169: Remembering Robert Redford

Alex looks back at the 60-year career of Robert Redford. Topics include Redford’s best acting performances, his Oscar-winning directing work, the meme to end all memes, and how he helped start the careers of many of the best film directors working today.

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Transcript

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Hey, everyone. Welcome to. What are you watching? I'm Alex Withrow and we have lost another one. We have lost an absolute legend, Robert Redford. Wow. I don't want to trap myself into constantly doing one of these. I don't know, eulogy episodes. After a really important movie person passes. But I heard the news that Redford passed. I immediately started watching some of my favorite movies. He was in some stuff I hadn't seen, and then some of our very gracious, awesome fans were asking me, when's the Redford episode? Or are we getting one friend of the poor, John Kline? We love John Kline. He just assumed he's like, hey, when you do the Redford episode, make sure you mention this. It's always nice when people want to know what we have to say about something about a career. And Nick isn't here because this is just totally random. I'm just doing this random, and because it helps with scheduling a little bit. I'm going to release this ASAP. I'm recording it on September 24th, so I'm going to put it out. You know, we just did Chinatown, I'm going to do Redford, and then we're going to do one battle after another. The new PTA movie that Nick has seen, he's already seen it and has not said shit to me. He's being very good, very, very good. This is not always the case when he sees movies before me. So I'm seeing it tomorrow with friend of the pod, Igor. And then I already have a ticket to see it on film on Saturday. So we're we're I'm God speechless. So excited for that film. So it's going to be Redford one battle after another then shampoo which is a 70s movie that I love, that I hope everyone can find or try to find, you know, before that episode comes out. I love shampoo, Warren Beatty shampoo. Amazing movie. All right, Redford, it's kind of appropriate to do this because Redford was I mean, this is one of the breakout stars of the New Hollywood movement, a movement we've been focusing on a lot in 2025 on the podcast. And unlike the Gene Hackman episode, because I went a little crazy after we lost Hackman, I just watched them all. I watched them all. Any Hackman movie that I had not seen, I watched. I'm not doing that with Redford. I've seen a lot already, but I've gone back and rewatched some. But there are some gaps that I have. I'm okay with those gaps. I'll probably spend the rest of this year chipping away at them, but I don't need to like, rush out and, you know, catch up on Charlotte's Web where he voiced a role. I'm just going to use this here to talk about my experience with him. When I discovered him, the influence he's had over my movie obsessed life. My mom and dad both loved him for different reasons. I have some funny family stories related to Redford movies, but again, I'm not going to talk about every movie, every performance. I do have a few here that I want to kind of break out and have some extended thoughts on, but I'm going to move pretty quickly and just we'll just see how it goes. Redford born Charles Robert Redford junior in 1936, he was starting on TV by the late 50s. He debuted on Broadway in the early 60s, and he's starring in movies a few years later. And that's it. He maintained an active career in film for more than 50 years, until he passed away just a few days ago, on September 16th, 2025. Let's look at the acting first. That's where the career started. So I'm going to talk about his work as an actor. I'm going to talk about his work as a director, which is honestly for a actor turned director. He had one of the most successful careers in Hollywood history because he won an Oscar. Kevin Costner did the same thing. But if you're just looking at those stats by any metric, an Academy Award for Best Directing is a success, especially if you beat Martin Scorsese for Raging Bull or Goodfellas. Jesus Christ. So the first movie that I have officially seen him in is the Chase 1966 by Arthur Penn. I was knocking out some Penn movies when I did my Hackman binge, but also in 1966. We have The Property Is Condemned, directed by Sydney Pollack. He made seven movies with Pollack, a director and actor that I love. I love Sydney Pollack. He's Victor in Eyes Wide Shut, Marty and Michael Clayton. He, of course, directed a bunch of movies. A few without Redford include They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Wow, tragic masterpiece of cinema. It's on YouTube. You ain't never seen Jane Fonda like this. Brilliant, brilliant movie A+ movie from me. They shoot horses, don't they? Pollack directed The Yakuza with Robert Mitchum, Absence of Malice with Paul Newman, Tootsie, The Firm, amazing director. But anyway, Redford made seven movies with Pollack and three movies with George Roy Hill. If you just watch The Hill and Pollack movies, that's ten films that will give you a really good balance of Redford's career properties. Condemned is based on a one act Tennessee Williams play, I Got a Kick Out of the fact that there were three credited screenwriters on the movie, one being Francis Ford Coppola. This is a depression era romance. Natalie Wood's mother owns boarding House and Mississippi, and Redford comes to stay. Things go from there. Charles Bronson is the mom's boyfriend, who's sweet on Natalie. Robert Blake shows up. It's really more of a Natalie Wood vehicle. She's the star of. The movie's about her. My God, that woman was beautiful. I mean, it's just two incredibly good looking people falling for each other. Not a bad movie. Watch it. This morning, for the first time, barefoot in the park. I have seen that. That was ages ago. That's based on the Neil Simon play that Redford was in. This is Redford starring with Jane Fonda. It's a good, breezy romantic comedy. Again, this is not one I caught up on. I saw this ages ago, 1969. Let's get it started. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He's playing the Sundance Kid. He's starring alongside Paul Newman. The script is written by William Goldman. I've touched on it as we've gone along in the wa y w New Hollywood Film Project, a series title that Nick still cannot say off the top of his head. And this would be a great one to loop into it, because the new New Hollywood started in 67 and didn't just start in the 70s. But if someone does not like older classic movies, you can show them this and they will like it. It's just one of those, treasure of the Sierra madre is the same. This movie is fantastic, and it's fucking hilarious. It's set in like 1899, 1900s, like right around then. But it has a contemporary contemporary for the 60s style of sarcastic humor, like William Goldman, one of the best screenwriters who ever lived. He did this. We covered Marathon Man. I love William Goldman so much. Now, Butch Cassidy is a movie that I had seen once I saw it in high school because, you know, it's one of those you're like, all right, I got to see this. Like everyone talks about it and enjoyed it, but for some reason did not revisit it. We're talking 20 years. Maybe I'm staring at my good old fashioned DVD because like a lot of Robert Redford classics, this movie is not available in 4K. I have no idea why, but there is no 4K of Butch Cassidy. There is no 4K of a lot of his best movies that absolutely deserve a 4K release that nerds like me would purchase immediately. So I put it on the DVD. Godwin did I this year, or maybe last year I put it on like, I really need to redo this. I've watched it three times since, like it's so good. It moves so well. Paul Newman is hysterical like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is as good as you have heard it is. It absolutely deserves all the praise that it continues to receive. Oscar for Best Screenplay, Oscar for cinematography, Conrad Hall, Oscar for original score Burt Bacharach et Oscar for original song Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head. That is from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It's probably. If you haven't seen it, it's probably not the movie you think it's going to be. And if you haven't seen it in a while, please go rewatch this movie. I'm about to go rewatch this shit right now. Gotta love Butch and Sundance. Great, great film. Also in 1969, Downhill Racer I, where he is an Olympic skier. I had not seen that until my Hackman binge because Hackman plays his coach. I noted in the