10 Exact Moments Awesome Movie Directors Stopped Trying

In an 11-year period from 1984 to 1995, Rob Reiner directed more beloved classic movies than most directors manage in their entire careers, delivering the likes of This Is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men, and The American President.

Depressingly, 1995's The American President was also Reiner's last well-received film, and though his immediate follow-ups Ghosts from the Past and The Story of Us at least suggested a filmmaker with plenty of vitality left, by the time 2003's Alex & Emma came around, that was quite tough to believe.

This joyless dud of a rom-com stars Luke Wilson as a writer who has a month to write a book before the loan sharks come a-knocking, while Kate Hudson plays his hired stenographer and - gasp - eventual love interest.

Though Wilson and Hudson's patent lack of chemistry is enough to sink this thing, there's a single scene which demonstrates just how far Reiner has fallen at this point in his career.

In the movie's opening scene, Wilson's protagonist Alex Sheldon gets dangled out of his balcony by the aforementioned loan sharks, achieved here through hilariously cheap green screen effects which make it scarcely believable this thing cost $30 million.

Alex & Emma bombed at the box office and earned Reiner the worst reviews of his career. Sadly, he's largely been sustaining himself on mediocre, milquetoast films like The Bucket List, The Magic of Belle Isle, and LBJ ever since.