And there are things in it that, to me, are as funny as it gets. There's a scene where Bruce Willis is playing a stand-up comedian addressing NASA: the National Association of Smoke Alarms. For all Reiner's professions of seriousness, it looks slick, inoffensive and suspiciously like a blatant bid to re- establish the director's bankability.He is surprisingly willing and even eager to talk about North "I guess it was just my time to get blasted But I love all my children. But The American President has been called by Variety "as conservative artistically as it is liberal politically.... Anyone who would consider this ultra mainstream picture the least bit controversial doesn't see many movies".
But it was informally known in the business as A Few Big Names, a glossy star vehicle for Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore.The blot on Reiner's copybook has been North, his last film and the only one that didn't slot comfortably into a cookie-cutter pattern. A surreal comedy about a small boy who travels the world searching for the ideal family, it flopped spectacularly His follow-up bears all the signs of a sure-fire hit. Since then, the director has been all over the map, testing his mettle in gentle comedy (Stand By Me), fantasy (The Princess Bride), romantic comedy (When Harry Met Sally), Gothic horror (Misery), and military drama (A Few Good Men).All of them had one thing in common: they were straightforward genre movies. And just about all were hits, the biggest being A Few Good Men, which made Hollywood history by opening in 50 countries on the same date.
Rob Reiner's first film, This Is Spinal Tap, the immortal mockumentary about a no-talent heavy metal band, mined that same vein of irreverent humour. His father, Carl, wrote and performed in the classic television series Sid Caesar's Show of Shows, and visitors to the Reiner household would include the likes of Mel Brooks, Norman Lear, Neil Simon and Woody Allen. I'm very keen on trying to help the environment and strongly in favour of gun control, and those are the two key issues that are brought out in the film."Reiner grew up with the greats of American comedy. "It's the first time in my life I've made a film that expresses some of my political views," says Reiner, a declared Democrat. "I started out doing satire when I was young, which was basically thumbing your nose at things, and I think eventually at a certain point in your life you have to start saying what you're for. It was a very big deal during the Kennedy administration when the CBS evening news was expanded from 15 minutes a night to half an hour Now you have news 24 hours a day.
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