Hackman episode that it was kind of an understated Hackman performance because he's like a nice, supportive coach. He's not like the asshole, the asshole coach that we saw him play later. Okay, I'm going to do another break out here. There are some movies. I am a lifelong, like I've been in love with this art form for. We're talking 35 years that I have been actively studying and seeking out films from all sorts of directors, all sorts of regions, yada yada. I had never seen Jeremiah Johnson, and if you haven't seen Jeremiah Johnson, I can all but promise that you have seen a few frames from it, because the ever popular meme of the camera zooming into Robert Redford's bearded face zoom zoom zoom and it's holding, holding. And then he just gives that little smile and nod. That's from Jeremiah Johnson. I knew that meme was from the movie, but it was still weird shit where the movie cut to that. You know that shot like, to me, that gave me chills and I'm like, oh my God, I see that shot like a how many times? It's so it was kind of funny when I was watching that movie, I even said to my wife, I'm like, I'm watching, you know, the one where he nods and she's like, oh, yeah, I know that. Okay. Sydney Pollack 1972 Jeremiah Johnson I love this movie. I cannot believe I hadn't seen it. Co-written by John Milius. This is just a John Milius script through and through. I we were off to a good start because the movie is like it's less than two hours, genuinely, and there's an overture and it's our mission. They don't last for too long, but I think it's eight minutes total. So the movie is only 108 minutes long. When you take out the overture, that's got to be that has to be the winner for shortest film with the overture. An intermission. But I loved it. I oh my God, I only watch it once. I absolutely have to go back and do it again. But it's about, you know, a mountain man trying to support himself in the Rocky Mountains and his run in with Native Americans and all these built in, like lore in the story, Native American stories and, traditions and customs and even the way they shake hands or greet each other, it was really it was just very John Milius very. And I loved the film, and I'm so glad that I finally watched it. It's a bummer that it took something like Redford's passing for me to check it out, but but in researching his career, it sounds like maybe this movie was the favorite that Redford made. He spoke very, very highly of it. I don't know if it was like number one if he ever made that declaration, but he said he always said it was one of his favorite or some of the best time he ever had making a movie. They filmed some of the movie in Utah, where Redford would very shortly put up roots and make history. So I highly recommend Jeremiah Johnson. I really dug it, and it's slightly different for Redford. Even the beard, like, you know, this is the era when your movie stars looked like movie stars. We just talked about this with Chinatown, the giant bandage on Jack Nicholson's face was a huge talking point. Like, you don't cover up your stars like that. So this was not as certainly not as glamorous as a Redford performance that he would be known for, that he would come to be known for. 72 is a great year for him. Jeremi Johnson, the candidate, directed by Michael Ritchie, and the hot Rock, directed by Peter Yates, The Candidate is a political satire that is hysterical. I watch it for the first time, maybe two years ago, and another Redford movie that I had heard a lot about. I'd seen the cover so much with standing in front of the American flag, arms crossed. I think he's blowing some bubble gum. It's it's really good. It's a good satire. The hot rock I found out about from Steven Soderbergh, who said that was an inspiration for Ocean's 12. Of all things. So sold. It's about him, Redford, and a few guys having to steal the same diamond a few times. I believe we're in the 70s here. Like his 70s, are insane. It's why he it's how he became and stayed. Robert Redford is off of all the work like wool. Starting in 69, 69 to 80 is an insane stretch for any star. I'm just going through his acting right now, but he's going to produce. And then in 80 is when he wins the Oscar. But we move on to 73. Another crazy year. This thing for George for George Roy Hill again, it's hard for me to say George Roy Hill. It's like the George and the Roy back together George Roy Hill all right. Whatever this thing teaming up with Hill and Paul Newman again this movie like a few Best Picture winners, tend to live in the shadow of its Best Picture win. Not like in the sun. They weren't really embraced because the argument was The Exorcist should have won. And I used to say that a lot too. And I do think The Exorcist, despite what Nick thinks, the bastard. I do think The Exorcist is a better film, but you have to look at context here. So just for starters, just talking Oscars and all their Idiocracy Friedkin won two years earlier. He won picture and director two years earlier for The French Connection. It's pretty rare for them to go bang, bang even was a year apart to admire director that much, to give them Best picture twice in three years would be I'm trying to do it off the top of my head as I'm sitting here talking. That would be a rare feat. Like people like Joseph L Mankiewicz maybe did it or something. And then of course, injury to one to Best Director Oscars back to back. But those didn't, The Revenant didn't win Best Picture. I'm just saying it to me, just knowing that Friedkin and The French Connection won in 71, that makes it very understandable to me that they're not going to give his next movie. They're not going to award his next movie that highly. Number two, The Exorcist is really fucked up, as you might already know, like it's a deeply disturbing, profane movie in which a 12 year old girl is doing something that I don't think hadn't been seen in a American studio movie before, The Sting. It's not like that. Sting is a really fun depression era grifter heist movie. It's just a shitload of fun. Newman and Redford teaming up to screw over Robert Shaw. It's great. You know, when we get to 1980, we're going to have another big kind of Oscar debate here. Not really just another notorious Best Picture winner, but The Sting beating The Exorcist, I think makes perfect sense for those two reasons that Friedkin had just won. And The Exorcist is a deeply upsetting movie. It's profane, violent, disturbing, I get it. I, you know, I get that it could be popular, but for the Academy to embrace it, I don't know. Anyway, the Sting really, really fun movie. It's pretty easy to find. I again have the good old fashioned DVD this is on 4K. I just bought it. It's only $12 right now on 4K. That's awesome. I can't wait to watch it. This movie does not deserve to get shit on really for any reason because it's just a lot of fun. You can put it on. My mom loved this movie. I watched it with her a bunch. It's a really special film. I like it a lot. Let the sting live in peace. That's what I say. 1973 The Way We Were, directed by Sydney Pollack, costarring Barbra Streisand. You ask? A certain type of person. And this is the Robert Redford movie. If you asked my mom or either of her two sisters, this was the Robert Redford movie I will never forget. One Christmas I was in college, some home for Christmas, and my aunt started giving me so much shit for having never seen the way we were. So I said I made a promise that I would watch it the next day I did. It is a very a 70s romantic drama, not unlike Love Story, not where two people who have seemingly nothing in common, in this case Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand, meet and cannot deny this attraction they have for each other despite, you know, their different backgrounds, different beliefs, all that stuff I am ashamed to admit that I've only seen the film once back at that college viewing. It's, you know, I think this is a movie geared much more toward, oh, women, I'll say, is that fair to say? Because there's one thing that I haven't really, you know, talked about as I've been going here. I love I love Robert Redford for what he means to cinema, his acting, his directing, his producing, his the causes that he started the film festival, that he started all that stuff. But if we're just being honest, I don't think it's, crass to say that Robert Redford's popularity was largely helped by how fucking handsome he was, right? I mean, come on, like the dude was. He was an icon. He was a sex symbol. He. I get the gist that he tried to, like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know how much he was leaning into that status