"All The Presidents Men" (1976) Watch along
Added 2024-06-29 14:30:01 +0000 UTCWhat an incredible film! And I don’t even know anything about politics! I just tried hard to remember names! 😂😂😂
I left it all in the outro!
Love you all!
Xx
Ames
Comments
CAUTION: LONG POST! I'm typing this as I'm watching the movie, as I know you're not old enough to know much about it. Back then was certainly a different time and culture. In 1976, when the movie was made, the backgrounds wouldn't have been to hard to replicate, because it was still that way. When I was an editor, I always had a red pen. What a memory that reminded me of! Are you old enough to remember phone books and phone booths? If you're interested, here's the lowdown on Deep Throat (No, not Linda Lovelace!): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Throat_(Watergate). ROLF the secretary in FL was on Alice (a 70s and 80s sitcom, often referred to as Mel's Diner. She was famous for saying, "Well eat my grits!" I'm waiting to see if they mention Bebe Rebozo, another "associate" of Nixon in the Watergate scandal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebe_Rebozo Yeah, we used to smoke everywhere. Those were the days. The red lady that ended working at Abbots was Mrs. Carlson on WKRP. After the Mitchell story broke, they showed VP Agnew. He was also a crook. In 1973, Agnew was investigated by the United States Attorney for the District of Maryland on suspicion of criminal conspiracy, bribery, extortion, and tax fraud. Agnew took kickbacks from contractors during his time as Baltimore county executive and governor of Maryland. He ended up resigning and Speak of the House Gerald Ford filled his spot. That's how Ford got to be president after Nixon resigned. Back then, cigarettes were 35 to 50 cents/pack. It's awful what they cost now. When Deep Throat disappeared in the garage that one time, I had a flashback to the Holy Grail! Brave Sir Deep Throat ran away. Bravely ran away away..... I watch to many genres of movies! Nixon was inaugurated in 1972 and resigned in 1974. In between, he made the, "Well, I'm not a crook" speech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh163n1lJ4M There's so much more to this story, the special prosecutor, the trials, etc. It was a dark time in the US. An interesting side note to this is that during the Watergate Hearings, one of the lawyers was Fred Thompson who went on to become an actor (The carrier admiral in Red October), who went on to become my US Senator from Tennessee. This was a great movie for it's time (although I've never cared for Dustin Hoffman). I know it was dramatized and Hollywood-ized, but it was pretty close to accurate!If you're interested in this kind of political drama, I recommend you see "The Post" (2017) with Meyrl Streep and Tom Hanks about how the Washington Post competed to beat the NY Times to be first to break the story about The Pentagon Papers and how the US was fabricating lies and deceiving the public about the war in Viet Nam. Sorry about the length. If you want shorter comments, just say so and I'll try to give you the condensed version from now on.
Greg in East TN
2025-01-18 09:11:42 +0000 UTCWell said! It’s a great movie !
Amalia Wolf
2024-11-02 05:26:45 +0000 UTCWell, I just sent in my ballot so I thought I'd watch this one while I still live in a (more-or-less) democratic society with a (more-or-less) free press. I remember rushing home from high school in 1973 to watch the Watergate hearings on tv. I was totally hooked; fascinated to watch these men admitting to being complicit in criminal conduct. What I love most about this movie is that it shows how messy the search for truth can be. And how important it is to hold everyone accountable for their actions, especially the powerful.
James Rogers
2024-11-02 03:41:47 +0000 UTCsaid the guy who probably eats right wing propaganda each and every day, and then chases it down with garbage conspiracy theories. Nixon resigned, deal with it.
Toc
2024-07-04 00:33:06 +0000 UTCWhat!!!!!!! Wow
Amalia Wolf
2024-07-01 02:03:00 +0000 UTCThis is one my favourite movies of all time. I've watched it more times than I can count and read so many book on Watergate. I find it to be so fascinating. A couple fun facts about Jason Robards (who plays easily my favourite part in this film) He is one of only 24 people ever to win the "triple crown of acting", that being an Academy award, a Tony award, and an Emmy. He was also a radioman in the US Navy during World War 2 and served on the heavy cruiser USS Northampton which was torpedoed and sunk during the Battle of Tassafaronga (part of the Battle of Guadalcanal, shout out The Pacific). Jason ended up treading water in the ocean for hours until finally being rescued by an American destroyer the next morning. He was also on a ship later on in the war that was struck by a Japanese kamikaze. Quite the life Mr Robards lived.
