Diner

Dean Acheson, the Secretary of State for President Truman, penned a memoir in 1969 he entitled Present At The Creation, which always struck me as a bit of hubris, but kept reoccurring to me as I thought about this film. Not nearly as important as post – WWII American foreign strategy or the Cuban Missile Crisis, or the war in Vietnam, but still a reminder of what it is to be in on something powerful that had modest or unseen, far-reaching roots. The year was again 1982 and I was going to see a film in a theater for which I had no expectations and was merely looking for some entertainment. Yet I encountered a film, a director and a cast that had substantial sway on cinema going forward, from a modest beginning. It also had echoes for me of the fun and pain of growing up, of having a deep group of friends at one point in your life and then drifting away from one another, one of the bittersweet experiences of life. It's the film Diner, the first by Barry Levinson in the director’s chair, with a smashing ensemble cast, great, on-point dialogue, which I love, and the looming experience of adulthood on the horizon, all in less than two hours of run time. 

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