Meathead Goes Back To Grinding ‘em Out

Photo Credit: LA Times

Well, after having a very heady and protected run at political influence and power, Rob Reiner runs back into familiar heady, protected, and powerful territory - film direction and production.

It is said that he has taken on two projects. One is designed to be a box office hit with Jack Nicholson, and the other is designed to bang people over the head in a political statement saddled smartly against war, go figure.

All of this movie making activity will be going on while the audit of the California Children and Families, "Commissioner Reiner" headed, is underway. Word on the results of the audit are expected anywhere from as early as August to sometime this fall. This mix is never far from the front burner.

Excerpts from Bill Bradley's New West Notes (LA Weekly)-

Rob Reiner's Next Projects Not Political
By Bill Bradley - June 3, 2006

On the night of the landslide defeat of his tax-the-rich for universal preschool initiative, Proposition 82, movie director Rob Reiner declared that it was only the beginning of his drive for preschool and he would continue to be heavily involved in politics. But now, going on four weeks from California’s June 6th primary, it looks like his next project is cinematic, rather than political, and will engage him heavily during this fall’s general election campaign.

Various Hollywood sources say that Reiner will direct a film called The Bucket List, tentatively starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. In the movie scenario, two terminally ill patients break out of a cancer ward and endeavor to live out all those things on a list they have of what they would like to do before, as the saying goes, they kick the bucket. These adventures include driving race cars, dating models, scarfing down plates of caviar, gambling in Monte Carlo, and so on.

Reiner also has another movie project in development, one with more of a political theme and a very current political connection. Whiskey River is, according to the Internet Movie DataBase, a story in which “an American soldier injured in Iraq is called back into action before he's fully recovered, prompting his father to kidnap his son in order to save his life.”

The writer is one James Webb, one of the most highly decorated Marine Corps officers of the Vietnam War, Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of the Navy, and an acclaimed novelist. But Webb is somewhat busy just now. Due to his opposition to the Iraq War, he re-registered as a Democrat. In fact, last month he became the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Virginia. Last fall, he trailed incumbent Senator George Allen -- a 2008 presidential hopeful -- by 15 percent. Now he’s cut the incumbent’s lead to five percent.

Webb’s connection with Rob Reiner is somewhat problematic, of course, in what was the most dominant of the Southern colonies prior to the American Revolution. So we should not expect to see the erstwhile “Meathead” -- Reiner’s Emmy Award-winning acting role on the classic sitcom All In The Family -- surfacing in a very closely fought Virginia Senate race with major national implications, both for the Presidential primaries of 2008 and the Iraq War today.
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