No politics today, just my own brief salute to Sydney Pollack, 1934-2008, R.I.P. I thought he made a few good movies, a few overrated movies (I think I'm in the small minority on They Shoot Horses, Don't They?), and one genuine classic. I laughed out loud at Tootsie more often and more emphatically than at any other movie I've seen since. Definitely one of my top 30 of all time (out of just over 2,200). The scene between Pollack himself as agent George Fields and Dustin Hoffman as struggling actor Michael Dorsey bickering about Michael's career up to that point, mostly fighting with directors and playing vegetables on stage (not brain dead humans, mind you, but actual tomatoes, cucumbers and “an endive salad that knocked the critics on their ass!”), gives us five of the funniest minutes of dialogue ever filmed.
Most of all, though, I salute him for the person he was. Obviously everyone talks favorably about someone right after they die, and colleagues such as Sally Field, Robert Redford and Tom Cruise didn't hesitate to add their kind words. I haven't known many people personally who worked with Pollack, but the small handful who did offered equal, if not greater, praise for the decent, humane person they met. And that, to me, is the best, and perhaps only valid, reason to celebrate a person's life, regardless of their accomplishments.
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