JP11
2024-06-30 23:07:30 +0000 UTCA more recent movie that features The Washington Post is: "THE POST" (2017) (Tom Hanks). Oscar nominee for Best Picture. Meryl Streep nominated for Oscar for Best Actress. Other newspaper movies I like: *SPOTLIGHT (2015) [Metacritic=93%, IMDb=8.1, RT=97%] featuring The Boston Globe. -Nominated for 6 Oscars, won 2 including winning Oscar for Best Picture -Rachel McAdams (nominated for Oscar for Best Actress) is not just a pretty face, but a damn good actor. *SHE SAID (2022) (Carey Mulligan) featuring the NYT. Inspirational in that relatively young journalists can have impact.
Clay F
2024-06-30 20:02:00 +0000 UTC❤️❤️❤️
Amalia Wolf
2024-06-30 16:23:11 +0000 UTCWhoa love these fun facts
Amalia Wolf
2024-06-30 16:22:00 +0000 UTCI must have really been focused 😂😂😂😂😂
Amalia Wolf
2024-06-30 16:20:03 +0000 UTCWhat a crazy thing about Bradlee and Robards! It's like getting "notes" on your real-life personality (and actually taking them to heart!) I really need to watch more Pakula. I haven't even seen Sophie's Choice (it's such a big title that it was always kind of intimidating).
JM63
2024-06-30 15:32:43 +0000 UTCThere's one thing about this film that really stands out to me and justifies its inclusion on the AFI 100 list -- visual reinforcement of story beats. Four scenes in particular highlight this technique: 1. The spectacular six-minute unbroken take of Woodward's phone calls with Kenneth Dahlberg, Clark Macgregor at CREEP, and Bernstein about the $25,000 check. This continuous take isn't a stunt, it's a brilliant way to allow the audience to see, in real time, Woodward using his mind and his questions to connect the Watergate burglars to Maurice Stans, Nixon's re-election finance chairman. The gradual zoom-in is another brilliant choice, as we can see the outside world literally disappearing as Woodward relentlessly pursues this lead. 2. The slow zoom-out to a helicopter shot of the city as Woodward & Bernstein painstakingly go through the list of CREEP members. Really drives home the sense of trying to find a "needle in a haystack", i.e. the right person to supply the next piece of info to drive the investigation forward. 3. Woodward's second-to-last meeting with Deep Throat, when DT suddenly disappears. Ames actually says, "Now you know this goes all the way to the top" at the EXACT MOMENT Woodward is climbing the steps of the parking garage in a wide shot 🤓 Coincidence? I don't think so, Pakula knew exactly what he was doing. 4. Finally, the last shot of Nixon celebrating his inauguration in the foreground with Woodward and Bernstein banging away on their typewriters in the background. Great juxtaposition to show that Nixon's second term is over just as it's getting started. What a film! Took me a long time to discover it, but looking forward to many re-watches to pick up more details. A true masterpiece.
