RIP - Robert Redford

[Max Rockatansky]

I want to say I started a movie thread back in 2016 or something?  At the time there wasn't much interest.

[Bobby5280]

Multiple people in this thread have commented that they don't know much about movies or even watch them.

That could true in some cases. Still, I think I'm on to something when pointing out Robert Redford's political views didn't sit well with a lot of people. He wasn't Jane Fonda, but he was still pretty liberal.

The 1970s were fifty years ago.  That's over a decade more than our country's median age.  More people were born after the 1980s than were alive during the 1980s.  Redford's star power in the 1970s is almost irrelevant, and growing more so with every passing year.

The movies Redford starred in played on broadcast and cable TV channels for decades after they were released. The same goes for some of the movies Redford directed. It's likely more than a few of those movies were available to watch on various streaming platforms before Redford's death.

Saw RoboCop in the theatre when I was 13 with my brother and father. There was also a party of younger kids with some parents a couple rows ahead of us who were kind of noisy for the first few minutes of the movie...until the ED-209 appeared on the screen.

I was a college student in NYC when I first saw "Robocop." I was surprised how much I liked the movie; I thought it was going to be trashy. Instead it was kind of ground-breaking. But, wow, the violence was rough. And that was after they edited it down a good bit to avoid an X-rating. I wished they released the movie with 70mm Dolby mag film prints. "Robocop" was the first movie to use Dolby SR on 35mm release prints. The Loews 34th Street Showplace had a Dolby SR setup. It sounded pretty good.

In the late 1990's I spent over $40 on a Criterion Collection DVD of "Robocop." It had the unedited "X-Rated Cut." Yeah, I can understand why the MPAA made them do some cutting. The commentary track on the disc is awesome. Producer Jon Davison described the reaction they got from Orion Pictures executives when they first saw the movie. These were people who were used to making Woody Allen films and other high-brow shows. He said those executives were appalled.

You could even argue that was the *only* decade where studios took a lot of serious chances. If you look at a list of the "greatest" movies from earlier decades, they're dominated by well-established genre films: westerns, musicals, suspense, etc. The 70s existed in a small sliver of time between the demise of the old studio system and the rise of the new studio system (i.e., franchises and blockbusters).

The Hollywood movie studios were sort of forced into a situation of taking chances. By the late 1960's their overly long bible epics and other movies shot as if they were a stage play weren't selling anymore. The studios were in deep financial trouble. The Hays Code got abolished and replaced with the MPAA ratings system. That allowed more edgy, adult-oriented movies to be made. The US was going thru major cultural upheaval from the late 1960's into the early 70's. The studios turned a new generation of directors loose. The movie-going public enjoyed a string of movies that were huge hits, critically and financially.

Once "Jaws" and "Star Wars" ushered in a new era of epic blockbusters, Hollywood started playing it more and more safe again.

[CoreySamson]

I'll play the game too, bolding the ones I don't know. I was born in 2003.

