Rob Reiner Under ADL Fire

In a Friday Night appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher, actor/director Rob Reiner argued that the economic climate that we are now experiencing in the U.S. is the same as that of 1930s Germany that ultimately allowed for the rise of Hitler.

"People were out of work, they needed jobs, and a guy came along and rallied the troops. My fear is that the Tea Party gets a charismatic leader. Because all they're selling is fear and anger, and that's all Hitler sold. 'I'm angry and I'm frightened and you should hate that guy over there.'" Reiner said, which was shortly followed by applause from the Los Angeles studio audience.

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Paramount, Reiner Looking to Remake 'Soapdish'?

Really? We've burned through the 80s archives already? I can only assume that's the reason Paramount wants to remake 1991's Soapdish. Pajiba hints that the studio is moving closer to the remake and that Rob Reiner is on board to produce, at the very least.

The movie itself was pretty clever, but it also came out at a time when soap operas were easy targets. Now they have to fight for their lives; Guiding Light, As the World Turns, and Passions have all been canceled in the past three years, and after As the World Turns goes off the air in September, there will only be six daytime soaps left. Not exactly a thriving market. Apparently, the new version will accommodate that loss in interest of American soaps by focusing on a telenovela, and that's probably the only way this makes any sense. Paramount can either target the growing Hispanic marketplace by playing it straight or potentially draw a larger crowd by amping up the insanity of those storylines.

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Rob Reiner Living In the 'Shadows'

Rob Reiner is switching gears, directing his first action-adventure movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Reiner, whose career had really been foundering over the past fifteen years before The Bucket List became a smash, is on board to helm Book of Shadows, which, we take it, is somehow different from the sequel to The Blair Witch Project that also bears the name.The story goes that Reiner had a basic idea he'd been kicking around, and he brought it up in a meeting with writer Zoë Green. Green, in turn, wrote the screenplay around that idea and sold it to Castle Rock, the production house co-founded by Reiner back in the 1980s.Here are the basics: A young male protagonist, "a perilous journey of first love" (whatever the hell that is), a dangerous quest, and a mythical book that can restore balance to the world.Man, there was a time when few directors were making movies as entertaining as Rob Reiner flicks. I mean, from Spinal Tap to Stand By Me to Princess Bride to Misery to When Harry Met Sally to A Few Good Men - that guy had it workin'. What went wrong?