Reiner’s own films reshaped modern comedy and drama with their intelligence, empathy and range. But through his company, Castle Rock, he paved the way for Seinfeld, Sorkin and many more
As a film-maker, Rob Reiner championed humour, civility and intelligence – qualities you suppose would be out of step with the Hollywood of the 1980s where he made his name, and in the 1990s where he scored a series of extraordinary, far-reaching successes. Reiner had a family interest in the workings of on-screen comedy: his father Carl had played a key role on Sid Caesar’s TV shows, which themselves were revolutionary, and helped birth a new generation of screen comics by directing Steve Martin’s film debut The Jerk. Rob had become a household name as Meathead, the liberal foil to Carroll O’Connor’s bigoted Archie Bunker in 70s sitcom All in the Family (the equivalent to Mike Rawlins v Warren Mitchell in the British original, Till Death Us Do Part). But it was as a director and producer that he really made his impact felt.
In 1984, Reiner released This Is Spinal Tap, a “mockumentary” about a fictitious heavy metal band from the UK that rewrote the rules on what comedy could do. It sent up rock’n’roll behaviour and codified its cliches (with Reiner himself doing a hilarious parody of Martin Scorsese’s hosting role in The Last Waltz) and gave us zingers that haven’t lost their comedy power more than 30 years on: “The numbers all go to 11”, “it’s such a fine line between stupid, and er … clever.” Its deployment of improvised comedy was revolutionary for a Hollywood feature, and while Reiner wasn’t the first to use the fake-documentary techniques for comedic purposes (that goes back at least to Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run), it hugely popularised the mockumentary style; subsequent efforts include Bob Roberts, Fear of a Black Hat, Drop Dead Gorgeous and Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. All these owe Tap a huge debt – as well as the microgenre of star Christopher Guest’s improv-mockumentaries: Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind. Almost incidentally, Spinal Tap became a sort-of-real band, with tours, record releases and a follow-up feature (Spinal Tap II: The End Continues), in which the presence of music industry titans Paul McCartney and Elton John demonstrated the high regard in which the original was held.
Martin O’Neill says patience needed with Wilfried Nancy
Brendan Rodgers is in talks over a managerial return at Saudi Arabian side Al-Qadsiah.
Rodgers resigned from Celtic in October, a move that proved the trigger for a stinging attack from the club’s main shareholder Dermot Desmond. The 52-year-old is yet to address Desmond’s sentiment but is known to have been attractive to Saudi clubs for some time. He turned down a move to the kingdom after leaving Leicester in 2023.
An estimated 6,000 nurses left in 2024 for roles in countries including the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. Three nurses explain what made them decide to leave or stay
When Bright Ansah, a nursing officer in Accra, goes searching for colleagues who have failed to show up for a shift at the overstretched hospital where he works, he knows where to look. “When you see ‘In God we trust’ on their WhatsApp status, that’s when you know they’re already in the US,” he says.
The motto of the US has been co-opted by Ghanaian medical professionals who are leaving the west African nation in droves. Many believe their faith has finally been rewarded when, after years of planning, they reach the promised land of the well-equipped, well-resourced hospitals of the US.
This non-traditional Christmas Day dessert is a surefire winner if dried fruit-based puddings aren’t your thing
While our Christmas Day dinner doesn’t deviate too much from tradition, I do experiment with the dessert. My family, bar one sweet-toothed aunt, avoids dried fruit-based offerings, so classic Christmas cakes and puddings are a hard no. Over the years, I have tried variations on yule logs, pavlovas and sherry trifles, but the biggest crowdpleaser is easily sticky toffee pudding (or something along those lines). This year, I’m making this warming, simple but decadent pear, sticky ginger and pecan pudding, which feels festive and fancy, and can happily make an appearance whenever.
Social-media fame and sexual intrigue collide in this part-Twilight, part-OC romantic drama whose provocative dramatic set-ups feel as glib as porn scenes
Here is a Spanish YA romance based on a novel by Mercedes Ron, famous (or perhaps notorious) for the My/Your/Our Fault saga. This time, we have Kami (Alícia Falcó), a confident, attractive cheerleader at her local high school with a huge following on social media, and an angry jock boyfriend who is none too pleased when her attention wanders towards a couple of handsome brothers who have just begun attending the school. Younger brother Thiago (Fernando Lindez) is in the same year as Kami, while the older Taylor (Diego Vidales) joins as a coach, and immediately begins behaving in a variety of ways inappropriate to his pastoral role. It quickly emerges that Kami and the brothers have some sort of dark and contentious history, hinted at in flashbacks and gradually revealed in full across the course of the run time.
