Reiner’s own films reshaped modern comedy and drama with their intelligence, empathy and range. But through his company, Castle Rock, he paved the way for Seinfeld, Sorkin and many more

• News: Rob Reiner found dead in apparent homicide

• Gallery: Rob Reiner – a life in pictures

• Meeting Reiner was like a visit from Santa

As a film-maker, Rob Reiner championed humour, civility and intelligence – qualities you suppose would be out of step with the Hollywood of the 1980s where he made his name, and in the 1990s where he scored a series of extraordinary, far-reaching successes. Reiner had a family interest in the workings of on-screen comedy: his father Carl had played a key role on Sid Caesar’s TV shows, which themselves were revolutionary, and helped birth a new generation of screen comics by directing Steve Martin’s film debut The Jerk. Rob had become a household name as Meathead, the liberal foil to Carroll O’Connor’s bigoted Archie Bunker in 70s sitcom All in the Family (the equivalent to Mike Rawlins v Warren Mitchell in the British original, Till Death Us Do Part). But it was as a director and producer that he really made his impact felt.

In 1984, Reiner released This Is Spinal Tap, a “mockumentary” about a fictitious heavy metal band from the UK that rewrote the rules on what comedy could do. It sent up rock’n’roll behaviour and codified its cliches (with Reiner himself doing a hilarious parody of Martin Scorsese’s hosting role in The Last Waltz) and gave us zingers that haven’t lost their comedy power more than 30 years on: “The numbers all go to 11”, “it’s such a fine line between stupid, and er … clever.” Its deployment of improvised comedy was revolutionary for a Hollywood feature, and while Reiner wasn’t the first to use the fake-documentary techniques for comedic purposes (that goes back at least to Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run), it hugely popularised the mockumentary style; subsequent efforts include Bob Roberts, Fear of a Black Hat, Drop Dead Gorgeous and Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. All these owe Tap a huge debt – as well as the microgenre of star Christopher Guest’s improv-mockumentaries: Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind. Almost incidentally, Spinal Tap became a sort-of-real band, with tours, record releases and a follow-up feature (Spinal Tap II: The End Continues), in which the presence of music industry titans Paul McCartney and Elton John demonstrated the high regard in which the original was held.

Several kinds of bacteria can give you an upset stomach. Here is how to steer clear of the worst offenders, and what to do if they do make it through

Many people in the modern world, it’s probably fair to say, do not take food poisoning particularly seriously. Yes, most folks wash their hands after handling raw chicken and use different chopping boards for beef and green beans – but who among us can honestly say we’ve never used the same tongs for an entire barbecue or left a storage box of cooked rice on the sideboard for a couple of hours? Ignore that rhetorical question for a moment, though – before you comment that of course everyone should do all those things, let’s talk about what’s happening in your body when it all goes horribly wrong.

At the risk of stating the obvious, food poisoning occurs when you eat food contaminated with harmful bacteria, viruses or toxins – but that doesn’t mean it always works the same way. “Some bacteria, such as Bacillus cereus – sometimes found in reheated rice – produce toxins before the food is eaten, meaning they can cause symptoms such as sudden vomiting within hours,” says Dr Masarat Jilani, an NHS specialist who regularly manages children and adults with food poisoning. Bacillus cereus also produces another type of toxin in the small intestine, which can cause diarrhoea. “Others, such as Salmonella and E. coli, act after you’ve eaten and often cause longer-lasting symptoms through inflammation of the gut.”

An early flu season, a new variant and poor takeup of vaccines leave the already vulnerable health service in a dangerous position

• Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

You might be feeling stressed out seeing the headlines about “super flu” and comparing the current winter health challenges with 2020 and Covid. Amid all the noise, it’s difficult to know how bad this flu really is – and how much is political spin. I should start by saying “super flu” is not a scientific term or one used by any academics or clinicians I work with. It’s a colloquial phrase that’s been used by various NHS England bosses and taken up by Wes Streeting, the health secretary, and Keir Starmer.

This year, a couple of factors have come together to make it a harder flu season for hospitals to manage. First, flu has arrived earlier than previous years. This isn’t unique to the UK: it’s the same picture across the US, Canada, Japan, Germany – basically the northern hemisphere going into winter. This is in the context of multiple viruses circulating such as Covid and rhinoviruses, which means patients could be fighting one or more viruses at the same time and are more susceptible to getting sicker from influenza.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

Fit Forever: Wellness for midlife and beyond
On Wednesday 28 January 2026, join Annie Kelly, Devi Sridhar, Joel Snape and Mariella Frostrup, as they discuss how to enjoy longer and healthier lives, with expert advice and practical tips. Book tickets here or at guardian.live

Apollo theatre, London
Mischief Theatre return to the am-dram battlefield, turning the Victorian tale into a blizzard of bruised egos and expertly timed farce

In the interval, I hear a newcomer to Mischief Theatre’s enduring “goes wrong” concept ask if these comic symphonies of am-dram mishaps ever get stale. On the contrary: in the first half of this Dickensian foul-up, much of the pleasure comes from watching the company spring-load a very familiar crop of gags ready to explode after the break.

