Rob Reiner’s generation

Exclusive to MeierMovies, December 15, 2025

Rob Reiner, who died tragically and violently alongside his wife, Michele, yesterday in Los Angeles, never won an Oscar. He never makes lists of best directors or actors. But, like a barfly at Cheers, every American moviegoer knew his name, and his films.

When Harry Met Sally, This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, A Few Good Men, Misery, Stand by Me. None of these films is a critical masterpiece. None won the Oscar for best movie or broke box-office records at the time of release. But each has a special place in the hearts of the cinema-going public. Reiner was The People’s Director.

This is what makes the attacks from the President of the United States particularly egregious. Trump wrote, “A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind-crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”

Pressed to apologize or retract or even simply explain his unexplainable post, Trump doubled down: “I wasn’t a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person as far as Trump is concerned.”

I can’t think of a better retort than that of Christian conservative theologian Russell Moore, who, ironically, is seemingly aligned with Trump politically: “How this vile, disgusting, and immoral behavior has become normalized in the United States is something our descendants will study in school, to the shame of our generation.”

In the decades to come, let’s hope the films of Rob Reiner help define this generation, instead of the moral horror show that is Donald Trump. And when comparing Rob and Donald, it’s crystal clear that the latter is the meathead.

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