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The calendar says Rob Reiner is 63, but in some ways, he's still stuck in adolescence. And he's the first to admit it.

The veteran writer/director (The Princess Bride, Stand by Me, When Harry Met Sally, The Bucket List) is feeling his age in some ways; he says he's learning that life is precious, so he's trying to make movies with more depth and significance—much like his favorite film of all time, It's a Wonderful Life.

Rob Reiner

Reiner has come a long way from his days as Michael "Meathead" Stivik on the great 1970s sitcom All in the Family. He's settled down, been married 21 years, and has grown into one of America's most beloved directors. But he's still drawn to the days of old, to those teen and tween years of angst and powerful (even conflicting) emotions—so well depicted in Stand by Me. And now Reiner, who once told the New York Times that he thinks of himself as "a very young old person," is revisiting the same era in his latest film, Flipped, a sweet romantic comedy opening this week.

Based on a novel of the same name, the film's story takes place in the 1960s, centering on tweens Bryce Loski and Juli Baker. She fell for him back in the second grade, but he's girl-phobic and the vibe is quite unrequited. But over the next six years, especially as they move into junior high, Bryce's feelings begin to change … maybe. Meanwhile, their very different families also have much to learn from one another—and that things aren't always as they might appear on the surface.

We recently caught up with Reiner to talk about the movie, his own childhood (and his first love), and how getting older has helped him to appreciate "family values" more and more—even as he longs for the old days of growing up in the '50s and '60s.

Why did you want to turn this book into a movie?

I read the book with my son Nick when he was 11; now he's almost 17 now. I literally flipped over reading it. It brought me back to the time I had those confusing, powerful feelings of falling in love for the first time when I was 12 going on 13. It just reminded me so much of when I was a kid. And it was written in such an intelligent and insightful way, much more sophisticated than a normal juvenile type book. I thought [author] Wendelin Van Draanen really captured what it felt like to go through those feelings.

Reiner on the set with Madeline Carroll and Callan McAuliffe

It's a contemporary book, but you decided to take the setting back to the 1960s.

I did that because that was the time when I was coming of age. The other reason was because I wanted to strip away all of the distractions that kids have today with Facebook and texting and Twitter and all that stuff, and focus just on the feelings—which are really the same, no matter what the timeframe is or where you live. Those feelings are the same for every kid who's going through that time of life.

Do you think Twitter and Facebook get in the way of some of those feelings?

It's certainly a different way of communicating than we did at that age. In the film, when the boy wants to talk to the girl, he goes over to her house and he knocks on the door. Kids don't do that now. They just Twit. They text somebody. You don't pound on their door. So the communication forms are different, but I think the feelings are still the same. I think today's technology makes it simpler and quicker to communicate with somebody, but I don't know whether or not those interactions are as deep as they might be if you're face to face with somebody.

There's something to be said about that 12-year-old nervousness of actually standing three feet away from a pretty girl …

Absolutely! I mean, it's mortifying.

You just don't get that with an instant message.

No, you don't. I think one of the reasons that kids text each other is because it is kind of safe. You know? It's not as … Well, you're not putting yourself out there as much. It's a way of hiding behind that stuff until you feel a little bit more confident and comfortable with them.

But I remember when I was twelve and the first girl I ever fell in love with. Her name was Kathy Schrillo. We exchanged ID bracelets and all this stuff. I was so nervous. She was so cute; she looked like Hayley Mills in The Parent Trap. I'd never kissed a girl before, and I remember the first time I tried to kiss her. She hit me with a hairbrush. And I thought this must be love, because I'm willing to endure pain in order to get a kiss.

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