_	_	_	_	_
2010s	|	2000s	|	1990s
Leonardo DiCaprio	|	Leonardo DiCaprio	|	Tom Hanks
Robert Downey, Jr.	|	Tom Cruise	|	Tom Cruise
Vin Diesel	|	Russell Crowe	|	Jim Carrey
Chadwick Boseman	|	Tom Hanks	|	Matt Damon
Gwyneth Paltrow	|	Orlando Bloom	|	Mel Gibson
Scarlett Johansson	|	Brad Pitt	|	Harrison Ford
Tom Hardy	|	Will Smith	|	Al Pacino
Jeremy Renner	|	Seth Rogen	|	Arnold Schwarzenegger
Michael Keaton	|	Viggo Mortensen	|	Tommy Lee Jones
Chris Evans	|	Mel Gibson	|	Kevin Spacey
Mark Ruffalo	|	Denzel Washington	|	Pierce Brosnan
Jonah Hill	|	George Clooney	|	Gene Hackman
Benedict Cumberbatch	|	Jim Carrey	|	Morgan Freeman
Jennifer Lawrence	|	Johnny Depp	|	Kevin Costner
Bryce Dallas Howard	|	Steve Carell	|	Robin Williams
_	_	_	_	_
1980s	|	1970s	|	1960s
Harrison Ford	|	Al Pacino	|	Peter O'Toole
Bill Murray	|	Robert Redford	|	Audrey Hepburn
Eddie Murphy	|	Diane Keaton	|	Jack Lemmon
Michael Douglas	|	Woody Allen	|	John Wayne
Sigourney Weaver	|	Dustin Hoffman	|	Lee Marvin
William Hurt	|	Barbra Streisand	|	Natalie Wood
Tom Cruise	|	Faye Dunaway	|	Sean Connery
Glenn Close	|	Richard Dreyfuss	|	Omar Sharif
Tom Berenger	|	Clint Eastwood	|	Steve McQueen
Christopher Lloyd	|	Ellen Burstyn	|	Gregory Peck
Kathleen Turner	|	Roy Scheider	|	Richard Harris
Jack Nicholson	|	Julie Christie	|	Paul Newman
Meryl Streep	|	Jane Fonda	|	Hayley Mills
Danny DeVito	|	Jack Nicholson	|	Burt Lancaster
Dan Aykroyd	|	Harrison Ford	|	Sidney Poitier
_	_	_	_	_
1950s	|	1940s	|	1930s
Marlon Brando	|	Katharine Hepburn	|	Fred Astaire
Grace Kelly	|	Teresa Wright	|	The Marx Brothers
James Stewart	|	Gregory Peck	|	Tyrone Power
Yul Brynner	|	Gary Cooper	|	Norma Shearer
Danny Kaye	|	Ingrid Bergman	|	Judy Garland
Elizabeth Taylor	|	Judy Garland	|	Greta Garbo
Frank Sinatra	|	Bing Crosby	|	James Stewart
Dean Martin	|	Bob Hope	|	David Niven
William Holden	|	Greer Garson	|	Charles Laughton
Montgomery Clift	|	Cary Grant	|	Errol Flynn
Jerry Lewis	|	Clark Gable	|	Shirley Temple
Burt Lancaster	|	Bette Davis	|	Clark Gable
Humphrey Bogart	|	Olivia de Havilland	|	Jean Arthur
John Wayne	|	Spencer Tracy	|	Marlene Dietrich
Cary Grant	|	Celeste Holm	|	Ginger Rogers
_	_	_	_	_

[Takumi]

All right, I'll play. Born 1986. A good amount of the older ones I only know the name as opposed to actually seen them in something.

_	_	_	_	_
2010s	|	2000s	|	1990s
Leonardo DiCaprio	|	Leonardo DiCaprio	|	Tom Hanks
Robert Downey, Jr.	|	Tom Cruise	|	Tom Cruise
Vin Diesel	|	Russell Crowe	|	Jim Carrey
Chadwick Boseman	|	Tom Hanks	|	Matt Damon
Gwyneth Paltrow	|	Orlando Bloom	|	Mel Gibson
Scarlett Johansson	|	Brad Pitt	|	Harrison Ford
Tom Hardy	|	Will Smith	|	Al Pacino
Jeremy Renner	|	Seth Rogen	|	Arnold Schwarzenegger
Michael Keaton	|	Viggo Mortensen	|	Tommy Lee Jones
Chris Evans	|	Mel Gibson	|	Kevin Spacey
Mark Ruffalo	|	Denzel Washington	|	Pierce Brosnan
Jonah Hill	|	George Clooney	|	Gene Hackman
Benedict Cumberbatch	|	Jim Carrey	|	Morgan Freeman
Jennifer Lawrence	|	Johnny Depp	|	Kevin Costner
Bryce Dallas Howard	|	Steve Carell	|	Robin Williams
_	_	_	_	_
1980s	|	1970s	|	1960s
Harrison Ford	|	Al Pacino	|	Peter O'Toole
Bill Murray	|	Robert Redford	|	Audrey Hepburn
Eddie Murphy	|	Diane Keaton	|	Jack Lemmon
Michael Douglas	|	Woody Allen	|	John Wayne
Sigourney Weaver	|	Dustin Hoffman	|	Lee Marvin
William Hurt	|	Barbra Streisand	|	Natalie Wood
Tom Cruise	|	Faye Dunaway	|	Sean Connery
Glenn Close	|	Richard Dreyfuss	|	Omar Sharif
Tom Berenger	|	Clint Eastwood	|	Steve McQueen
Christopher Lloyd	|	Ellen Burstyn	|	Gregory Peck
Kathleen Turner	|	Roy Scheider	|	Richard Harris
Jack Nicholson	|	Julie Christie	|	Paul Newman
Meryl Streep	|	Jane Fonda	|	Hayley Mills
Danny DeVito	|	Jack Nicholson	|	Burt Lancaster
Dan Aykroyd	|	Harrison Ford	|	Sidney Poitier
_	_	_	_	_
1950s	|	1940s	|	1930s
Marlon Brando	|	Katharine Hepburn	|	Fred Astaire
Grace Kelly	|	Teresa Wright	|	The Marx Brothers
James Stewart	|	Gregory Peck	|	Tyrone Power
Yul Brynner	|	Gary Cooper	|	Norma Shearer
Danny Kaye	|	Ingrid Bergman	|	Judy Garland
Elizabeth Taylor	|	Judy Garland	|	Greta Garbo
Frank Sinatra	|	Bing Crosby	|	James Stewart
Dean Martin	|	Bob Hope	|	David Niven
William Holden	|	Greer Garson	|	Charles Laughton
Montgomery Clift	|	Cary Grant	|	Errol Flynn
Jerry Lewis	|	Clark Gable	|	Shirley Temple
Burt Lancaster	|	Bette Davis	|	Clark Gable
Humphrey Bogart	|	Olivia de Havilland	|	Jean Arthur
John Wayne	|	Spencer Tracy	|	Marlene Dietrich
Cary Grant	|	Celeste Holm	|	Ginger Rogers
_	_	_	_	_