as much as, say, Warren Beatty was. I you know, I think Redford, there's a great story of Mike Nichols trying to cast The Graduate, which is 67. Yeah, he meets with Redford and he asks Redford, you know, have you ever struck out with a woman? And Redford looks at him and genuinely didn't know what he was talking about, like, as if the concept of striking out with a woman was so foreign to this human being that he's like, what do you mean? It's like, dude, you gotta wake up a little bit like, no, you can't play this movie. You can't be this attractive and be in this part. So I think the way we were, of all the films I've discussed so far, is really one that taps into that and taps into, yeah, like how attractive he was and his appeal to a broad audience. The day the news broke of his passing. My aunt, you better believe my aunt texted me. Boom! Go watch the way we work. She's like, oh, a read. I mean, Redford is my aunt's number one. She. Oh, my God, I just never heard the end of it. Her, my mom, they oh, they loved him. They loved him so much. So Redford was on in the house a lot. Whether or not the movies were any good, like The Sting was on a lot. The way we were. Not so much. I don't know why, but I bet there are some people out there who, you know, the moment they heard he died, this is the movie. You go to him and Streisand embracing, you know, those shots, the music, all that stuff. I think I even asked my wife, Ellie. I said, I'd like to show you a Redford movie because she hasn't seen any genuinely, she hasn't seen one. So I'm trying to think like, So I pitched that to my dad and I'm like, hey, you know, I'm going to have an opportunity here in the next few days to show her one. What should the first one be? He immediately said, the way we were, and I'm like, I don't know, man. Come on, what about Butch and Sundance? I can't do the way we were, but you know it. It'll live forever. It's an extremely popular movie. I just saw it to once. Maybe I should see it again. His next performance 1974. Playing one of the most famous characters in all of literature, Jay Gatsby for Jack Clayton's The Great Gatsby. You know, I just don't think it works as a movie. Not really. It was just never for me. It looks really good. But again, I saw this once in high school. It was the thing where, like, we read the book in high school, and then they showed us the movie after that type of deal. I don't know, not. It's just not my thing. Not my thing? What is my thing? Oh. Oh, shit. 1975. God, this would be a perfect, perfect one for the wri w New Hollywood film Project. Three days of the Condor. Another one available on 4K that I've purchased. It's in route in route, directed by Sydney Pollack. This is an absolutely perfect 70s paranoid thriller. I maybe don't like it quite as much as something like The Parallax View, which is a released the year earlier, and a movie that I absolutely love. Three Days of the Condor is a bit more tense. There's also a romance with him and say, Dunaway. So that which The Parallax View does not have, it doesn't bog itself down in romance. But I mean, what this movie's about is it he plays Redford, plays a CIA analyst who, like, Guy, goes out to lunch. He just goes out to lunch one day. He works in New York City and his job is to read every piece of, like, literature or pop culture. He's supposed to read a shitload of books and see people talking about the CIA and like, seeing if they're revealing secrets or just it's very crazy, like before the internet, this is what they had to do. They had to like, look through. But just like other codes, other messages are there, you know, they're basically just analyzing print media from around the world and seeing if there's any crazy shit in it. And when he goes out for a lunch break one day, everyone in his office gets killed and he comes back and he's like, what the fuck? Everyone's dead. And that's the movie, you know? He's on the run. It's really cool. I mean, it's just a trap. It's only two hours trapped in this tight narrative. New York City filming Sydney Pollack I love this movie. But again, I watched it. Oh, would probably have been the second or third time I'd seen it. And this is recent, like in the past. The past few years certainly really love it. Max Von Zito plays an assassin. Oh, my God, he's so good. It's the. Yeah. Three days of the Condor. Very, very good. Paranoid thriller from the 70s. His next film in 1975 is the reason I am recording this episode. I had heard of The Great Waldo Pepper, directed by George Roy Hill, but had never seen it. Wow, this is on Netflix now. I'm very sorry to say that it's leaving on September 30th. Apparently that's one of the. So when he died, you know, I'm looking up his movies. I see this is on Netflix and I go, you know what? I've always wanted to see this Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avery have ripped this movie really hard on their podcast. So let's put it on. And now I get to call myself out a little bit because just because I love movies and I love this art form, sometimes I when I'm talking to people, they think I can be very fussy in how I watch stuff. Like I used to be seated perfectly straight against the TV. Biggest screen possible 4K 7.1 surround sound. No, I mean, I have a TV, a 4K player, I have a soundbar, and I love to watch movies that way, but I'm more of a I'll take it any way I can get it type of movie person. So if it's on my phone, it's on my phone, my computer, it's on my computer. I don't give a shit. I will watch it, I will stay engaged and pay attention. Honestly, sometimes when I watch it on my phone, I'm paying even better attention because I can't be using my phone. What a world. The Great Waldo Pepper I see it's on Netflix, I'm finishing a workout in my garage and I put it on on my phone and I'm like, you know, I'm watching, but I'm just kind of doing other stuff. And it's off to a slow start and I'm like, all right, this is going to be like kind of some maudlin, sentimental thing about this pilot. Like, all right, I get it. I get it by the end of the movie, and it's only 107 minutes long. By the end of the movie, I am watching it on my TV under the best circumstances possible because as it kept going, I'm like, oh shit, this is way more interesting than I was giving it credit for. And now I'm like, I, I stopped doing the other stuff I'm doing. I focus solely on the phone and I'm like, well, shit, man, this is getting really good. And whoa, they're in the air now. They're flying like, I need to put this on the TV. So it was one of those. It just kept getting better and better and better and more engaging. And I loved it. I loved this film. The Great Waldo Pepper, 1975. I fucking adored this movie. It it just says everything that I would want out of a movie like this, like it starts. It's very playful. It's about it's about these pilots called Barnstormers that existed after World War One, but before the Great Depression. They would just fly these planes over small towns, land in a field, and then, you know, pay me a buck a minute and I'll take you up for free rides, stuff like that. So that's that's it. That's just what it's about. It's he's he plays Waldo Pepper, this guy who's just going from town to town in Nebraska and doing these kind of rides. And then, you know, he meets people along the way. He starts competing and stuff. The stunts get crazier and crazier. George Roy Hill was a pilot. He was a wartime pilot. He owned the type of planes that are in Waldo Pepper. He loved to fly. This movie is made 1975 is 2025. The plane sequences in this movie are as good, if not better, than they are in the new Mission Impossible. And I'm not joking. I'm not joking at all. Yes, in Mission Impossible they're doing way crazier. Shit fly, you know, almost fallen off like a yes, yes, but the genesis of that scene had to started here. It just had to. The photography of these fucking plane sequences is so mesmerizing. I mean, and it's nothing. It's as simple as the camera being melted on the plane, and you were like, whoa! I mean, when they start going down and you just tip down and see the ground and you're right behind the pilot, it's insane. It's nuts. You can really tell Redford was up there. There, I call it maybe like 1 or 2 projection charts, you know, were there were the actors in front of a large projector and then the action is on the projector and they're just like kind of standing there, maybe 1 or 2 of those, but not many. This is on location photography that Robert Surtees I hope I'm saying that right. Probably not. It was the DP, and I mean, it makes such a smart decision to not start with the knockout