Of course, I am riffing
A Few Good Men is a 1992 American legal drama film, produced and directed by Rob Reiner and written by Aaron Sorkin, who adapted his 1989 play. It stars an ensemble cast including Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak, J. T. Walsh, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Kiefer Sutherland. It received positive reviews and grossed $243 million on a budget of $40 million. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
It has some of my favorite lines including:
And there is
When Harry Met Sally… is a 1989 American romantic comedy film directed by Rob Reiner and written by Nora Ephron. The film grossed $193 million (on a budget of $40 million).
with “You do the math” logic leading to
spoken by the character who was real-life mother of Rob Reiner!
Easily one of my favorite movie scenes of all time is the sword fight from
The Princess Bride is a 1987 American fantasy adventure comedy film directed and co-produced by Rob Reiner.
with “You seem like a decent fellow” through “I know something that you don’t” to
One other movie that I enjoyed:
The American President is a 1995 American political romantic comedy drama film directed and produced by Rob Reiner and written by Aaron Sorkin. The American President grossed $108 million on a budget of $62 million. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score.
As Roger Ebert wrote in The Great Movies (although none of the above are on his list!):
We live in a box of space and time. Movies are windows in its walls…I realized what a wonderful task I’d set myself, because I remembered the circumstances under which I’d seen the films.
I was a graduate student at Cornell when I saw The Princess Bride (and immediately became a fan of William Goldman, see Inconceivable! Nobody Knows Anything) and When Harry Met Sally, was a young Assistant Professor at CMU when I saw A Few Good Men, and was engaged to be married and we saw The American President together.
Playing right now (I saw it in the theater when it opened, but is streaming on Netflix) and it is better than the somewhat disappointing Glass Onion:
Wake Up Dead Man (marketed as Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery) is a 2025 American mystery film written and directed by Rian Johnson.
Let me close this post by giving a shout out to three books that I am enjoying reading: Thanks Chander Velu for gifting me The Spirit of Inquiry for my 60th birthday (love the quirky back stories of the various scientists); Soroush Saghafian for nudging me to read your book (that covers good historical ground and places contemporary analytics in a satisfying intellectual narrative) on Problem Solving; and David Snoke for alerting me to his very readable and informative book on Interpreting Quantum Mechanics, and for our helpful discussion surrounding my new IOSD model for spontaneous decoherence (see A Lane to Classicality). And for movie lovers, William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade is highly recommended.
PS. Received this from Kalyan Singhal:
My comment in The New York Times on his obituary:Dear Meathead, I met you in my living room in 1971 when you were in All in the Family. I am two years older than you, and it was my third year in America. I fell in love with you and everyone in that show. I was also a big fan of your father and his Dick Van Dyke sitcom. Since 1971, I (have) kept up with what you were doing in your personal and professional life. Our political views also matched. You will always be part of my memory. Thank you for all the happiness you brought to me through all your artistic pursuits. Our loss is now Angels’ gain. Keep them entertained. See you there 449 Recommend
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