The Sure Thing (1985)
Directed by Rob Reiner
Gib, a beer-guzzling slob, and Alison, an uptight Ivy-Leaguer, are an unlikely duo stuck together on a cross-country trip during Christmas break. At first they get on each other's nerves but, as time passes, they find their divergent natures complement each other. Now they need to realize what they've already found before it's too late.
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What critics compared The Sure Thing to
Sex Drive has a plot that's similar to the one in The Sure Thing .
"Sex Drive," which follows the same road as Rob Reiner's far superior "The Sure Thing," is brought low by too much emphasis on crude humor.
It steals so shamelessly, from The Sure Thing to American Pie and everything in between, that at times it's almost like watching a teensploitation genre highlights reel.
Yes, “Sex Drive” uncomfortably mirrors the 1985 Rob Reiner film “The Sure Thing.”
But it's one of the best I have seen in a long time - perhaps since Rob Reiner's The Sure Thing (with which it shares a few traits).
Though his earlier “The Sure Thing” was a solid and witty entry – and “This is Spinal Tap” has become a classic over the years – it was Reiner’s adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Body” that really confirmed his stature as a director.
Reiner, who made the similarly themed The Sure Thing about opposites who repel and attract, is a most sympathetic director of actors.
Cowriter (with Andrew Scheinman, "Bait")/director Rob Reiner began his career with such notable films as "The Princess Bride," "This Is Spinal Tap," "Stand By Me" and "The Sure Thing" but has been limping along lately with meager fare like "Alex & Emma," "Rumor Has It..." and "The Bucket List." "Flipped," adapted from the Wendelin Van Draanen novel, is a partial return to form.
Flipped is Rob Reiner's best film in 18 years, and includes echoes of two of his most accomplished efforts, The Sure Thing and Stand By Me .
It’s a middle-school romance with appeal on both ends of the age spectrum and it represents a collision of early- and late-period Rob Reiner: The filmmaker with a knack for achingly life-sized Hollywood humanity (“The Sure Thing,’’ “Stand By Me,’’ “When Harry Met Sally. .
Before he became the cinema's leading purveyor of schmaltz with films like Flipped and The Magic of Belle Isle , Rob Reiner made a lot of smart, entertaining pictures.
Rob Reiner proved bewitching and insightful on pre-adolescence (“Stand By Me”), on-the-road youth (“The Sure Thing”) and adult love and lust (“When Harry Met Sally”).
How does a filmmaker go from making gems like “This is Spinal Tap,” “The Sure Thing,” “When Harry Met Sally” and “Misery” to the likes of “Alex and Emma,” “The Story of Us,” “Rumor Has It” and now this wallow for the aging Me Generation?
In films from The Sure Thing (1985) to The American President (1995), he examined the eternally—and wonderfully—youthful hopes, fears and dreams of budding romance that stay true whether you're a college student or the guy in the White House.
But now comes "Misery," King's black satire on celebrity worship, adapted by the very talented hands of two people who have never tackled horror before and maybe that's all to the good screenwriter William Goldman ("Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "All the President's Men," "Marathon Man") and director Rob Reiner ("This Is Spinal Tap!" "The Sure Thing," "When Harry Met Sally . .
Reiner has started with literary properties before - among them King's "Stand by Me" and William Goldman's " The Princess Bride " - but his strength is in putting a personal stamp on his films (which also include the cross-country romance " The Sure Thing " and the fake documentary " This is Spinal Tap ").
First there was the hilarious spoof of rock documentaries, "This Is Spinal Tap!" followed by the teen comedy "The Sure Thing," the preadolescence drama "Stand By Me" and his biggest hit, the fantasy-comedy "The Princess Bride."
Having already made exceptionally nice romantic movies for kids ("The Princess Bride") and for teens ("The Sure Thing") Reiner now is covering new demographic territory.
Reiner's films include " The Sure Thing ," "Stand by Me," "This Is Spinal Tap!" and " The Princess Bride ."
But after the initial scene of suicide, it turns into an old-fashioned, on-the-road romantic comedy, reminiscent of It Happened One Night and The Sure Thing .
We’ve certainly seen this comedy before (the movie is incredibly reminiscent of ’80s comedies like “The Flamingo Kid” and “The Sure Thing”) but it’s all about the execution here.
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Wolff's Q has an early John Cusack quality, falling somewhere between the optimism of Say Anything's Lloyd Dobler and the confidence of The Sure Thing's Gib.
As for the second, a standard rom-com move is passing on the sure thing for something deeper. You see it, for example, in The Sure Thing.
"The Girl Next Door" is a movie full of contradictions that plays like a bad "The Sure Thing" melded uncomfortably together with an exploitative "Risky Business."
If only a little more time was spent on improving the chemistry between Tristan and Yvaine, we may have had a love story that is more Princess Bride and less The Sure Thing.
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Whatever the set-up or setting, the best road movies - The Sure Thing, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Midnight Run, The Eighth Day (Le Huitième Jour) - all have one thing in common: no matter how many times you've taken the trip, you always see something new along the way.
"Road movies," the simpler term, usually happen when characters want a change in their lives, or if they're searching for someone who's on the opposite side of the country that they want to impress, or have sex with, as was the case with "The Sure Thing," starring John Cusack.