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I'd like to also acknowledge Bobby Deerfield, as it's simply excellent and underseen and has only recently received a decent DVD release. I admire the hell out of They Shoot Horses as well.

Wow. I just submitted my 1970s list to the Lists Project and had done some rearranging to slip Jeremiah Johnson in under the wire--I could never get the Crow burial ground scene out of my head when I was a kid--scared me to death when I saw it in the theater. The film still holds up too. And then I saw this news. He was a solid director and a fine actor. He's not considered an auteur by any means, but I would take a boatload of Pollacks over what Hollywood eventually became after his peak years.

I know I'm in the minority here, but I love The Firm the best from his movies (not that I've seen them all!). It's certainly my favorite Tom Cruise film/performance, ahead of Magnolia in that regard... And Tootsie was great, too. It's a shame his commentary from the laserdisc hasn't been ported over...

exte wrote:It's a shame his commentary from the laserdisc hasn't been ported over...

I bet it will be now.

BBC TV news this morning said that Pollack's passing marks the end of an era of great Hollywood directors. I'm still scratching my head over that one.

Antoine Doinel wrote:Sad news about Pollack. Of course he'll be missed as an actor and director, but he also threw his name into films as a producer or executive producer throughout the past ten or fifteen years into a wide slate of strong work by some great talent.

Indeed - and, rather spookily, one of his most important protégés, Anthony Minghella, also died recently (and even more unexpectedly early than did Pollack).

A real shame - I wasn't a big fan of some of his later films from Tootsie on but I'd certainly make a case for The Interpreter being an extremely good engaging thriller, if not exactly one that broke any new ground (except in getting access to the UN).

But as well as the directing and acting he produced or exec. produced some of the more interesting and ambitious recent films from Minghella's later films as MichaelB mentioned (is there any interview about Pollack's relationship with Minghella? It must have been difficult to have to deal with his successor in some ways passing before he did) to The Quiet American and Heaven.

I always enjoyed Pollack's appearances on WILL & GRACE. He was pretty hysterical as Will's father. As for his movies, THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? ranks as one of the more wonderfully grueling films I have ever seen. It kind of scared me as a child watching those people dance themselves into madness. I get chills just thinking about it. I LOVE the scene in THE WAY WE WERE when Redford tells Streisand they are not going to make it. It was my template for many a break-up.

As these things go this blow had been cushioned a few months. Shortly after I had seen MICHAEL CLAYTON someone told me he had terminal cancer. If his later directorial efforts lacked the subtlety of his 70/80's work I feel like his acting filled in those gaps. EYES WIDE SHUT and MICHEAL CLAYTON are two highly memorable turns as the morally corrupt voice of reason.

I'll always remember Pollack most fondly as the director of Three Days of the Condor, the absolute best of the paranoid thrillers from the 70s in my opinion, and a film which looks more and more prescient with every wretched day of the Bush administration.

Pollack is a strange figure in Hollywood history. He never wrote a script, seems to have had no aesthetic preferences, didn't seem to explore similar themes and directed less film than one suspects given his lengthy career. But for all that, he directed many now famous and Oscar-winning films and remained in high regard in the industry due to being an experienced producer.

I have a fondness for Jeremiah Johnson (1972) which I feel is one of the great 'wilderness' films. A new special edition was said to be on the way. I hope so.

According to Breaking News on CNN:

Harvey Korman.

EDIT: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/ ... TE=DEFAULT

Let's try this again:

RIP, Hedley Lamarr.

"I never liked her. She didn't bathe."

"Your majesty, you look like the piss boy!"

He was great in an episode of Married...With Children where he played Peg's father, I believe.

I think that was Tim Conway

Blah, right again Domino.

They were both on Carol Burnett though, so it was an easy mistake to make for those not familiar with Conway's seminal Dorf character

A nice tribute to Sydney Pollack by Dave Kehr. I was particularly interested by this comment:

One of his formative experiences had been working as Burt Lancaster’s “assistant” on “The Leopard” — a job that, according to Sydney, mainly consisted of being a native speaker of English, so Lancaster would have someone to talk to — and he could recall Visconti’s working methods with great precision.

As I write Universal Studios is ablaze (again!) and according to an interview with the fire marshall several of the oldest stages, the New York street, New England street and Brownstone Row are completely destroyed. An unidentified voice-over mentioned that the film storage complex is in imminent danger (didn't Big-U move this to underground space back east with the other majors years ago? Guess not!!?) but never fear, the studio tour will remain on schedule! Big-U never forgets its primary responsibilities.

AP said 40,000 reels were destroyed in the fire.

The Guardian wrote:NBC Universal President and Chief Operating Officer Ron Meyer says 40,000 to 50,000 videos and reels were damaged in the video vault, but there are duplicates in a different location.

Phew.

but the Back to the Future courthouse square set has been destroyed!

Some detritus from BttF was destroyed???? I'm going to kill myself.

Turner Classic Movies is airing a 4-movie marathon in honor of Sydney Pollack's passing tomorrow.

codam wrote:

The Guardian wrote:NBC Universal President and Chief Operating Officer Ron Meyer says 40,000 to 50,000 videos and reels were damaged in the video vault, but there are duplicates in a different location.

Phew.

but the Back to the Future courthouse square set has been destroyed!

I wonder exactly how many movies used the clock-tower set. I know it's used prominently in the opening of Sneakers, and more so in Bruce Almighty.