Coming off like a scrambled-together mix of the love-triangle elements of Twilight with the elite social milieu of The OC, much is made of the idea that Kami is attracted to both brothers, despite Thiago being a sweet lad who is clearly into Kami, and Taylor being someone who is constantly brooding and growling and treating everybody badly. It doesn’t really seem like all that tough of a choice, though the film runs hard with the idea that Taylor’s behaviour, which contains enough red flags to supply bunting to an entire village fete, is justified by the strength of his feelings. Hmm.
Urs Fischer’s side are certain to begin 2026 bottom of the table but denied rampaging leaders victory at home
Sometimes the numbers really don’t say it all. Mainz were on the wrong end of many of them as Sunday evening drew in, as you would expect for a visit of almost any team to the Allianz Arena, never mind a struggler. They had the lowest share of possession of any Bundesliga team in a game since the statistics were first recorded – 15%. When they did have the ball, fewer than 60% of their passes were actually completed. Are you sure you can face looking at the xG after that? Mainz logged a respectable 1.07, but Bayern Munich’s was a staggering 4.72.
And yet, even if the most deflating statistical confirmation of all is that Mainz are certain to begin 2026 bottom of the table (even with a game still to play before Christmas), they have every right to feel good about themselves, even after conceding a late penalty equaliser to the inevitable Harry Kane. In Urs Fischer’s debut after being appointed as the new head coach Mainz became the first team to prevent Bayern from taking maximum points at home this season, and the first last-placed team to take a point at the venue since relegation-bound Köln in April 2006.
Pope urged organisers to hold conference after 43 women alleged they were exploited as minors by Catholic group
Buenos Aires will on Tuesday host the first-ever international gathering of former Opus Dei members who say they were tricked and trafficked into domestic servitude as minors – allegations that have drawn scrutiny of the powerful, secretive Catholic group. Pope Leo XIV privately urged organisers to convene the conference, the Guardian has learned.
Forty-three women in Argentina say they were lured to Opus Dei schools as children and teenagers under promises of receiving an education. Instead, they say they were forced into working up to 12-hour days, cooking and cleaning for the elite male members, without pay.
England midfielder yet to start a Premier League game this season
United hierarchy do not want to lose 20-year-old academy graduate
Manchester United intend to reject any bids to buy Kobbie Mainoo in January because the hierarchy believe the midfielder could have a bright future at the club.
Ruben Amorim is open to the 20-year-old going on loan after not naming him in a Premier League starting XI all season. The view within the hierarchy is that Mainoo’s youth and potential mean his ceiling remains high and that he could convince Amorim – or a future United head coach – he is worth a regular place.
He rewrote the rule book with Rockstar then left it all behind. Now Dan Houser is back with a storytelling-focused studio to take on AI-obsessed tech bros and Mexican beauty queens
There are only a handful of video game makers who have had as profound an effect on the industry as Dan Houser. The co-founder of Rockstar Games, and its lead writer, worked on all the GTA titles since the groundbreaking third instalment, as well as both Red Dead Redemption adventures. But then, in 2019, he took an extended break from the company which ended with his official departure. Now he’s back with a new studio and a range of projects, and 12 years after we last interviewed him, he’s ready to talk about what comes next.
“Finishing those big projects and thinking about doing another one is really intense,” he says about his decision to go. “I’d been in full production mode every single day from the very start of each project to the very end, for 20 years. I stayed so long because I loved the games. It was a real privilege to be there, but it was probably the right time to leave. I turned 45 just after Red Dead 2 came out. I thought, well, it’s probably a good time to try working on some other stuff.”
The Age of Disclosure was granted a Capitol Hill screening and has broken digital rental records but does it really offer proof of alien life?
It has been hailed as a game changer in public attitudes towards UFOs, ending a culture of silence around claims once dismissed as the preserve of conspiracy theorists and crackpots.
The Age of Disclosure has been boosted in its effort to shift the conversation about extraterrestrials from the fringe to the mainstream with a Capitol Hill screening and considerable commercial success. It broke the record for highest-grossing documentary on Amazon’s Prime Video within 48 hours of its release, Deadline reported this week.
Thousands of Jamaican workers who come to the US on an H-2A visa aren’t sure if they’ll be able to return from one year to the next
Farm worker Owen Salmon has picked apples in upstate New York for almost a decade, some 1,500 miles (2,400km) from home. In the midst of harvest season this year, Hurricane Melissa, a record-breaking category 5 hurricane, made landfall in Jamaica.
“It was terrifying,” said Salmon, whose wife and two children were at home near Black River, a town on the country’s south-western coast. “For days, I couldn’t hear from them. When I finally did, I heard my roof was completely gone. My wife and kids had to run for their lives, but thank God they’re alive.”