JM63
2024-06-30 15:07:32 +0000 UTCGreat and fun reaction! I love history so I don't know how it escaped me, but this was a first time watch and I was blown away. The performances were fantastic, of course: Redford, Hoffman, Three Angry Men (Warden, Balsam & Robards). But to me the star was the direction of Alan J. Pakula. I think a case can be made that the 70s is the peak of American cinema. It combines the best of the modern era (gritty/realistic dialogue & subject matter, naturalistic acting, technical mastery of camera movement & sound design) with the best of the classic era -- heavy use of subtext & implication, carefully thought-out shot composition, leisurely editing, and long average shot length (which allows viewers to be active participants rather than being dragged along for the ride by excessive cutting and close-ups). (SPOILER WARNING)
JM63
2024-06-30 15:07:14 +0000 UTCIt was fun watching All the President's Men again with you, Ames! Lots of names to keep track of in this one but I thought you did a great job keeping up and I really enjoyed your reaction!! What a story!! SPOILERS Redford and Hoffman are so good as Woodward and Bernstein! Their "good cop - bad cop" approach to interviewing and innovative ways of confirming their sources was so fun to watch! "I'm going to count to 10...". "Would you have a problem if we printed the following story?" So creative!! It was great seeing Martin Balsam and Jack Warden again after "12 Angry Men", but Jason Robards as Ben Bradlee was amazing!! He stole every scene he was in! Such great acting from Redford and Hoffman of course!! The sound design was so interesting and added so must tension to the scenes, especially when Woodward was meeting with Deep Throat in the parking structure! And the lighting and shadow work in those scenes was masterfully done. That scene where the car squeals and speeds away, and Woodward turns around and Deep Throat is gone... that creeped me out! So cool!
John Courtright
2024-06-30 06:56:13 +0000 UTCI love newspaper movies and this is one of the best. Hoffman and Redford are awesome in this. I'm no expert, but I think deep throat couldn't just tell everything right off the bat, because it couldn't be traced back to him. So they had to find their own path and sources to corroborate their articles. Was deep throat committing treason? Fun facts I remember reading about when I first watched: - The guard discovering the burglars was the real guard. He played himself in the movie. - The newsroom was a set. To achieve the grand scale they made the desks smaller the further back they were. The extra's were chosen on height to sell the effect. - Your jump scare reaction was justified as the key strikes in the opening scene were amplified by gunshot sounds. Making the statement that words were the weapons in this movie.
Pickupthepieces76
2024-06-30 03:50:47 +0000 UTCFun Fact: Ben Bradlee and his wife bought the Grey Gardens Hamptons home in1977 for $220,000 from the Beales Daughter and restored it for years to its former glory..
RFKsrFan
2024-06-30 02:55:26 +0000 UTCA big deal to tie Haldeman (Nixon's Chief of Staff and right-hand man) to the slush fund b/c Haldeman was the most powerful person (especially on domestic affairs) in The White House after Nixon. Haldeman ran The White House. Ben Bradlee (1921-2014) was editor (1965-1991) of The Washington Post (WaPo). He became a public figure when the WaPo joined The NYT in publishing the Pentagon Papers. Contemporaneous with that, his public presence was solidified when he gave the go-ahead for WaPo's extensive coverage of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s. He was born in Boston and went to Harvard. He served in the navy in WWII in the Pacific. As a reporter in the 1950s, Bradlee became close friends with then-senator John F. Kennedy, who had graduated from Harvard two years before Bradlee, and lived nearby. In recognition of his work as editor of the WaPo, Bradlee won the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism in 1998. Bradlee was named as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2013.
Clay F
2024-06-30 02:25:47 +0000 UTCGreat reaction! Though it happened before I was born, I’m a lifelong Watergate junkie, so ATPM, both book and film, are very special to me. This is the third in director (the now, somehow underrated master) Alan J Pakula’s unofficial “Paranoia Trilogy” along with Klute (1970) and The Parallax View (1974), both of which are also excellent, but I think ATPM is probably the most impressive achievement. A lot of the credit for how well this works is due to William Goldman’s adaptation of the book, which must have been fiendishly tricky. Along with Paddy Chayefsky (and possibly Robert Towne, who also wrote The Parallax View, coincidentally) Goldman is arguably the greatest screenwriter of the second half of the twentieth century and his description of working on this movie in his seminal book, Adventures in the Screen Trade is a very amusing must read for movie fans. Let’s just say, he’s not a big Robert Redford fan. And also as someone who loves character actors more than actual movie stars, this movie’s a home run. Holbrook, Balsam, the incomparable Jack Warden and Robards is so charismatic as Ben Bradlee that the real Bradlee is reported to have subsequently begun emulating little tics Robards brought to the role that Bradlee had never used himself before. In other words, Robards was so good, the legendary figure he portrayed started ripping him off! BTW, as a Watergate nut, “Dick” (1999) is fantastic! It’s so sneaky smart that even if you don’t know much about that time it works as a silly, fun comedy, but the more you do know, the funnier and more brilliant it gets. I probably watch it once a year.
