Sydney Pollack | WatchedThis
Sydney Pollack
Directing
Biography
Sydney Irwin Pollack (July 1, 1934 – May 26, 2008) was an American film director, producer, and actor. Pollack is known for directing commercially and critically acclaimed studio films. During his forty-year career, he received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for three Golden Globe Awards and six BAFTA Awards. Pollack won the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for Out of Africa (1985). He was also nominated for Academy Awards for Best Director for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) and Tootsie (1982). Pollack's other notable films include Jeremiah Johnson (1972), The Way We Were (1973), The Yakuza (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), Absence of Malice (1981), The Firm (1993), and Sabrina (1995). Pollack produced and acted in Michael Clayton (2007), and he produced numerous films including The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), Sense and Sensibility (1995), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Iris (2001), Cold Mountain (2003) and The Reader (2008). Pollack acted in Robert Altman's The Player (1992), Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives (1993), and Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Description above from the Wikipedia article Sydney Pollack, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Filmography Movies
Acting
Eyes Wide Shut
After Dr. Bill Harford's wife, Alice, admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met, Bill becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter. He discovers an underground sexual group and attends one of their meetings -- and quickly discovers that he is in over his head.
For Whom the Bell Tolls
During the Spanish Civil War, an American allied with the Republicans finds romance during a desperate mission to blow up a strategically important bridge.
Changing Lanes
A rush-hour fender-bender on New York City's crowded FDR Drive, under most circumstances, wouldn't set off a chain reaction that could decimate two people's lives. But on this day, at this time, a minor collision will turn two complete strangers into vicious adversaries. Their means of destroying each other might be different, but their goals, ultimately, will be the same: Each will systematically try to dismantle the other's life in a reckless effort to reclaim something he has lost.
Avenue Montaigne
A young woman arrives in Paris where she finds a job as a waitress in bar next on Avenue Montaigne that caters to the surrounding theaters and the wealthy inhabitants of the area. She will meet a pianist, a famous actress and a great art collector, and become acquainted with the "luxurious" world her grandmother has told her about since her childhood.
The Player
A Hollywood studio executive is being sent death threats by a writer whose script he rejected - but which one?
Made of Honor
Tom and Hannah have been platonic friends for 10 years. He's a serial dater, while she wants marriage but hasn't found Mr. Right. Just as Tom is starting to think that he is relationship material after all, Hannah gets engaged. When she asks Tom to be her 'maid' of honor, he reluctantly agrees just so he can attempt to stop the wedding and woo her.
Michael Clayton
A law firm brings in its "fixer" to remedy the situation after a lawyer has a breakdown while representing a chemical company that he knows is guilty in a multi-billion dollar class action suit.
War Hunt
Dispatched to the front lines during the Korean War, an idealistic American soldier discovers the horrors of combat and comes at odds with a psychopathic member of his platoon.
A Civil Action
Jan Schlickmann is a cynical lawyer who goes out to 'get rid of' a case, only to find out it is potentially worth millions. The case becomes his obsession, to the extent that he is willing to give up everything—including his career and his clients' goals—in order to continue the case against all odds.
Random Hearts
After losing their spouses in a plane crash, an internal affairs cop and a congresswoman find each other's keys in each other's loved ones' possessions and discover that the two were having an affair.
Production
The Interpreter
After Silvia Broome, an interpreter at United Nations headquarters, overhears plans of an assassination, an American Secret Service agent is sent to investigate.
The Interpreter
After Silvia Broome, an interpreter at United Nations headquarters, overhears plans of an assassination, an American Secret Service agent is sent to investigate.
Catch a Fire
The true story of anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, and particularly the life of Patrick Chamusso, a timid foreman at Secunda CTL, the largest synthetic fuel plant in the world. Patrick is wrongly accused, imprisoned and tortured for an attempt to bomb the plant, with the injustice transforming the apolitical worker into a radicalised insurgent, who then carries out his own successful sabotage mission.
Out of Africa
Tells the life story of Danish author Karen Blixen, who at the beginning of the 20th century moved to Africa to build a new life for herself. The film is based on her 1937 autobiographical novel.
Out of Africa
Tells the life story of Danish author Karen Blixen, who at the beginning of the 20th century moved to Africa to build a new life for herself. The film is based on her 1937 autobiographical novel.
Cold Mountain
In this classic story of love and devotion set against the backdrop of the American Civil War, a wounded Confederate soldier named W.P. Inman deserts his unit and travels across the South, aiming to return to his young wife, Ada, who he left behind to tend their farm. As Inman makes his perilous journey home, Ada struggles to keep their home intact with the assistance of Ruby, a mysterious drifter sent to help her by a kindly neighbor.
The Electric Horseman
A former champion rodeo rider is reduced to using his saddle skills to promote a breakfast cereal in a gaudy Las Vegas show. When he's asked to perform with a $12 million horse, he discovers it is being doped to remain docile. He flees into the desert astride the beast in an act of defiance. A story-hungry female reporter gives chase.
A Private Matter
The true story of Romper Room host "Miss Sherri" Finkbine, who, after the devastating effects of thalidomide were discovered in the early 1960s, sparked a firestorm of controversy with her determination to obtain an abortion.
Michael Clayton
A law firm brings in its "fixer" to remedy the situation after a lawyer has a breakdown while representing a chemical company that he knows is guilty in a multi-billion dollar class action suit.
Sense and Sensibility
The Dashwood sisters, sensible Elinor and passionate Marianne, learn that their prospects of marriage seem doomed by their family's sudden loss of fortune. After Henry Dashwood dies unexpectedly, his estate must pass on by law to his son. These circumstances leave Mr. Dashwood's wife and daughters without a home and with barely enough money to live on. As Elinor and Marianne struggle to find romantic fulfillment in a society obsessed with financial and social status, they must learn to mix sense with sensibility in their dealings with both money and men.
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