An American romantic comedy directed by Rob Reiner, starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.
A man meets a woman who gives him a ride and they argue the whole way. He keeps meeting this same woman in other situations, later in life.
Guh. Standard Hollywood bullshit. The plot was so predictable that it was like watching The Story of Us (1999) in reverse. The characters were not developed at all. Even the two main characters remained a mystery throughout the duration. Compared to The Story of Us, we actually see the important memories being made instead of just remembered. The video was straight forward storytelling with no frills or artsy-fartsy in any way. The audio featured dialogue mixed at the correct level and overplayed pop songs. This is standard of romantic comedy soundtracks. Overall, a Hollywood bullshit chick flick for the dumbed down masses. I rate this bad because it sucks.
An American romantic comedy directed by Rob Reiner, starring John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga.
After a failed attempt at romance with a female classmate, a male college student finds himself sharing a ride with the girl who turned him down. They are both on their way south to where his friend has arranged a hot date and where her boyfriend is. Not everything works out as planned and they struggle most of the way there.
This was made back when Reiner was earning the reputation that got him hired for his more recent disasters. The plot made sense and held my attention. Never mind that it took me about four tries to get through the whole hour and a half duration. My schedule just turned into a nightmare. We see the characters engaged in multiple types of conflict such as vs. nature, other characters and seemingly, the rest of the world. The characters were developed well. Right from the beginning they are in-character, well acted and demonstrating their personality traits. By the end, the viewer will feel like they actually know these characters personally. I feel that this film was preparatory work for Daphne Zuniga to develop her Princess Vespa personality for a future roll in Spaceballs. The video style was straight forward storytelling, without much b-roll or artsy shots. That ended up working out well and showing the story very clearly. The audio did have some issues. There were some sections of dialogue that were noticeably quieter than the rest. Of course, these contained the most important plot points. Overall, a pretty decent '80s flick that was kind of fun to watch. I rate it adequate.
An American drama directed by Rob Reiner, starring Morgan Freeman and Virginia Madsen.
A retired writer of western novels moves into a house next door to a single mother with three daughters. The middle daughter wants him to teach her how to write.
Sappy-crappy! It was so sickeningly sweet that it almost made me spew. The plot followed the most sentimental and heart-warming path available. The characters were all basically female, including Morgan Freeman, but not the dog. The dog demonstrated male gender identity by licking it's own penis. Freeman played the kind, crippled, de-sexed and harmless old man who can barely raise an argument, let alone his cock. The video looked like Reiner said "Let's make a chick flick!". Don't get me wrong. Everything looked fine and it was actually done quite well, but in a namby-pamby type of way. Audio followed suit, but very quietly. I wanted Beatrix Kiddo to show up with her Hanzo sword and demonstrate for all of them what a real woman is. Or maybe Lieutenant Ripley in the power loader, wielding a grenade launcher/shotgun/flame-thrower and being chased by swarms of savage Xenomorph XX121s. Overall, cry me a fucking river, you pansies. I rate this bad because I hated it.
An American romance directed by Rob Reiner, starring Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer.
A husband and wife who are having problems with their relationship separate while their children are away at camp.
Not so great standard Hollywood bullshit. The plot was so stale, obvious and predictable that it failed to hold my attention. The characters were just as stale and predictable as the plot. The video was straight forward story telling with no artsy shots of any kind. The audio had audible dialogue, but the soundtrack was stupidly mediocre. What irked me most was flashbacks of the couple's life together being momentarily visited during this troubled time. Actually showing their relationship would have been more effective. The whole thing just seemed fake and poorly written. Castle Rock, Universal and Warner Brothers were banking on star power that only netted them 8 million in the end. For more criticism, please refer to the Wikipedia page. I rate this bad. Do not watch!
An American comedy drama directed by Rob Reiner, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.
Two old men meet in a hospital. They share a room and have both been told that they have a very short time left to live. Together they decide to leave and go do things that they've always wanted to do before they die.
Standard Hollywood bullshit. The basic plot seemed like a good idea. Then we add two famous and elderly actors and a famous director. Throw 45 million dollars at it and hope for the best. If you're in Hollywood, the math looks good and it worked out for them to the tune of 175 million. However, it lacks depth entirely. The audio and video looked and sounded fine. Camera-work was not lacking. Even the acting was decent. But that's all it was. Totally superficial and made to fill theater seats and wallets. I tried to watch this before, but ended up turning it off at the car scene because it's stupid. I rate this bad. Do not watch!
An American romantic comedy directed by Rob Reiner, starring Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Costner, Shirley MacLaine, Mark Ruffalo and Richard Jenkins.
An engaged woman finds out the The Graduate was written about her mother and grandmother. She meets with the author and has an affair with him, like her mother and grandmother did before her.