VivendoBem
2024-06-30 02:20:52 +0000 UTCNice job Ames. The movie throws many names around, but you picked up the movie damn good. I am no film expert but I am fine with the movie now being in the AFI Top 100 (e.g., for the possible reasons you alluded to) -- yet, I am biased in favor of the movie. Early in the movie, you noted those two actors from 12 Angry Men -- I never thought about that -- but then I recalled such after you pointed it out. I know you appreciated 12 Angry Men very much, rightly so. By the way, I am going to have to rewatch Dick (1999) -- I remember liking that movie. Also, I've heard people compare the appearance of Brad Pitt with a young Robert Redford. I enjoy/feel the cinematography (composition, lighting, etc.) and sound in this movie without always being overtly aware of it like you are. I am not good at seeing detail -- I would make a horrible witness to a crime. Conversely, you are good at. I like that shot of the slow reverse zoom showing Woodward and Bernstein sifting through records at the Library of Congress. I read a characterization of that scene as "the loneliness of Woodward and Bernstein's search for the truth." Frost/Nixon (2008) [Metacritic = 80%, IMDB=7.7, RT=93%] is an excellent movie imo. Based on true story. Directed by Ron Howard. Takes place in 1977 -- 3 years after the Watergate scandal/end of Nixon's presidency. British TV personality David Frost is portrayed by Michael Sheen. Nixon is portrayed by Frank Langella.
Clay F
2024-06-30 02:12:23 +0000 UTCThe movie is good. Just keep in mind that it is political propaganda. It's just a movie.
Steve Maxwell
2024-06-30 01:41:29 +0000 UTCDid they just change the filters in those buildings really often back when smoking was allowed? How did they keep everything from having a tar yellow tint to them? This and Sneakers were my favorite Robert Redford movies. Natural would be too, but I never got too into baseball.
Brian's Dog
2024-06-29 22:10:06 +0000 UTCWow! Very cool!!!
Toc
2024-06-29 21:57:09 +0000 UTC"There's nothing riding on this expect the First Amendment to the Constitution, Freedom of the Press, and possibly the future of our country. Not that any of that matters....but if you two fuck up again I'm going to get mad. Goodnight." - Ben Bradlee
Jeffrey Schmidbauer
2024-06-29 21:30:38 +0000 UTCHey....NOBODY gets all the names, don't worry! As I'm sure you can tell, it's about the reporting! Can't wait to see it!!!! WHAT A WEEK!
Toc
2024-06-29 16:27:01 +0000 UTCGreat movie. My grandmother actually worked at The Washington Post when they made this movie and said Robert Redford would sometimes stop by even after the movie came out if he happened to be in Washington.
Thomas Wetherell
2024-06-29 15:55:01 +0000 UTCI loved Jason Robards as Ben Bradlee.
Jeffrey Schmidbauer
2024-06-29 15:41:14 +0000 UTCWow!!!
Amalia Wolf
2024-06-29 15:11:21 +0000 UTCWhere do you start with this film!? It’s one many Cinephiles return to again and again because it never gets old. The real hero behind this production is Redford who not only got it financed but was the driving force from the very beginning to get it made. Back then he could green light just about any project with his name attached (Brad Pitt same power today). What you don’t know Ames is the firestorm this movie set off for decades. WHO was “DEEPTHROAT”?? this was speculated on by experts for decades until it was revealed to be an FBI agent who came clean just before his death. To their credit (Woodward/Bernstein) never revealed his identity. It’s a great trip through American history and shows how through determination and luck, as well as an incredible Editor (wonderfully played by the always stellar Jason Robards) how two relatively unknown journalists broke open the biggest story in American politics that brought down an entire president. Journalism Majors spiked 340% in the next 10 years due to this story….
RFKsrFan
2024-06-29 14:43:40 +0000 UTC