plane sequences because there's flying the whole time. But he saves the best camera tricks, camera angles, plane tricks, plane stunts for like as the movie progresses, they get better. This is another film written by William Goldman, and it absolutely feels like a Goldman script. He and Hill wrote it together. Filmmaking, cinematography. The editing is brilliant. I can't believe this movie isn't more famous. In fact. Looks great. Why it's not available I couldn't even find this on Blu ray. What are we talking about here? Like I found a Blu ray. It's at $78. I mean, what the fuck is going on? I loved it, so I'm. That's just the technical side of it. The story side is Redford is so great in this. And, you know, he he's a storyteller who keeps telling, talking about World War One stories. And everyone is, you know, everyone in the movie is trying to make money. They're trying to hustle for a little money. How can you help me? How can I help you? And you come to realize at one point or another, everyone in the film, every character is completely full of shit. Not all the time, but a lot of the time. And that's just kind of a startling thing to figure out when you're watching a movie that people have been lying to you, or people have been building themselves up to sell them as something they aren't, it. It was refreshing and it was very, very William Goldman. And I loved it. And then I'm, you know, you're watching the movie, you're just watching and like, what changed? I'm not going to say what it is, but what flipped my perspective. And I go, oh shit, I really need to pay attention to this. They do a stunt, him and his body, and it devolves into something that isn't going well. And the outcome of that stunt just stunned me. This is I believe the movie's rated PG, so not violent in the way this thing I just went, oh my God, that just really happened. I really wounded and went, did I miss something like, whoa, no, that happened. So the movie takes on a new gear. And then the last 20 minutes of this near-flawless Holy shit, the final scene. Holy shit. Oh my God. It was just perfect filmmaking. Perfect fucking filmmaking. So I watch it once and I'm like, all right, that is the winner of the Redford binge. Because I did not expect this out of I never saw this coming. And then I listen to the pod that Tarantino and Roger Avery recorded a while ago on it. They rereleased it after Redford passed. And, you know, Avery is Avery is a really emotional guy. He's been through a lot in his life. And just to hear him, you know, this grown man openly weeping about his love for this movie and his passion for it. I went, you know what I'm about, I'm going to put this fucker on again. And I did it two days later, put it on again, and loved it even more. Now that I know where the bullshit is and I can call it out. And. And now I'm anticipating these flying sequences, the airplane sequence, the Great Waldo Pepper is the stand out movie I discovered for this episode, and that is what made me record this episode. That's how much I loved it. Really young Susan Sarandon. Great movie. Here we go. The next year, 1976, All the President's Men. My God, a grade A plus American masterpiece, the best film ever made about journalism, perhaps Alan J. Pakula's best movie that was very tough. This guy made Klute. He made The Parallax View. He made this, Sophie's Choice. I love all the President's Men. I went to journalism school. We watched this movie a lot. You know, those movies that are, like, force fed to you as whether it's in school, like, I grew up right near where, very close to where remember the Titans takes place. So that high school. So they played that holy shit. At any time there was like, you know, a down day in school, it was remember the Titans. Remember the Titans all the fucking time. I probably saw that movie 50 times just in high school. I'm dead serious. That was all the President's Men in journalism school. At some point, you want to be like, you know, all the other teachers showed us this, right? Like, but of all the movies that have been force fed to me in my life, this is the one I still continue to love. I finished it two days ago with Redford's commentary. I don't know if he does commentaries for any other movies because again, he did not direct this, but he did produce it. But wow, his. It's a really special track. It makes me love the movie even more of course, here he is playing Bob Woodward of The Washington Post. I love the way he says that when he's on calls. Hi, this is Bob Woodward of The Washington Post. He just says it. I mean, my favorite scenes of All The President's Men are Redford on the phone chasing down leads. And there are such long takes of him calling this person this person. Oh, okay. Oh, God. You get this little clue. I scribble it down. Okay. This is an import. Now I'm doodling. Doodling? He even drops a line like he. The take is so long he says a line incorrectly, then laughs. He, like, says the wrong name, then laughs and just stays with it because. And they leave that in because that is what I'm getting chills right now. Because when you're on a story, you've reached out to leads and then you're building it. You have created, let's say the story is the wheels. So the wheels right here, but you are moving it, you are making the wheel move and you're putting it in motion. And is this person going to reach out back to me? Is this person I think that person may have like, can I just hit them again? And Woodward was like that. He was extremely persistent. He would just keep going back and back and back. He did not care. He didn't care at all about how he's perceived. And and he plays it so well matched perfectly against Dustin Hoffman's Carl Bernstein. They were two very different type of people. They didn't really get along that well, honestly, but they created amazing work and they took down they helped take down Richard Nixon in real life, all the president's Men is based on the book from Woodward and Bernstein. And this movie happened because of Redford. It's, you know, it's kind of funny if you listen to the commentary. Redford is in the way only like really true movie stars are. He is expert at taking credit for just about everything in the movie without ever saying that he lets us know a lot that he found the director. He hired, Dustin Hoffman. He was convinced into playing Woodward. He didn't know if he was going to do it like he brought this all together. He spent four years on it. He cast Jack Warden and Marty Balsam, all that stuff like Jason Robards, like so he's taking credit for a lot. But this is where this is where we really start to see Redford come to his own as a producer and genuinely listening to this track. I'm like that track was probably recorded in the 2000s, but hearing his passion for how to make a film, it's just evidence that he was going to be a director. I've heard Dustin Hoffman talk about movies and his performances, but he doesn't talk about it the way that Redford does. He's not necessarily talking about all the production aspects of it, all the camera aspects, everything. And, you know, you see the genesis of Redford wanting to become a director. He was very involved with this movie. It is one of my favorite movies of the 70s. I absolutely love All the President's Men, and I have seen it a bunch of times. A Bridge Too Far. The next year, in 1977, I watched this for the first time. Got this this year, last year, I believe, and I even I said in on Letterboxd, how much of an inspiration this must have been for Spielberg, for Saving Private Ryan. I, I had never seen it and he Redford comes in a little late. This is one of those movies like everyone is in the cast is insane. So you're you're constantly getting these character pops and he comes in, you know, with the hair, you're like, all right, here we go. Oh, I know, I watch that, I watch that because a Hackman Hackman's in it too. Yeah, I watch it as part of my Hackman binge because he's in it. And again, had never seen it. If nothing else, these, you know, types of episodes are good to kind of give me a kick in the ass to check out movies I hadn't seen before. Speaking of which, 1979 The Electric Horseman. This was part of my double feature Redford, Sydney Pollack, this morning drunk Redford in this movie. I really liked it. It's set in 1979, but I thought it would make a pretty fun double feature with Jeremiah Johnson to, you know, same star, same director, two lone men done with the world escaping to be on their own, the Electric Horse. But it has this hilarious subplot about a business merger that's it's just so 1970s. It's like 4 or 5 dudes in suits sitting