Captain cites summer Lord’s win over India as good example
England must win in Adelaide to have chance of regaining the Ashes
Ben Stokes has called on his England players to summon up the rage witnessed against India in the summer and show some “dog” as they look to keep their slim Ashes hopes alive in Adelaide.
After going 2-0 down in Brisbane, Stokes spoke of Australia being “no country for weak men” and stressed the same went for the England dressing room under his captaincy. Looking ahead to the third Test that gets under way on Wednesday, that comment was seemingly no slip of the tongue.
Enough time has passed now, I think, that I can safely tell you about one of the stupidest things I have ever done. Almost a decade ago I decided to quit my well-paid job in advertising in order to pursue a precarious career in freelance journalism. The merits of that decision are up for debate but the real stupidity is in how I quit my job: I wrote a rather cringeworthy column for the Guardian about my “meaningless job in advertising” and publicly proclaimed that I’d decided to quit. My boss saw the piece and, well, he obviously wasn’t happy. (Sorry, Sean!)
I bring this embarrassing anecdote up because I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting recently on the reasons why I left advertising. Maybe this sounds twee, but I was sick of selling people things they didn’t need. I wanted to do something meaningful.
Synthetic fabrics, particularly from fast fashion retailers, can be treated with a range of hazardous chemicals which can cause an allergic reaction. If you think this is happened to you, we’d like to hear from you
Have you suffered any personal health repercussions you suspect may have been caused by your fashion purchases?
Research has shown that synthetic fabrics, particularly from fast fashion retailers, are often treated with a range of hazardous chemicals - including dyes containing heavy metals such as lead, antimicrobial agents, and anti wrinkle treatments - that can cause allergic reactions such as skin irritation or respiratory issues in some people.
After the latest in a series of deadly attacks on the global Jewish community, Jews are angry. And we have good reason to be
Dave Rich is director of policy at the Community Security Trust
Heaton Park, Boulder, Washington DC – and now Bondi beach. Add the murders of Rabbi Zvi Kogan in the UAE and Ziv Kipper, an Israeli-Canadian businessman, in Egypt, and Jews have been killed on five continents since the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas upended the Middle East and unleashed a wave of antisemitism around the world. Anti-Jewish terrorism is now a global problem, as is the hateful extremism that drives it.
The death toll from the appalling atrocity in Sydney is shocking enough: at the time of writing, 15 people killed, including a child, and many more injured. Awful images circulate, as they always do. The mobile phone footage of two gunmen calmly taking aim at families enjoying a Hanukah party is utterly chilling. It takes a special kind of dehumanisation, an ideology of pure hatred and self-righteous conviction, to do that.
Dave Rich is director of policy at the Community Security Trust and the author of Everyday Hate: How Antisemitism is Built into Our World – and How You Can Change it
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Ukraine’s Nato ambitions, the future of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and elections were also discussed
Separately, the commission’s deputy chief spokesperson Olof Gill has just confirmed that commission president Ursula von der Leyen will attend the Berlin talks this evening.
Not a surprise at all, but good to have it formally confirmed.
Cristian Chivu’s side are yet to draw a game this season while Milan continue to drop points against the minnows
“The reality is different to the narrative,” declared Cristian Chivu in his press conference just before a 2-1 win away to Genoa sent Inter top of the table. Fresh off back-to-back Champions League defeats, albeit in controversial circumstances, and having lost four Serie A games in the first 14 rounds, his approach to criticism was bullish. “Despite what people say, in my view we are having a great season. We started under a magnifying glass, because people said we were failures and we were finished, but we are still up there.”
Looking at the standings, it is rather hard to disagree with him. Inter are the sole leaders, the first time all campaign they have been in this position. Even with those setbacks against Atlético Madrid and Liverpool, they remain in a strong position to secure a top-eight Champions League spot and will participate in the Supercoppa Italiana in Riyadh this week.
The French fashion designer’s lavish Mediterranean villa was frequented by everyone from Dalí to Garbo to Stravinsky to Churchill. It has now been lovingly restored – with a thrillingly bolstered library
It is the place where Salvador Dalí painted The Enigma of Hitler, a haunting landscape featuring a giant telephone receiver that seems to be crying a tear over a cutout picture of the Fuhrer. Conceived in 1939, the work seems to anticipate war. It is also the place where Winston Churchill penned parts of his multi-volume A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, and painted its dappled-light view. Somerset Maugham would visit, too, as well as novelist Colette, composer Igor Stravinsky and playwright Jean Cocteau, partaking in lunches that lasted all day and night, with debates and discussions around artistic ideas.
This place is La Pausa: the Mediterranean villa in the hills of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, once owned by husband-and-wife writing duo Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson, followed by French fashion designer Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, who had it rebuilt from scratch at the end of the 1920s. She later sold it to an American publishing couple, Emery and Wendy Reves.
