Only Oscar's Best Grouch 2014: Robert Redford

Story from Variety

And so it begins. Those that are nominated continue to express unwavering gratitude towards the Academy for everything they do, have done and will do for ever and ever and ever. Those that aren’t either sink into silence or claim that Academy Awards aren’t actually that important to them anyway. At a Sundance press conference Robert Redford chose the latter.

Sundance was of course the perfect platform to vent about how unnecessary the Oscars are, instead professing his love for independent cinema. Also in the news are rumors of Redford wanting to leave Sundance as it’s allegedly no longer what it was. So what exactly does Mr. Enigma really think?

Referring to his lack of nomination, Redford noted “there’s a lot of campaigning going on and it can be very political. In our case, we suffered from little to no distribution. I don’t know what they were afraid of. They didn’t want to spend money or they were incapable.”

That doesn’t sound like a guy who is “not disturbed by it or upset by it”, rather a bloke that feels pretty bitter about being overlooked. If it mattered so little, why is he making excuses and pointing blame? If it mattered so little why is it even an issue at all and why did anyone do anything wrong? Presumably Lionsgate also are not upset or disturbed by it which is why they apparently didn’t invest in a campaign to begin with.

Michael Fassbender was very outspoken about the Oscars earlier this year, and I don’t see him now fawning over the Academy because they did nominate him.

The point is, Mr. Redford, you either care or you don’t. Shouting you don’t care is like a toddler crying because the thing he said he didn’t want is given to someone else. They want it, and so do you.

Better luck next year.