in rooms plotting out lucrative merger details that all involving an expensive horse. It's I got such a kick out of it. Redford is a drunk rodeo champion. He's pissed off. It's to wear all these flamboyant outfits. And one day he just takes this horse that is a part of this merger and that he does not think is being treated well. You know, they're pumping it with drugs, all that shit. And he just rides off the Las Vegas Strip into the desert and takes care of the horse, steals the horse, nurses it back to help. Jane Fonda is an idealistic reporter covering the story, trying to track down the Electric Horseman. You know, you get it. Sydney Pollack, though I will say it wasn't until researching this episode that I realized how good he is at shooting vast landscapes. All those movies I mentioned before are, interior paranoid thrillers for the most part, or just thrillers. I never realized how he could use a camera so expansively, and it looks remarkable. So another fun one, the Electric Horseman. As we move out of the 70s, we arrive at another banner year for Redford 1980. First up, he stars in definitely one of the first movies. I saw them in Brubaker. I saw this because of my dad. My dad loved this movie. It used to be on a lot, so we sat down to watch it one day. It's an intense film, but it is very, very good. Directed by Stuart Rosenberg, who directed Cool Hand, Luke, Dwight starts Robert Redford as Bruce Baker is entering a work prison in Arkansas, and he's an inmate, and we're just watching him be processed into the prison. And, you know, Stuart Rosenberg did Cool Hand Luke. So imagine this is like kind of an updated Cool Hand Luke just a bit more intense. And we watch him watch what's going on in the prison. The thing that will never leave my mind is they're like in a cafeteria or something, and this guy comes up and just picks up this prisoner and throws him over his shoulder. And the prisoner who has been picked up is like screaming, no, no. And you understand that a rape is about to occur? Like he just picked him up like he was picking out laundry or like, food, and everyone's just watching it happen. You don't see the assault take place, but the implication of it, it's like, Holy shit, this prison is absolute hell. And like, what is going to happen? You know, the pretty boy Robert Redford here? And guess what? He's the new fucking warden of the prison. And he was disguising himself to get the best experience of a prisoner possible. No one knew he was the warden. So he's in there for a little bit. So that's how it starts. It is great. Highly recommend it. This is one I didn't get to rewatch for this, so that's what I need to check out myself. Also in 1980, his directing career begins with Ordinary People. Now the Academy and Robert Redford did not have the best history. He wasn't nominated for as many Oscars as one might think, and he was only nominated for one acting Oscar. I wouldn't have been able to guess it. It was a huge trivia point. Right after he passed, what was the one Best Actor nomination for Robert Redford? It was The Sting in 1973. He was also nominated for Best Director for Ordinary People, which he won, and then he was nominated for a movie down the line that he directed, which I'll get to, but that's it. No other acting, no other producing. Directing. It was just four nominations total, which is still good. But it's so interesting to me that they never embraced him as an actor with an award. But then they give him director and picture. I mean, he directed Ordinary People and it beat Raging Bull, and this is still one of the biggest Oscar controversies, I think, ever. This and 1990, when Dances with Wolves beat Goodfellas, we've talked about the ordinary people versus Raging Bull thing. Ordinary people's very good movie. That's the thing. Dances With Wolves I know a lot of people love that. That's just not for me. Like, I like, I totally get what it is. Respect to Costner for making it. It's just not my type of movie. Ordinary people is my type of movie. You know, like domestic despair. There's been a death, there's mental health trauma. People are losing their minds. Mary Tyler Moore is evil, manipulative and mean like it's a great. I liked the movie a lot. I could never like it more than Raging Bull. That's just my personal taste. This is a great year. I mean, you had The Elephant Man in 1980. Like, there were a lot of good movies up for awards in 1980. And it is a it's just a shock. It's one of the I can't I've only seen Redford's best director speech once because I'm like, that should be Marty. But, you know, that's it's Oscars being Oscars. They were in that vibe. They gave it to Kramer versus Kramer the year before, not Apocalypse Now. The next year, they don't give it to Reds, the Warren Beatty movie. They give picture to Chariots of Fire. So they're in, I don't know, they're not necessarily in like an epic stance right now. Maybe something a little more simpler, a little, I'm not saying where near people's like positive, but it certainly perhaps inspires more confidence than, let's say, Raging Bull. 1984 The Natural, Roy Hobbs, directed by Barry Levinson. Extremely popular movie. One of the you know it reaches icon status because of its ending. That ending I saw that before I saw the movie. It's one of those movie moments, you know, the baseball knocking out the lights. It's just it's as iconic as you think it's going to be. This is another one that I saw. Wow. It was just on all the time when I was a kid. And I believe it's PG. So for one reason or another, we watched in school a few times like it's set in. I don't know if it was historical context or what it was, but I remember watching it a few times, but I, I haven't seen it in years, and so I want to give this one another spin too. But when the few days I had between Redford's passing and recording this, I. I was very selective with what I watched again or thankfully with with what I chose to watch for the first time, like Jeremiah Johnson or the Great Waldo Pepper. I think my biggest thing about The Natural was at his age, it's like it doesn't match up right, like he's entirely too old. But they write that in somehow that, you know, he's just this natural, good movie, maybe one of the most well known well seen Redford films. Here's a tricky one 1985 Out of Africa, directed by Sydney Pollack. This movie was a giant fucking smash hit. That one picture director. It won seven Oscars. This is one that I won summer when I was a kid. I mean, this is probably like 98, 99. It's in that range because, yeah, DVD were a thing, but Netflix like the I mean, Netflix where they mailed you the DVDs, that was not a thing yet. But there I got it in my head. I wanted to see all the Best Picture winners that I hadn't seen. So I'm like, all right, that's that's what we're going to do this summer. And for a lot of those, I had to buy them. I didn't have a choice because there was no way to watch them. I don't know, they weren't at black like out of Africa. I do not ever remember seeing at blockbuster if it was there. Shame on me. What do I have this list I have out of Africa. So I own out of Africa. Chariots of fire. Gandhi. Gandhi is pretty good movie there. I'll admit. I can't remember all of them. I definitely have a few Best Picture winners that I cannot find anywhere else except by buying them. So out of Africa, I watch it when I'm a kid and I'm like, are you kidding? The movie's boring shit. Come on. It's a long, epic love story where, that was the only time I'd seen it. I swear, I seen it was way back then. Even though I own the DVD. You know, you look at 1985, it's not like it was a crazy good Oscar year. Here are Best Picture nominees out of Africa. The color purple, kiss of the Spider Woman. Prince's honor in witness. I just rewatched witness a few weeks ago. It's a fine film. I don't think it deserves Best Picture. My favorite on this list is Prince's Honor. It's not like doesn't deserve Best Picture. Other movies that were nominated for Oscars but not Best Picture ran. That's a great movie, you know? I mean, runaway Train was nominated. I love that movie. Runaway Train rocks, sweet dreams. Oh, I love Jessica Lange as Patsy Cline. You know, back to the future. Yes. Brazil. Yes. These were not nominated for Best Picture, so it's not like it beat a really good Scorsese movie or something. So anyway, I put it on last night with Pollack's commentary because I'm like, I don't know if I want to commit two hours and 40 minutes of just a straight viewing of it. I love Sydney Pollack. Let me put on the commentary, and even with the commentary on, I went, all right, there's a lot to