had a conversation with an American public in a sophisticated way, through a complicated character, for a generation. Starts Castle Rock Entertainment and Green Light Seinfeld, the next definitive sitcom, that changed careers and lives and television. His filmmaking career, and you're going to hear about the run he went on, and the run is unbelievable. And this is Spinal Tap, a genre-defining film. When Harry Met Sally, a genre-defining film. A Few Good Men, a genre-defining film. Stand By Me, a genre-defining film. You don't even have to reach as a film scholar to teach Rob Reiner. Just call your session Rob Reiner and Genre, and you'll see he is one of the great genre filmmakers that's ever lived. And think of the careers that he has changed and altered in Hollywood. Think of everybody who launched out of Stand By Me. Think of the mockumentary format that comes out of Spinal Tap and his collaboration with guests Cheer and McCain. Aaron Sorkin was just a playwright before the film version of A Few Good Men. Then he makes The American President again with Aaron Sorkin, and Aaron Sorkin sees The American President and realizes there's more here. There goes the West Wing. Rob Reiner is like a lot of filmmakers. They have a period of time where it's all cooking, and then they kind of lose it. And I think Rob Reiner did lose it. He made a film I like called The Story of Us, had a great score, Bruce Willis, but really hasn't made anything great since about the mid 90s. But when you look at what he did from 84 to 95, you don't see Hollywood filmmakers. I'm talking about a very specific kind of Hollywood filmmaker, the kind of Hollywood filmmaker like a Michael Curtiz or Fred Zinneman or Billy Wilder. Rob Reiner was a Hollywood entertainer born his dad, Carl Reiner, tracing back to the golden age of television. Rob Reiner was a true cinematic entertainer. And the films will last forever, and I wish I could go back and fight those arguments again as an undergrad. I'm still fighting them now. But you talk to somebody in their late 40s, 50s, and you ask them what Citizen Kane means to them or you ask them what Breastless means to them or you ask them what Seven Samurai means to them, you're going to get blank stares. You talk to someone in that age group, what the Princess Bride means to them, you're going to get the script read back to you, memorized. You ask somebody what a few good men means to them, you're going to get you can't handle the truth. You're going to think of Rob Reiner in the years that go on and as generations go on go on among the greats of Hollywood filmmaking. They knew Rob Reiner knew it was Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise's film. His job was to get them to where they needed to get to. Rob Reiner didn't need to be visible in the Princess Bride. And when Harry Met Sally is the great Efron script and Billy and Meg at the tops of their games. But what courses through all of these films that we're mentioning, and this is the last point I'll make about Rob Reiner. What courses through every film I just mentioned are two things, an exceedingly big heart. That's even there in Spinal Tap, the love those characters have for each other. It's really the performers comes through that screen every time I watch that film and came through either on the sequel, which I didn't think was as bad as everybody else did. To me, it was like getting the gang back together. I watched it, I had ideas, they should have done it a little bit differently, but Harmless Film. The love is there, but they are all profoundly funny movies. Rob Reiner was one of the funniest people that Hollywood produced. And his lasting legacy. In Hollywood and in this country is going to be just how many people his films made laugh. And to me, I put him up there with the great Hollywood filmmakers. I don't need to compare him to Martin Scorsese. I know it doesn't matter to me. But I put him up there with those kinds of filmmakers who make the big Hollywood film, who make the studio picture. Who want to reach a wide audience and have something to say. And if you don't think Rob Reiner's films had something to say, watch the Michael Douglas speech in the press room at the end of the American president. Tell me he doesn't have anything to say. Watch his lasting career of activism for the left, a man who, whether you agree with him or not, doesn't matter. Rob Reiner cared deeply about American democracy. And it's interesting now to go look back at his work and see that thread and how it develops. This is a huge loss. This is a titan of the industry. But more often, more than that, for me, this is a criminally underrated director, a criminally underrated filmmaker. And I hope that in the years that go on here, as I get to teach this art form that I love so much, that I've spent so much time studying, I will be able to show his work to a younger generation and hopefully pass on the legacy he has left us. And it's the legacy of a deeply, deeply funny filmmaker who, in the golden age of Hollywood, would have fit right in. It's a sad loss and a sad day, and I just feel so horribly for that family and everyone involved, especially because of the details that are now coming out. He will be missed. But his films will live on and hopefully to honor him, if you're so interested in doing so. Show someone who's never seen it. The Princess Bride. Show someone who's never seen it. This is Spinal Tap. You know, show someone when Harry Met Sally. Every time I recommend when Harry Met Sally to someone, they come back and say, oh, my God, it's amazing because it is. That's this. I don't know. How do you end a monologue like this? R.I.P., Rob.