{"id":116,"date":"2008-05-27T08:39:36","date_gmt":"2008-05-27T16:39:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rayivey.com\/wordpress\/?p=116"},"modified":"2009-01-06T15:18:36","modified_gmt":"2009-01-06T23:18:36","slug":"sidney-pollack-1934-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rayivey.com\/wordpress\/sidney-pollack-1934-2008\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>

Sidney Pollack was one of the most succesful mainstream film directors of the last forty years.\u00a0 In fact, his nickname for himself was “Mr. Mainstream.”<\/p>\n

His specialty was making big movies with big stars.\u00a0 He had an ability to work well with the biggest stars, and did so successfully with the likes of Barbra Streisand, Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Nicole Kidman, Anne Bancroft, Sidney Poitier, Al Pacino, Sally Field, Paul Newman, \u00a0Dustin Hoffman, and Jane Fonda.<\/p>\n

He began his career as an actor at the Actors Studio, where he also eventually taught.\u00a0 After brief acting stints, he began directing television and then films.<\/p>\n

His favorite actor to work with was his old acting buddy Robert Redford, and he directed him in seven films.<\/p>\n

His most famous movies are probably The Way We Were<\/strong><\/em>, Tootsie<\/strong><\/em> and Out of Africa<\/strong><\/em>, \u00a0for which he won his only Academy Award as director.<\/p>\n

I love Tootsie<\/em><\/strong>, but easily my favorite movie of his is Three Days of the Condor<\/em><\/strong>, a razor-sharp and pitch-perfect cold war thriller.\u00a0 Robert Redford stars as a member of\u00a0a team of bookworms who scour all printed material published anywhere in the world. looking for key phrases or subjects the CIA might be interested in.<\/p>\n

One day while he’s out picking up lunch for his co-workers, a team of assassins (led by the great Max von Sydow) calmly murders his entire team with a silenced machine gun.\u00a0 Redford then goes underground and tries to figure out what the hell is going on, and how can safely “come back in.”<\/p>\n

Max von Sydow gives one of the greatest performances ever in a spectacularly written role as a thoughtful, civilized, and very professional international hit man.\u00a0 There’s a moment near the end of the film, when he offers Redford a gun, that is one of my all-time favorite moments in the movies.<\/p>\n

Let’s also not forget how active and successful Pollack was as an actor, ever since Dustin Hoffman bullied him into playing the agent in Tootsie<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I begged you to get therapy, ” he says, stricken, after being ambushed by a cross-dressed Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 “You’re insane!’<\/p>\n

“No!\u00a0 I’m employed!”\u00a0 gushes Hoffman.<\/p>\n

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Average Rating: 4.5<\/span> out of 5<\/span> based on 165<\/span> user reviews.<\/span><\/div><\/p>

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