00:00To discuss director Rob Rainer's passing with us now is Christian Toto, award-winning film critic and host of the Hollywood in Toto podcast.
00:10Christian, good afternoon to you. So you've described Rainer's run in the 80s as Spielberg-level great. Can you talk to us about that?
00:18Yeah, I mean, the titles speak for themselves. These aren't just movies, these aren't just hits, but they've become enmeshed in the culture, The Princess Bride, Misery, Stand By Me, This Is Spinal Tap,
00:28a lesser-known film of his, which I thought was wonderful, was The Short Thing. You know, so many movies, so many indelible performances, and he was able to kind of bounce between genres.
00:39You had a mockumentary when they really weren't making that many mockumentaries. You had a rom-com, you've had thrillers, you've had dramatic performances.
00:47He did A Few Good Men. He could do it all. And, you know, that power didn't last through the decades. In recent years, his films have been, the quality just hasn't been there.
00:57But, boy, when he was on target, there was no one quite like him.
01:02And you also say Rainer was a master at comedy, right? But his film Misery, you know, maybe a perfect Stephen King adaption. Any comments on that?
01:12Yeah, you know, I think for many years, Hollywood struggled to get that Stephen King tone just right.
01:18You saw films that came close, some that were clunkers, but Misery just seemed note-perfect.
01:23Of course, he had two great performances there, James Caan and Kathy Bates, but just really capturing what he brought to the written word and translated almost seamlessly to the screen.
01:33A great story, a great movie, you know, a two-hander, as they say, with not a lot of action in theory, but just complete tension and also something that was oddly relatable.
01:43What if a superstar was trapped by his biggest fan and she wasn't quite all right?
01:48So it's just a memorable movie and just an example of how good he could be directing films.
01:53And, of course, you know, segueing from a sitcom actor into a popular director, another weird and not always successful transition, he made it look easy.
02:02And why do you think that is? If you can just condense it into one thing, if possible, I mean, what made Rainer unique in cinema specifically?
02:15I mean, I think he had great instincts. Obviously, growing up, his dad was Carl Reiner, one of the funniest people around.
02:20That certainly helped, you know, fine-tune his sense of humor, working within the Hollywood realm on a sitcom that was beloved for so long.
02:28It's just talent, absolute talent. And, you know, his movies, sometimes a director may make great movies and the public doesn't quite latch on to them.
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