appreciate about this movie. It's essentially a David Lean romance. That's all brief encounter, but moreover, Doctor Chicago, Ryan's Daughter, it's that type of thing. And I kind of dug how it embraced that. It really embraced the dramatic, romantic epicness of it all pretty well. So yeah, out of Africa, you know, it was it was a big deal for everyone involved. Redford and Meryl Streep won a bunch of Oscars, and it's just one of those Best Picture winners that, you know, it doesn't have a huge cultural relevance, I don't think, but I appreciated rewatching it. So there now we got a few I haven't seen Legal Eagles, directed by Ivan Reitman. I've heard good things. I just haven't had a chance to check that out. His last film was Sydney Pollack Havana, released in 1990. Again, this is one of those like it is not available anywhere. This movie, you know, I just don't get how this happens. Like their previous movie won Best Picture and then their next movie you cannot find anywhere. So I have not seen Havana. Sounds like a Cuban like kind of gambling movie. I'm very interested in checking it out. It's like two hours in 20 minutes, so just couldn't get to it before this. Sneakers, 1992, directed by Phil Alden Robinson. This is a fun movie. I, this was one that was on TV, you know, like TNT, TBS all the time. As a kid, I felt like there was a sneakers channel. Then I actually sat down and watched it in full, like as an adult just a few years ago. Definitely since Covid had a lot of fun with it. And Redford and Sidney Poitier, great to see them play off each other. Akroyd, Ben Kingsley, oh, River Phoenix, David Street there. And how about David Street? They're getting a poster title credit for sneakers. What a risky poster, too. You know, most of the things white, I don't know, I just it's a good movie. It's fun. Like 90s flick. Oh, here we go. 1993 John Gage has a proposal and it's an indecent one. Adrian Lyne directs Indecent Proposal, a movie that really could only work with the casting of Robert Redford. Because the movie is about. It's simple. It's very, very simple. An extremely rich guy offers a husband and wife$1 million to spend the night with the wife. That's it. Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore are married. They get into some financial debt. This very rich guy, John Gage, spots Demi Moore in a casino. That's how the second act kicks up. They lose their money, engages. They're saying $1 million one night with your wife. That's it. No strings attached, no nothing. And you know, I suppose the sexual politics of this don't really age that well. And this is great because, like, you know, I'm not trying to be mean, but, Billy Bob Thornton has, like a cameo in the movie. He's a gambler. At one point. Yeah. Billy Bob Thornton can't play John Gage, right? It has to be someone who looks like Redford, or it has to be Redford. Someone with his charm, charisma, his baggage as an icon, as a sex symbol. Not really. Well, baggage or status, however you want to look at it allows him to pull this off and pull it off really well. I like this movie a lot. I talked about it in my Erotic thrillers episode, even though it's not really an erotic thriller because it's, I don't know, no one's getting murder in this. It's just it's an erotic proposal and indecent proposal. Watch this movie with my mom. When it came out, did I? Yes, I did indeed. I wish they still made movies like this. I don't know, it's just so, like, cheesy and crass and fun kind of adrenaline. I love adrenaline, so yeah, John Gage is like it's always stood out in my head as a premiere. Robert Redford performance. Certainly. John Kline, this one's for you, 1996. We have up close and personal. Which I never seen until about, oh, 18 hours ago. And I'm laughing because I'm like 10 or 11 when this comes out. The trailer, the poster, it is nothing that I want to see. We just recorded her 1996 episode. I had not seen this movie when we recorded that. I was focused on a lot of other movies that year that we talked about. So I put this on yesterday and, like, I loved it. I just really did. It was so it it made me nostalgic for the 90s, for Redford, for Michelle Pfeiffer. My mom and her sisters saw this and talked about this movie all the time. And it was one of those things that I avoided. So it made me very nostalgic for overhearing those conversations and how much they liked it. I really thought it was just going to be some lame romance, and maybe some people do write it off, is that. But I. I really enjoyed it. And then something funny happened about, oh, three minutes in. We're still in the opening credits. My wife gets home and sits down and I'm like, you know, I can finish this later. She's like, no, it's fine. And again, she's never seen a Robert Redford movie. She sat there and watched the whole thing with me, and we both really liked it. Like a lot. She had to go make a call for, about 15 minutes in the middle, and I didn't pause. I just kept going. So. Right before I started recording this episode, right now, I'm not joking. I went down to get a glass of water, and she has the movie up because I rented it on YouTube. So she has a back up watching those seats she missed. She's like, I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything. Like it was kind of good, right? Like it was good. Oh my God, I can't believe it. There's one F-bomb in the movie. All right, like 18 minutes in. It's a PG 13 film, and Redford says it in the way that he says it in the context that he says it. I went, wow, like, whoa, that came out of nowhere. Oh my God. And then I remembered the screenplay of this movie was written by John Gregory Dunne and his wife, Joan Didion. And I love Joan Didion like Joan Didion, is the main inspiration, the main, literary inspiration for Bret Easton Ellis, who, like both love I love Joan Didion in the script. Did it, had this wit to it, and it had it's sentimental. Yes. It does all those things that, you know, a romantic drama from, well, from any era is pretty much going to do. I was even having a little fun trying to guess the time stamps of when they would, you know, go for it for the first time, like their first kiss, and when they would have their first fight, because that stuff is fun for me, like have a little fun with these conventions as opposed to making fun of them. I just have fun. Like I bet in I, I said in minute, I think I said 46 is probably when they'll kiss. And it was minute 51. The movie is about a young news anchor, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, who's hired by a Miami station manager, Warren Justice. What a name. Warren Justice, played by Robert Redford. And it's that, like, can he coach her to be a good reporter? Can all that stuff happen and everything that I thought the movie was going to do, it didn't do like it. You know, I'm sure by 2025 standards, the, the whole idea of a woman being hired and then falling for, you know, her mentor boss, that doesn't that's, you know, this was a thing in movies before. I promise it was in movies all the time. I get that it's not that much now, so that could be a little troubling for people. I get that, but I thought, you know, he was going to be like, aggressive or like a full on asshole. He's not that at all. Joe Montana shows up as an agent and I'm like, all right, here comes this is going to be the sleaze ball. Nope. Just like a good guy there. That's not where the tension was. Stockard Channing shows up a little later. She's more of a seasoned news anchor, kind of, you know, bratty at first, but that didn't maintain it. You know, everyone kind of got along. It knew where to pick its conflicts and where not to. And it didn't rely, in my opinion, on really bad cliches for its conflicts. I definitely guessed where it was going. But I, you know, I don't know. I liked it, and my wife and I were both stunned to find out that the Celine Dion song Because You Love Me was written by Diane Warren for this movie, and it was indeed nominated for Best Original Song. It was Diane Warren second nomination. She has, I don't know, she like 19 at this point, never won. It was just funny because I was reminded that Diane Warren I mean, you know, we talk about her, whenever the Oscars come up because she's usually nominated for movies that I'm not that familiar with. Tell it like a woman, flaming hot, the six, 888, The Life Ahead break through. I don't really I'm not that familiar with these movies, but she got nominated for Because You Loved Me Up close and Personal. How do I live on air? I don't want to miss a thing. Armageddon, she wrote that I don't even. I didn't remember she wrote that. Anyway, I like