[Scott5114]

I would play the game but I don't know how much I'm supposed to know about them for them to count. A few I think I've seen something they were in. Some of them scan as "yeah, there's probably a person by that name". A few of them are actually street names. I'm fairly sure "Chadwick Boseman" is something somebody made up whenever they needed a fake name really fast and that's not actually a real person.

[formulanone]

New assignment/watch list:

Popeye (1980), The World According to Garp (1982), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), Hook (1991), Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), Jack (1996), Flubber (1997), Good Will Hunting (1997), Patch Adams (1998), One Hour Photo (2002), Robots (2005), Night at the Museum (2006), Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009), Old Dogs (2009), The Butler (2013), Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014).

And heck, might as well binge watch the series Mork & Mindy (1978-1982).

For a Cliff's Notes version, just Good Morning, Vietnam; Dead Poets Society; Hook; and Good Will Hunting would suffice.

Extra credit: one of his HBO comedy specials

You guys forgot Awakenings.

Didn't know we were IMDBRoads...

In a thread about a movie actor, the discussion will typically involve movies.

Sorry, I didn't mean for my remark to come off so flippant. My error.

[Max Rockatansky]

I would play the game but I don't know how much I'm supposed to know about them for them to count. A few I think I've seen something they were in. Some of them scan as "yeah, there's probably a person by that name". A few of them are actually street names. I'm fairly sure "Chadwick Boseman" is something somebody made up whenever they needed a fake name really fast and that's not actually a real person.

That's actually a real name.  He was the actor who played Black Panther in the titular movie (probably the best Marvel movie IMO).  He died of colon cancer back in 2020.  Story was that he didn't tell anyone aside family that he was sick.

[1995hoo]

I'll play the game too, bolding the ones I don't know. I was born in 2003.

...

You bolded Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen. Have you seen the Lord of the Rings movies? Bloom played Legolas and Mortensen played Aragorn. (Recognizing that just because you saw a movie doesn't mean you know the names, as I mentioned earlier in reference to Platoon.)

[JayhawkCO]

I would play the game but I don't know how much I'm supposed to know about them for them to count. A few I think I've seen something they were in. Some of them scan as "yeah, there's probably a person by that name". A few of them are actually street names. I'm fairly sure "Chadwick Boseman" is something somebody made up whenever they needed a fake name really fast and that's not actually a real person.

I bolded the name of I had heard of that name and knew they were a famous person in show biz. I can't name specific movies for many of the older ones.

[Max Rockatansky]

Rather than try to bold stuff on a phone here is who I don't know by decade:

1960s:  Omar Sharif
1950s:  Montgomery Clift
1940s:  Teresa Wright, Greer Garson, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland and Celeste Holm
1930s:  Tyrone Power, Norma Shearer, David Niven, Charles Laughton, Marlene Dietrich and Ginger Rogers

[elsmere241]

Four of Robert Redford's best moments as Roy Hobbs stand out to me.

<snipped>

Striking out the Whammer before a fan shoots him in a Chicago hotel room:

Knocking the cover off the ball in his first Knights game:

Smashing the Wrigley Field clock:

And, of course, winning the NL pennant with the light-breaking walkoff home run:

Being a Red Sox fan, it makes sense that he patterned Hobbs after Ted Williams, who was a left-handed batter/thrower and wore the number 9.

I wonder if Bernard Malamud (the author of the book) intended that.  (The book has a very different ending.)

My senior year in high school, my English teacher took the day off, and left us The Natural to watch.  The three of us there (it was a senior cut day) fast-forwarded between the baseball scenes, but we didn't get to the end.

I will say, the movie does do a great job of encapsulating most of the book.

[JayhawkCO]

Ginger Rogers

Only interesting that you hadn't heard of her but have heard of Fred Astaire. That was his main dancing partner and they were in a bunch of movies together.