Stupid. I don't like romantic comedy, I don't like Jennifer Aniston and I don't like Rob Reiner. My last post about Reiner's films was pretty derogatory, but I have to make this worse. I knew every move the characters would make before they made it. I saw everything coming a mile away. Jennifer Aniston's bad acting befouled my screen for an hour and a half, with the only respite being Shirley Maclaine as the drunken and jaded grandmother. Beau Burroughs' sexual conquest of the family seemed to be a metaphor for the film as a whole. Reiner was guaranteed success due to celebrity status and just let it happen. Other critics have not had many positive things to say about this either. Overall, crappy. I rate this bad. DO NOT WATCH!!!
An American courtroom drama directed by Rob Reiner, starring Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg and James Woods.
A lawyer brings back a case of a black civil rights leader who was killed 27 years before.
I wish I hadn't decided to watch Rob Reiner's directorial filmography. All of his films are very standard and formulaic. This is no exception to that. Anything that I would normally write about can be described with those words. I would like to add a few, just to emphasize my point: stale, boring, predictable, trite, conventional, stock, uninspired, and cliched are just a few that come to mind. The best part was the lawyer's youngest son copying his father's curse word: shit. Overall, I want the last two hours of my life back. I rate this poor for being so mediocre (there's another good word!).
An American comedy adventure directed by Rob Reiner, starring Elijah Wood, Bruce Willis, Jason Alexander, Jon Lovitz, Alan Arkin, Dan Aykroyd, Kathy Bates and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
A boy is unsatisfied with his parents. He is doing well in school, but they don't care. He decides to search for new parents after talking to a mall Easter bunny. The new parents around the world are not to his tastes and everywhere he goes, the mall Easter bunny guy offers helpful advice.
This is a children's film and could be watched by kids quite contentedly. I propose another option for adults: examine the actors, their other roles and their combination. George and Elaine from Seinfeld have given birth to Frodo Baggins, who takes advice from John McClane from the Die Hard films. More fun that way, right? I thought the plot was trite and frivolous, with the main character making his decisions based on fickle and childish reasons. It also involved closed-minded, outdated and idiotic notions of other cultures. The audio and video were fine. I could hear and see everything. Overall, I really just wanted to write about my "Characters In Other Roles Theory" again. I rate this tolerable.
An American romantic comedy directed by Rob Reiner, starring Kate Hudson and Luke Wilson.
A writer has borrowed money from the Cuban mafia and they will kill him if he does not finish his book and pay them in a month. He hires a woman stenographer to help him write faster and falls in love with her. The main character in the book is torn between the love for two women. When the stenographer finds that this is also the case in real life, her feelings for the writer change.
This started out badly and got worse as it went. The plot was typical of modern romantic comedies, but utilized a slightly different time-frame, with most of the events at the beginning and end. The characters were terrible. The main character was annoying and his acting sucked. The romantic interest was only slightly better. The video was the only good aspect. As the writer dictates his book and discusses it with the stenographer, the viewer sees what they are talking about, complete with changing cast and other video tricks. The audio was pretty standard. I could hear the dialogue and the soundtrack music was correctly mixed. Overall, standard American romantic comedy with some cool video effects. I rate it poor because I hate the genre.
An American romance directed by Rob Reiner, starring Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton.
A mean, old real estate salesman is forced to take care of his granddaughter and a stray dog. This initiates a wave of kindness in which he falls in love with his neighbor.
This was more like a failed sequel to As Good as It Gets (1997) than it was anything else. The same asshole neighbor is forced to care for something besides himself and it opens his heart. The plot has obviously already been done, rendering it stale and lifeless. The characters played the exact same roles as Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. My favorite characters were the two little boys that ran around shouting "Too much noise!". The video was decent, but relatively straight forward and obvious. There was good use of seamless editing because it all flowed together naturally. The audio was pretty standard. I could hear most of the dialogue and the music was almost at a good mix level. I would have raised the vocals and lowered the music. Overall, pretty standard and stale. When I can point to another movie that is almost identical, the filmmakers have not done their job correctly. I rate this poor. You really should not watch it.
An American courtroom drama directed by Rob Reiner, starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Kiefer Sutherland.
A soldier at a military base may have been murdered. A team of three lawyers tries to defend the two soldiers who supposedly killed the other.
This was a pretty standard courtroom flick. The plot followed standard procedure like it was a military order. We had rain and night during difficult times and sunny days when things were going well. The characters fit into the Hollywood mold created for them like G.I. boots. The lawyers drank at the right times in the plot, the people in court got angry at the right times. The video... You get the idea. Everything was G.I., fit the mold and followed stereotypes carved in stone. I'm not saying that it was all bad, just extremely predictable. This was one of a pandemic of movies made in the late '80s and early '90s that are all courtroom dramas that color inside the lines, so to speak. Overall, yet another game of Lawyers & Lawsuits. I rate it tolerable because it didn't hurt to watch, but there was no originality.