Long-term Mischief watchers will guess, for example, that when a Maltesers box is dropped during rehearsals inside the model box for the Cornley Polytechnic Players’ A Christmas Carol, it will end up as a giant-sized component of the set. They will know that the rivalry between supercilious director Chris and bombastic actor Robert, fond of essaying the classics in the nude, will result in crazed feats of sabotage when the production gets under way. And they can be sure that dim-witted Dennis, who thinks he is auditioning for the role of “Frog Cratchit” after seeing the Muppets’ musical as research, will well and truly cook everyone’s goose.

The French fashion designer’s lavish Mediterranean villa was frequented by everyone from Dalí to Garbo to Stravinsky to Churchill. It has now been lovingly restored – with a thrillingly bolstered library

It is the place where Salvador Dalí painted The Enigma of Hitler, a haunting landscape featuring a giant telephone receiver that seems to be crying a tear over a cutout picture of the Fuhrer. Conceived in 1939, the work seems to anticipate war. It is also the place where Winston Churchill penned parts of his multi-volume A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, and painted its dappled-light view. Somerset Maugham would visit, too, as well as novelist Colette, composer Igor Stravinsky and playwright Jean Cocteau, partaking in lunches that lasted all day and night, with debates and discussions around artistic ideas.

This place is La Pausa: the Mediterranean villa in the hills of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, once owned by husband-and-wife writing duo Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson, followed by French fashion designer Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, who had it rebuilt from scratch at the end of the 1920s. She later sold it to an American publishing couple, Emery and Wendy Reves.

Timothée Chalamet’s live-wire striver using ping pong as his ticket out of normie American life is just one of many wonders in this extraordinarily rich tale
• The best films of 2025 in the UK
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When reports started to emerge that Timothée Chalamet was going to play a ping pong champion in a film called Marty Supreme, the world (including this correspondent) rolled its eyes. Was Hollywood’s most annoying actor going to go for broke in what promised to be the most irritating film of all time? Well I am here to hold up my hand and say that first impressions couldn’t have been more wrong. Marty Supreme is one of the most exciting, indeed sensational films of the year, and if the Guardian film critics’ poll wasn’t a democracy, many of us would made it No 1 by some distance.

For it turns out that Marty Supreme is a character drama of quite remarkable richness, its excitement and sensation deriving from the nervous energy of its protagonist – who is indeed a ping pong player called Marty – but plying his trade in the decidedly non-quirky early 1950s where our hero, played by Chalamet, is essentially trying to use this non-traditional sport to plot a way out of the dullness and grind of his normie life, where he is on track to become a manager of a shoe store. Marty (whose last name is not actually Supreme, but the amusingly alliterative Mauser) is a pretty dislikable individual: happy to abandon a girl he gets pregnant, throw a fit when he loses a match, and think he can talk his way out of any kind of difficulty. But such is his verve, charisma and never-say-die attitude, he carries you with him.

Naveed Akram previously known to security agencies, prime minister says. His gun-owning father, Sajid, was shot dead by police at the scene

• Victims named so far

• What we know so far about the Bondi terror attack

The alleged gunmen behind the Bondi beach attack are a father-son duo suspected of using legally obtained firearms to commit the massacre, according to police.

Naveed Akram, 24, was arrested at the scene and taken to a Sydney hospital with critical injuries. His 50-year-old father, who the Sydney Morning Herald first reported to be Sajid Akram, was shot dead by police.

Australia is in mourning after gunmen opened fire on Bondi beach on Sunday, killing at least 15 people in an attack on the Jewish community during its Hanukah celebrations. One of the alleged gunmen was also killed during the incident

Family say al-Ahmed ‘doesn’t discriminate’ and would have done anything to save lives during the attack

• Victims named so far

• What we know about the Bondi terror attack

When Ahmed al-Ahmed tackled and wrested a gun from an alleged shooter at Bondi beach, he was simply thinking that he “couldn’t bear to see people dying”, his cousin says.

Less than a day later, al-Ahmed remains in a critical but stable condition at St George hospital in Sydney. Since the attack, the 43-year-old father of two young girls has catapulted to international fame with a GoFundMe page already raising more than $A1.3m (£645,000; $864,000) in less than 24 hours.

At least 16 people including one of the alleged gunmen died at the shooting in Sydney on Sunday, aged between 10 and 87

• Bondi terror attack: full report

• What we know so far about the Bondi terror attack

At least 16 people were killed and more than 40 wounded when gunmen fired on a Hanukah celebration in Bondi beach, which Australian police and officials are describing as a terrorist attack.

In the latest update on Monday morning, the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, confirmed 16 people, including one of the alleged gunmen, have died, and 42 people injured in the shooting were taken to hospital.