up close and personal a lot. My wife liked it a lot, clearly because she finished it. So I'm very glad that I check that out. Very. You know, I was going in acting order and I missed a few movies. He directed 1988, the, The Milagro Bean Field War, another movie that's very difficult to find. I'm going to be honest with you. I started this last night, and, I made it, like, ten minutes, and it was. I can finish this, or I can bail and rewatch The Great Waldo Pepper. And I chose option B and felt very, very good about it. So this is the only movie he's directed that I have not seen. He's not in it, but I will be watching it because, you know, I gotta, I gotta finish. But the start of it wasn't necessarily for me when The Great Waldo Pepper was right there, and it's leaving Netflix in a few days. It's the only reason silly reason, I bailed. I also missed 1992 A River Runs Through It, starring Brad Pitt. Yeah. You know, like, okay. It's fine. Yeah, I kind of had this feeling on a lot of the movies he directed, like, you know, very like Americana, period drama, film brothers. It's fine. Saw it when I was a kid. I did rewatch it for some reason. I don't remember. It was either for my blog or the podcast, like within the last it's been was in the last decade. And I went, okay, yeah, how I remembered that is how I still feel about it today. Just okay. It's fine now. 1994 is Quiz Show, and Quiz Show is my favorite movie that Robert Redford directed. I love this movie. It's based on a true story. You have not seen it? Go watch it. Oh, should I mention him? I don't know, I might have to. I don't know if it's appropriate to do the ditty, but who plays the quiz show host? That's right, it's Chris Mack. Oh, God damn it, Homer! God damn it. Jesus Christ, you stay out of my way. Your pay. Listen to what I say. God. He's great. Ray fines is their job to toro Marty Scorsese. He has a cameo. I love quiz show. I just love you know, it's about money. It's about corporate people in TV who manage an elaborate cheating ruse within the show. It's where the contestants knew the questions and answers. So it was just literally they were carving, creating their own entertainment as they go. And I, I really love it and kind of embraced by the Academy. This was the other one that he was nominated for. So 1973, nominated for Best Actor for The Sting. 1980 wins Best Director for Ordinary People 1994. He's nominated for producer and director for quiz Show Loses Both understandable, Forrest Gump, Robert Zemeckis I get it, but I've always really liked Quiz Show and yeah, it's my favorite movie that he directed. But now we're caught back up to the acting and directing list with The Horse Whisperer 1998. Never saw it. Watch it for the first time yesterday. And, you know, it just didn't really look like it was going to be for me. Most interestingly, I didn't realize this was the first movie he directed that he starred in. So the good news? Well, the good news is it's like it's the exact type of movie you think it's going to be based on a novel, you know, love story long looks great. It's got horses. Kristin Scott Thomas, Robert Redford, a very young Scarlett Johansson. It was exactly the movie I thought it was going to be, which is, you know, at damn near three hours. This thing is long. Sing is slow as shit. I got to pick up the pace a little bit, even like it's some of the quote unquote action scenes. They would cut the slow motion. They would just cut back and forth. This phase, this phase, this phase, this phase, this phase. And I'm like, just fucking show it. Like, okay, we get it. You're building, building, building. No real big surprises about The Horse Whisperer. What I will say, and this is no bullshit. Robert Richardson shot this movie. He's a deep. This thing looks astounding. It is beautiful. Almost every frame of it is beautiful. And it wasn't bad. It's just not really for me. It's not a bad movie. It's not. It's not. Diane Weast is great. Chris Cooper is great. I, you know, and we'll look it up. Cherry Jones had like, just kind of a caretaker, a horse caretaker. She was great. I got what the movie was doing, just not exactly for me. 2000 The Legend of Bagger Vance. What do we think? I don't know, so my dad in the theater, you know, Redford loves a good sentimental streak. He loves sentiment. Horse Whisperer was extremely overly sentimental, but that is what it's trying to do. That's what he's trying to do. Ledger Bhagavan is the same way. You know, I, I don't think I've seen it since maybe 2000 and 2001. I'll always remember the, when Damon would just do, like, moves a leaf and the ball moves, and then he calls himself out like he has to take it. I don't know that much about golf. Apologies. Is it? Take a stroke. Is that what it is? And like the honesty of that and just thinking the whole time, like, would anyone really do that? Would anyone really admit that no one saw what you just did? And now you're going to penalize yourself? Penalize, penalize? I don't know, it's fine. You know, the star of it, I love Damon, I love Charlize Theron, the other person in it. I can do without watching in the movies that I choose to watch. 2001 The Last Castle, directed by Rod Lurie. Oh, this will always have a special place in my heart because I don't know, it was just one of those like early 2000 kind of action military movies. I love Rod Lurie. I used to treat each other back and forth. He was my first celebrity tweeter, so I would just ask him questions. You just answer, Gandolfini's in this. He's a hard ass warden of a military prison. Robert Redford, you know, he's got to take the rocks from one stretch of the yard to the other, and then he's got to do it again. Pretty decent. I don't know how special it is, but I. I remember having my fun with it and yep, I'm looking at it. I own it right there. I also owned his other 2001 movie, Spy Game, which I did rewatch with Tony Scott's commentary. Rest in peace to both of them. I don't think the best movie Tony Scott made, but I also have a soft spot because I grew up very close to Washington DC, so anything that like takes DC seriously. You know, covert stuff, people in rooms talking about, you know, I just love all that shit, all that spy craft shit. Scott spends most of the commentary harping on how accurate the like the offices were in this, because they didn't actually shoot at Langley at CIA headquarters, obviously, but they replicated them perfectly, and they just look kind of like boring and sterile and I've never been in that building myself. But I've been in a lot of government buildings. I've been in the Pentagon. You know what it all looks like? Just boring and sterile and like gross floors. And, you know, there's glass and it's just white walls like it is. It's not, I appreciated that level of authenticity. Groovy movie to most. Almost the entire thing is in flashback. We're moving toward the end of the career here. The clearing. I saw this in the theater. I think he's kidnaped by Willem Dafoe. And, yeah, that doesn't really stick out in my mind that much. Same with An Unfinished Life costarring. I saw this one in the theater, too. Jennifer Lopez is in this Morgan Freeman directed by LLC. Hallstrom. I don't know, you know? Okay, these are like, single spins for me. The next movie that he acts and stars in 2007, Lions for lambs. I enjoyed this movie when I saw it, but this was a single spin, and I think they were hoping Meryl Streep will get nominated for an Oscar. She's great, but you got Redford, Streep, Tom cruise, Tom cruise playing, like a, I think like a typical WASPy Republican senator. Is that what he's doing? And he's really he's believable in it. I like to minute the movie. It's not perfect. It's very short, and it's jumping back and forth between different plot lines like, Isn't Redford a professor? And he's just in his whole plot line is an argument with his student, played by Andrew Garfield. And then Meryl Streep is a journalist interviewing Tom cruise. So like, that's an argument. And then I think there's a battle that. So there's three things were cross-cutting in the battle, like the, the person leading the battle, like from the command center is Pete Berg. And then I think out on the field are Michael Pena and Derek Luke, I swear to God, I'm trying to do this from memory. But yeah, I saw this once in the theater and haven't gone back and revisit it. But similarly, The Conspirator, the movie he directed but did not star in that, came out in 2010. This was about Mary Stuart, was it Stuart, the Stuart Stuart Stuart, the only woman implicated in the Abraham Lincoln assassination. So Robin Wright plays her. And I believe the