Until he died I had never given much thought to how much pleasure this man brought to my life. If I can think of a comedy I loved, he probably hand a hand in it somewhere, as producer or director or both. He wasn’t as good at picking winners among serious movies, but he made up for that by filling them with some of the greatest nudity in history: e.g. Amanda Seyfried in Chloe and Heather Graham in Killing Me Softly.
Trivia: he was born in Czechoslovakia and his mother was a holocaust survivor.
“Oh god, I wish I was a loofah.”
Read an interview with John Laroquette who says that to this day, he still has people say that to him.
You are right Scoop, Reitman is one of the big three comedy geniuses (alongside John Landis and John Hughes) that dominated a whole generation of comedies. Landis and Hughes get a lot of notice, not so much Reitman – says a lot about that guy that he was humble enough to let others shine.
There was a little promo documentary that went along with the Ghostbusters Afterlife; it detailed the relationship between father and son and the making of the movie, and the passing of the torch. Gave me a deep appreciation for the man. Cinema lost a good one in him.