I love this seventies style...

The colors for one thing back in 70s' movies look real not all this teal they have in the early 21st century movies.

I mean, movies like 'The Godfather', ...were critically acclaimed...

That wasn't always the case. As Francis Coppola has said many times, that his films were often critically trounced. The studio fought with him over the family scenes that he filmed for the Corleones, but this made the Godfather better as he used his own Italian background to flesh out the characters. Movies like Taxi Driver had to be fought for, as even in the 1970s, studios did not see the potential in those films before they were made.

"Sadly in the same decade the 'mindless blocksbuster' phenomenon appeared thanx to Spielberg's 'Jaws'. Since then, meaningful and artistic movies = Box Office flops, while meaningless action/adventure flicks = hundreds of millions in profits. "

But consider how even those lesser movies were also made with the same production style. I caught Close Encounters recently and was surprised at how much of that clean, visceral 70s style it exhibited.

Even Star Wars displays that style. Absent are the flashy camera moves and quick cuts that are often used these days.

Television seems to be coming back to that style. Shows like Fargo, Justified, Better Call Saul and their like all have a very dignified yet immediate production style that lets the acting and writing shine.

You forgot the best Redford-starred (and produced) film of all time "Downhill Racer." Just an awesome film with the same magical understated style and amazing skiing location shots circa 1969 from the European circuit. And it was by the same director, Michael Ritchie, maybe the most underrated great director of all time. In the late 1960s and 1970s, he was a true artist on a par with anybody. He slipped off later, but then everybody pretty much did. That zeitgeist back then was much more artist-friendly coming off the whole hippie movement going mainstream and infecting the middle classes and the burbs through so many brilliant musical acts. "Easy Rider" opened up that whole market through its huge success, the middle class "pot-smoker" wanna-be-hippie market that was in full swing by 1970.

If you lived in California at the time, particularly in Los Angeles, all those news men(and it was mainly men) were all recognizable from our night TV news broadcasts, early and late. One named Maury Green stood out to me.

But the movie also showed a slew of real California politicians at the time -- in that scene where they are all seated at a dais where McKay(edited in) speaks. People like Jesse Unruh(who ran for Governor and lost against Ronald Reagan), Assembly Speaker Bob Moretti, State Controller Ken Corey...and even a US Senator of the time, John Tunney(one of the real ones upon whom Bill McKay was based.) All there. And many of them are dead now.

That was the "California local color" element of the movie. It also showcased national figures like Senator Hubert Humphrey and national newsman Howard K. Smith.

Still I think all those real-life California pols gave the California-based "Candidate" its true air of accuracy.