An American propaganda film directed by Rob Reiner, starring Michael Douglas, Martin Sheen, David Paymer and Michael J. Fox.
The president has a romantic relationship with an environmental lobbyist while trying to pass a bill about guns or crime.
This was so unrealistic that I almost called it a fantasy film. Although technically well-made, the plot and characters were absurd to the point of comedy. Happy and innocent-looking Michael J. Fox cast as a heartless reptilian Rothschild? HAHAHAHAHA! All of the people working at the White House acted like voting mattered and nothing was predetermined. The president made decisions about his speeches. NO TELEPROMPTERS! That one blew me away! Everything was an example of what the American people have been duped into believing was the case in politics. I just read Wikipedia and found out why this film is the way it is. Aaron Sorkin, the writer, was high on crack. So much for the war on drugs! Overall, this gave me something to write about and is funny if you know what's actually going on in the world. I rate it o.k. because I would never watch it again.
An American romance drama directed by Rob Reiner, starring Anthony Edwards, Penelope Ann Miller and Adrian Quinn.
The tense relationship between two young people in the 1960s is told from both perspectives. The boy lives a vacant life, obsessed with the girl. The girl raises chickens and repairs the dilapidated yard of her house, with the help of the boy's grandfather.
This was different because of the dual perspective storytelling, but everything else was standard American teen romance. The plot was divided into sections of male and female narration, with differing opinions about how and why things happened. The characters did develop, as the story followed them from childhood into high school. There were many extras, but the main characters were all dynamic by either changing something in the world or changing themselves. The video was all very clear and straight forward. It relied on good, clean shots and seamless editing. I would have liked to see differing video styles based on who was narrating. The audio was mostly voice-overs of narration, but dialogue was spread evenly throughout and I could hear everything that was said. The soundtrack was a very minor element and stayed in the background. Overall, A unique storytelling/plot style with nothing else to offer. I rate it o.k.
An American drama directed by Rob Reiner.
A politician's son is always in and out of rehab centers. He has a friend who partys all the time, but never seems to get in trouble. He meets a girl at an inpatient program and they have a shaky romance. The father is more worried about his political campaign than about his son and does anything he can to push him away.
It wasn't bad. Didn't hurt to watch, but hit a little too close to home in some sections. The plot seemed to go nowhere. Nothing really changed from the beginning to the end. The characters were a little shallow. The relationship between son and father developed a little bit, but mostly characters left and were forgotten. The video was mostly good in a standard "I can see what's going on" type of way. There were some underexposed scenes in which important events could not be discerned. Landscapes and backgrounds sometimes looked great at the expense of characters and foreground elements. The audio had audible dialogue and a wide range of soundtrack music. The parts of the film that hit too close to home were the rehab facilities with their serenity prayer and vapid counselors. Fortunately, I have never been to inpatient. Overall, a standard American drama with various pros and cons like any other film. I rate this o.k.
A musical mockumentary by Rob Reiner.A fictional rock band goes on tour to support their new album and has stereotypical rock band problems.My first piece of advice on this is to watch the ending credits. There is a very dry, Brittish sense of humor through the whole film. This documentary is also painfully accurate to to real problems faced by musicians. My favorite musical number is "Lick My Love Pump", performed by Nigel on solo piano. It shows musicianship that is not seen or heard in the rest of the film. I'm rating this awesome.
An adventure directed by Rob Reiner, based on a book by Stephen King and starring Kiefer Sutherland.A group of boys travel along some railroad tracks to go see a dead body. Simultaneously, their older peers who discovered the body decide to do the same thing.This is another classic '80s film. I can remember the pie eating scene from when I saw it IN the '80s. It's one of those things that sticks in your mind. It kept my attention and was definitely memorable, so I'm rating it good.
A fantasy directed by Rob Reiner.A very young Fred Savage (of Wonder Years fame) is sick and his grandfather shows up to read him book. In the book, a girl falls in love with a farm boy who leaves and is captured by pirates. The girl accidentally (and against her will) becomes betrothed to the evil prince. She is then captured by a group of men who want to start a war and rescued by a pirate who turns out to be the farm boy. The farm boy is killed by the prince and resurrected by 2 of the war mongers who turn out to be cool guys. One of them has a grudge against one of the prince's men and they storm the castle to make everything right again.This is in the running for best film ever made. The plot, setting and character development are absolutely perfect. There's not much more to be said that wouldn't just be repeated praise of this, so I'm giving it a white "best films ever" rating.
A horror directed by Rob Reiner, based on a book by Stephen King.A writer crashes his car and is saved by a fan. The fan intends to keep him indefinitely as the local sheriff searches.The audio and video were very good.check out: during the fight, I was reminded of the R.O.U.S. scene from "The Princess Bride".This movie definitely kept me interested. The crazed fan resembles an ex-girlfriend and I was anxious for her to be brutally slain. The only question that went unanswered was the identity of the pills.