I understand the temptation to run away – I have felt it too. Try to stay in the room, and in the moment. You’ll be glad you did
This is my last column for you. I am shocked and delighted that I’ve been allowed to carry on for almost two years, saying such controversial and true things as: the oedipal complex is real and all of us have one; psychodynamic psychotherapy is an effective and vital mental health treatment and we must fight for it in the NHS; and Midnight Run is the best film of all time. It has been a joy and an honour, and, now we are here, I’ve been thinking about the significance of endings.
Because they are significant. Sometimes, having no time left can make it possible to feel and say what was impossible before. They can invite an intimacy and truthfulness and grief that some find overwhelming. It’s not unusual for patients to talk of dropping out, or to skip the final session – to call it a waste of time, to want to leave the room before the end.
San San F Young’s passionate documentary records a vibrant creative scene that continues to resist Beijing’s repression
Dotted with towering corporate skyscrapers, the skyline of Hong Kong attests to its global reputation as a financial hub; this image is profoundly challenged by San San F Young’s passionate documentary. Turning her camera to the streets and taking us into artists’ studios, the film-maker captures the vibrant creative scene of the city. The turmoil of the protests against the 2019 Hong Kong extradition bill, along with the draconian laws that followed, hangs heavy over every frame. In the midst of political turbulence, art emerges as a powerful, transformative tool of collective resistance.
In an engaging and personable voiceover, Young weaves in stories from her own life growing up in Hong Kong as a rebellious teenager. Surrounded by bankers and financiers, she yearned to follow the footsteps of her film-making idols, such as Spike Lee, in the west. Her youthful disenchantment only makes Hong Kong Mixtape more moving as a hybrid of autobiography and documentary. We are introduced to a multitalented group of artists, but Young herself is also rediscovering what makes Hong Kong unique and culturally diverse, where activism and creativity go hand in hand. Alongside skilfully graffitied slogans, public electronic displays offer protest songs, raps and skits. Elsewhere, dance troupes create choreography out of banned gestures.
The decision means TikTok nowoperates under the threat that it could be forced offline with a stroke of Trump’s pen
Judicial opinions allowing the government to suppress speech in the name of national security rarely stand the test of time. But time has been unusually unkind to the US supreme court decision that upheld the law banning TikTok, the short-form video platform. The court issued its ruling less than a year ago, but it is already obvious that the deference the court gave to the government’s national security arguments was spectacularly misplaced. The principal effect of the court’s ruling has been to give our own government enormous power over the policies of a speech platform used by tens of millions of Americans every day – a result that is an affront to the first amendment and a national security risk in its own right.
Congress passed the TikTok ban in 2023 citing concerns that the Chinese government might be able to access information about TikTok’s American users or covertly manipulate content on the platform in ways that threatened US interests. The ban was designed to prevent Americans from using TikTok starting in January 2025 unless TikTok’s China-based corporate owner, ByteDance Inc, sold its US subsidiary before then.
Evelyn Douek is an assistant professor at Stanford Law School
Jameel Jaffer is inaugural director of the Knight first amendment institute at Columbia University
Yes, we love our roasties – but have we really explored the spud’s potential as a gift, an aesthetic, a mood?
All I want for Christmas is … the Nairn Museum potato flask. Showcased as part of the Highland museum’s virtual Advent calendar on Instagram last week, it’s a late-18th-century Staffordshire pottery flask – to be filled with strong drink and used to toast a safe journey for a traveller – shaped like a very realistic, knobbly spud, complete with green bits. The benefactor who donated the flask apparently explained it was so ugly that no one in his family wanted to inherit it.
More than 15,000 Instagram likers beg to differ, including me: I desperately covet this beauteous and useful tuber, surely the ideal emotional support accessory for the season’s more trying social engagements. As the museum’s representative explains, the potato was “seen as a very fashionable vegetable” back then, and I think we need to think hard about that: why isn’t it now? It might be the most valuable player on the Christmas dining table (don’t even think about arguing), but it’s cruelly taken for granted. Have we ever considered the potato as a gift, an aesthetic, a mood?
Congress must work to stop the president from leading us further into a South American quagmire
Donald Trump seems determined to have a military confrontation with Venezuela. He has deployed a massive military arsenal in and around the Caribbean Sea and taken a series of provocative actions off the Venezuelan coast, justifying it as necessary to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.
The Council on Foreign Relations says that deployment includes an “aircraft carrier, destroyers, cruisers, amphibious assault ships, and a special forces support ship. A variety of aircraft have also been active in the region, including bombers, fighters, drones, patrol planes, and support aircraft.” This is the largest display of American military might in the western hemisphere since we invaded Panama in 1989.
Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty
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