[Max Rockatansky]

Ginger Rogers

Only interesting that you hadn't heard of her but have heard of Fred Astaire. That was his main dancing partner and they were in a bunch of movies together.

Strangely I learned who he was in the early 1990s because of a joke name a boss had in Super Castlevania.  I didn't get the reference but my knew who he was.

[Henry]

Four of Robert Redford's best moments as Roy Hobbs stand out to me.

<snipped>

Striking out the Whammer before a fan shoots him in a Chicago hotel room:

Knocking the cover off the ball in his first Knights game:

Smashing the Wrigley Field clock:

And, of course, winning the NL pennant with the light-breaking walkoff home run:

Being a Red Sox fan, it makes sense that he patterned Hobbs after Ted Williams, who was a left-handed batter/thrower and wore the number 9.

I wonder if Bernard Malamud (the author of the book) intended that.  (The book has a very different ending.)

My senior year in high school, my English teacher took the day off, and left us The Natural to watch.  The three of us there (it was a senior cut day) fast-forwarded between the baseball scenes, but we didn't get to the end.

I will say, the movie does do a great job of encapsulating most of the book.

Even at 14 years old, I knew that the Wrigley Field portrayed in the film is not the same as the real thing. For one, the clock is to the side of the scoreboard instead of at the top. What I didn't know at the time was that most of the scenes were shot in Buffalo, NY. I guess those who read the book hated the ending (Hobbs strikes out to end the season, and the Knights lose to the Pirates in the playoff game) and demanded that the film get the opposite, and Malamud gave his approval to show the alternate ending, as he wasn't even a baseball fan when he wrote the book.

As for the real 1939 season, neither the Giants (who were replaced by the Knights in the film) nor Pirates were ever in contention for the pennant; the former finished fifth at 77-74, while the latter went 68-85, which was one spot below. The Reds won the NL pennant by 4 1/2 games over the Cardinals.

[CoreySamson]

You bolded Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen. Have you seen the Lord of the Rings movies? Bloom played Legolas and Mortensen played Aragorn. (Recognizing that just because you saw a movie doesn't mean you know the names, as I mentioned earlier in reference to Platoon.)

I never watched them. Not a big movie guy.

[JayhawkCO]

You bolded Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen. Have you seen the Lord of the Rings movies? Bloom played Legolas and Mortensen played Aragorn. (Recognizing that just because you saw a movie doesn't mean you know the names, as I mentioned earlier in reference to Platoon.)

I never watched them. Not a big movie guy.

Pirates of the Caribbean?

[DTComposer]

New assignment/watch list:

Popeye (1980), The World According to Garp (1982), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), Hook (1991), Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), Jack (1996), Flubber (1997), Good Will Hunting (1997), Patch Adams (1998), One Hour Photo (2002), Robots (2005), Night at the Museum (2006), Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009), Old Dogs (2009), The Butler (2013), Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014).

And heck, might as well binge watch the series Mork & Mindy (1978-1982).

For a Cliff's Notes version, just Good Morning, Vietnam; Dead Poets Society; Hook; and Good Will Hunting would suffice.

Extra credit: one of his HBO comedy specials

You guys forgot Awakenings.

Underrated movie. Fun(?) fact: I met Robin Williams' mother at the Northern California premiere of Awakenings. Super sweet, incredibly proud of her son.

[SEWIGuy]

Four of Robert Redford's best moments as Roy Hobbs stand out to me.

<snipped>

Striking out the Whammer before a fan shoots him in a Chicago hotel room:

Knocking the cover off the ball in his first Knights game:

Smashing the Wrigley Field clock:

And, of course, winning the NL pennant with the light-breaking walkoff home run:

Being a Red Sox fan, it makes sense that he patterned Hobbs after Ted Williams, who was a left-handed batter/thrower and wore the number 9.

I wonder if Bernard Malamud (the author of the book) intended that.  (The book has a very different ending.)

My senior year in high school, my English teacher took the day off, and left us The Natural to watch.  The three of us there (it was a senior cut day) fast-forwarded between the baseball scenes, but we didn't get to the end.

I will say, the movie does do a great job of encapsulating most of the book.

Even at 14 years old, I knew that the Wrigley Field portrayed in the film is not the same as the real thing. For one, the clock is to the side of the scoreboard instead of at the top. What I didn't know at the time was that most of the scenes were shot in Buffalo, NY. I guess those who read the book hated the ending (Hobbs strikes out to end the season, and the Knights lose to the Pirates in the playoff game) and demanded that the film get the opposite, and Malamud gave his approval to show the alternate ending, as he wasn't even a baseball fan when he wrote the book.