whole thing is just a courtroom thriller, like the whole thing takes place at her trial. And James McAvoy, Evan Rachel Wood, Kevin Kline, I mean, this really is crazy. Tom Wilkinson, Danny Houston, Stephen Root, Justin Long, Shay Wing of James Badge Dale, Jim True Frost, Chris Bauer God, that right there. Boom. Just had some wire guys right in a row. One watch, but I liked it. His next film, both as an actor and a director, is the company you keep with Shia LaBeouf. Only saw this once. Wasn't you know, I saw this when it was released and just didn't really imprint in my mind. And, you know, as we get toward the end here, I think there's just a lot of movies that I've seen once that don't I don't necessarily have the need to go back and revisit, which is fine. Wow. 2013, in my opinion, his last truly great performance. He should have been nominated for JC Chandler's All Is Lost. He's the only person in the movie about a dude who's out on a boat. He hits a, like a container shipping container that's been out at sea and it punctures his boat. And you know, he's out for the rest of the movie to, live like Will he make it really cool concept. You know, it's kind of some Hemingway in here, but can he pull this off? And he does. Like, he's not talking a lot. It's not completely silent, but he might murmur some things to him or like, try to get on a radio. But I've seen this a few times. I actually really do want to go rewatch this. Might do that first. This might be the first one I watch after recording this. All is lost. This is just wouldn't have necessarily thought Redford would be willing and able to pull this off, and he was a great sport about it and the performance is great. I really like it. 2014 Captain America The Winter soldier. Never seen it, sorry. Or if I have, I don't remember it, I don't know, I used to watch the Marvel movies, but hey, he got his paycheck. Get get your dollars up. 2015 Truth playing Dan Rather decent movie by Zodiac writer James Vanderbilt. It's just decent. Cate Blanchett's in it, too. He's very good. Is rather because he's not trying to do rather like. Rather you can have a everyone can have an impression. He's not really trying to do an impression. And I the thing I remember most from this movie is how well Redford absolutely nails Dan Rather's early signoff line, which was simply courage. Very, very good at like that line delivery. The movie just okay. The discovery was a Netflix movie from 2017 to what is that? He's a doctor that figures out for certain that there is life after death. So the suicide rate skyrockets. I thought that sounded like a cool idea for a movie, but I it just wasn't really for me. 2018 The Old man in the gun. This is I think he's great in all Is Loss and should have been nominated for an Oscar. I don't know if he should have been nominated for The Old Man and the gun, but he's really good in it and he's having a lot of fun. This is directed by David Lowery, apparently a true story about a guy who was a criminal, you know, mastermind of sorts. Not like a killer, but could knock off banks, could escape from prisons. I only saw this once when it came out. And I remember Nick really like this, too. And that is all of it. That's the majority of the movies he was in. I touched on all the movies he directed. I still have to see one of those myself. He has a best Director Oscar. Very impressive. What else did Robert Redford do? Well, when he made some money after Butch Cassidy and Downhill Racer, he bought some land in Utah, and after a few years, he renamed it Sundance after Sundance Kid character. He filmed some of Jeremiah Johnson there, and in the late 70s he started what later became known as the Sundance Film Festival. This is Robert Redford's greatest contribution to cinema. Starting this. This is a list of directors who got their starts at Sundance the Coen Brothers, Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Todd Field, Todd Haynes, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, Darren Aronofsky, Edward Burns, James Wan, Damien Chazelle, Jim Jarmusch that's a lot Karyn Kusama, Kenneth Lonergan, Rebecca miller, Shane Carruth, Lee Daniels, Drake Doremus, Ryan Coogler, Kelly Reichardt, James Mangold, Mary Herron, Alexander Payne, Nicole Holofcener not even near the end of the list, Sundance when it really took off. It's like at like 85. So mid 80s that those ten years, 85 to 95 is when the majority of the names I just listed came to be. It's when their careers took off, because this guy that made this $1.5 million movie about a bunch of guys who just knocked off it, just pulled off a diamond heist center now, like arguing about it in a warehouse and a cop's getting his ear chopped off. That premieres. Reservoir dogs premieres at Sundance. It didn't even win any awards. It just premiered there and was a sensation. All of the names I listed, Robert Redford, paved way for that. Maybe they would have premiered somewhere else. Maybe they would have found careers. You would like to think that someone like Quentin Tarantino is going to find a career, whether it's the Sundance Film Festival exists or not. But it did exist, and they found their home here, and it meant a lot to them. I think as Sundance has gone on, it has. Redford was even the first to admit that it changed. I mean, I went once in 2009, so that was the year that precious was there and won a lot of stuff. The documentary The Cove was there that that went on to win the Oscar. So that was there and it wasn't I. I thought it was still very like Sundance. I mean, everyone's, you know, and their giant jackets freezing their snow. But I think it's become more of like a, a hangout thing now. And even the reason that he created it, the intention behind it, that intention held for many, many decades in the festival that matters. This is that body of work that he helped foster and create and put out there is essential to the cinema world we're living in. And I think more than anything, that is what I'll miss. When we lost Redford at the age of 89 just a few days ago, the first thing that popped into my head is, wow, that is someone who did a lot for cinema. And that can't be argued whether you liked him as an actor or not. Esteemed critic Pauline Kael, the critic for The New Yorker for many, many decades. She never liked him. She, she clearly had a personal ax to grind with him. I don't know what the hell it was, but she didn't like Redford at all. So he was up against that. Whether he got all the accolades he deserved or not, whether he should have been nominated for more acting awards or not, he pressed forward. And he made he produced and helped get made very politically charged films, All the President's Men. I mean, that shit was going on like shortly after Nixon resigned. It's crazy. It was just a few years later. And starting Sundance is, such an achievement that every fan of cinema should be indebted to him forever. He started that, and it made a difference. And it helped a lot of careers. And that is the thing I will remember him for most Jeremiah Johnson and the Great Waldo Pepper get my highest recommendation. I suppose it would be my what are you watching recommendations, particularly the great Waldo Pepper. If you can sneak in a Netflix viewing before it leaves, I would highly recommend that. I liked it a lot if it was available in some sort of upgraded physical media, I would buy it. Butch Cassidy, Jeremiah Johnson, sting, Three Days of the Condor, The Great Waldo Pepper, All the President's Men, Brubaker, Out of Africa, The Horse Whisperer, All is Lost. Those are the few I tried to do kind of breakouts on. You watch those. You're going to have a very good arc of his career. I didn't even mention, like, some of the most famous ones, the natural crazy famous, the way we were insanely famous sneakers. People love sneakers up close and personal. I will miss Redford. I will miss his presence. I will miss his work. But wow, there's a lot of stuff to dig through and that will have for a long time. Let me know what you're thinking of Redford. Favorite performances? Favorite movies he directed on socials at Y w underscore podcast. Next episode is going to be one battle after another. Leo and Peta. My god, I'm excited. Excited. Imax film. Let's do it! Thanks so much for listening and happy watching. Hey everyone, thanks again for listening. Send us mailbag questions at What Are You Watching podcast at gmail.com or find us on Twitter, Instagram and Letterboxd at Wide W underscore podcast. Next time Paul Thomas Anderson has a new movie out, it's called One Battle After Another. It's a movie I'm looking forward to most in 2025. Stay tuned.