As for the real 1939 season, neither the Giants (who were replaced by the Knights in the film) nor Pirates were ever in contention for the pennant; the former finished fifth at 77-74, while the latter went 68-85, which was one spot below. The Reds won the NL pennant by 4 1/2 games over the Cardinals.

Also the eventual girlfriend in the book is not his high school sweetheart as in the movie. It was just a random woman.

[kphoger]

(Recognizing that just because you saw a movie doesn't mean you know the names ...)

This is the key to 80% of the issue here.

I've watched a lot of movies.  But that doesn't mean I know or care who the actors and actresses are, let alone the directors.  There's a good chance I'll recognize an actor in one movie from another one that I've seen, but that doesn't mean I know his/her name or care to look it up.

To me, [kphoger does some googling to find out his actual name] Christopher Lee is just "the actor who played Saruman".  Did I recognize him in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?  Sure, of course I did, but then he just became "the actor who played Saruman and Willie Wonka's dad".  There are a few actors and actresses whose names I actually know, but not many.

It's the same with Robert Redford.  Yes, I saw Sneakers years ago.  But there was zero chance that, if you'd asked me, I could have told you Robert Redford starred in that movie.

Likewise, I see that Ben Kingsley also starred in Sneakers.  I just watched Schindler's List with my wife and eldest son a couple of weeks ago, and I see now that Kingsley played Itzhak Stern in that movie.  But I couldn't have told you the actor's name before right now, because I didn't know and didn't care to know.  Also, I'll forget his name in within five minutes of typing this.

So, understand this:  We might very well be interested to know when someone dies.  But that doesn't necessarily mean we'll recognize that person by name.  Tell us who they are.  Otherwise, it'll just look like an R.I.P. thread about some random person we've never heard of and we'll skip right over the thread.

[1995hoo]

Heh, whereas if I hear Ben Kingsley's name, I think of him as Gandhi (for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor; the film won for Best Picture).

[Max Rockatansky]

Ben Kingsley was probably the most unexpected actor I've seen pop up in Marvel movies.

[formulanone]

Taking a crack at the big list...

I've heard of maybe 50% of them; if you said one of their names, I'd think "oh, the actor/actress?". For the first/last 2-3 decades' of lists, I'd probably shrug at almost all of them. I don't spend much time in the movies or streaming as the years go on.

Could name one or two movies for about one-quarter of them. Mostly in the 70s-90s range with a few exceptions before that. And as the bigger names dwindle (for whatever nonsense reason) they get replaced with new faces and talents and I don't keep up with that.

Probably couldn't pick more than a dozen or so of them out of a police lineup. In that case, Robert Redford would have been one of them; I remember the Natural because we rented it shortly after we bought a VCR, so it was one of the few movies I'd seen twice (wow! the novelty of rewinding!). And my wife really wanted to see The Horse Whisperer so I went along with her.

I've watched a lot of movies.  But that doesn't mean I know or care who the actors and actresses are, let alone the directors.  There's a good chance I'll recognize an actor in one movie from another one that I've seen, but that doesn't mean I know his/her name or care to look it up.

I've never concerned myself with their lives when away from the screen and I'm just not interested in that world. If one thinks my last qualifier was narrow, it's even less for producers and directors...I just don't care. Is it fair to say I find much of it a disposable medium and the information surrounding it trivial?

On the other hand, there's something about unexpectedly seeing one actor/actress in one role and suddenly detecting or questioning whether they're that same one several years later. Especially if the roles aren't anything alike. ("Hey, was that the guy who played the fishmonger and then the roustabout in the movie about the library? Wait, I think she was also the that character in that old legal drama with the milkmaid and the grizzled space cadet!")

[Molandfreak]

I would play the game but I don't know how much I'm supposed to know about them for them to count. A few I think I've seen something they were in. Some of them scan as "yeah, there's probably a person by that name". A few of them are actually street names. I'm fairly sure "Chadwick Boseman" is something somebody made up whenever they needed a fake name really fast and that's not actually a real person.

This, and does it count if we only know them from a performance decades after their peak? William Holden is a name I know from The Towering Inferno (1974), but I couldn't name anything else he was in off the top of my head.

[kphoger]

Of those, I recognized around 45 to 50 of them as actors.  But I could only match a face to a name for fewer than half of those 45 to 50.

[1995hoo]

Ben Kingsley was probably the most unexpected actor I've seen pop up in Marvel movies.

He recently co-starred in The Thursday Murder Club (Netflix release) alongside Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan. Not normally something I would have seen, but my wife wanted to watch it and I'll concede it was entertaining.