Sydney Pollack... Solid

So you wanna direct movies? You know who directed movies? Sydney Pollack. You know what happened to him? He's dead!!!!

Fan's of Freaks and Geeks will know what I talkin(sic) about, everybody else, what are you waiting for? That's a great show and it's on DVD, and there are only 18 episodes so it's not like Buffy the Vampire Slayer where between Buffy and Angel there are 254 episodes... course you should still be watching that too. Hey! I just looked up Tangent in the dictionary guess what it said?

Tangent: Fan's of Freaks and Geeks will know what I talkin(sic) about, everybody else, what are you waiting for? That's a great show and it's on DVD, and there are only 18 episodes so it's not like Buffy the Vampire Slayer where between Buffy and Angel there are 254 episodes... course you should still be watching that too.

Weird huh?

Sorry anyway, God that's sounds really unsympathetic. "Anyway" just talking about an person's death, I mean gee whiz. Anyway ARRGGHHHH!!

Sydney Pollack died Monday, He was what I call a solid director. some people would consider that a slight, I mena it as a compliment. Solid to me means, he's always good. His films show a craftsmans like quality, always solid scripts, and always solid performances. You know... solid. As an actor, which he also was, Solid. He had the gravity to potray someone with authority, he needed to be on the screen only for a few minutes and you sensed intelligence and authority. Gravitas. There's a word that perfectly captures Pollack's screen presence. The first time I remember seeing him on screen was also the first time I'd seen a film he directed, that was Tootsie and I saw it at the Safari 7 theatre in Moorhean MN. (oh yeah that's another weird thing about me I can usually remember where I saw a film and who I was with). The next time I'm concious of him is as an actor in Woody Allen's Husband's and Wives. That is a great performance I can see him telling his younger girlfriend to get in the car, it's a moment that feels so real, you can feel his frustration his embarrassment, his inability to cope with this moment he can't control. As a producer her was also... solid. He's actually one of the very few people that if I see he produced it , it means something to me. I've always felt based on interviews seen and read and comments of actors and directors who have worked with him that he is concerned with quality that he works hard to make sure his projects are... well solid!!

Top 5 performances as an actor:

1. Husbands and Wives
2. Michael Clayton
3. Eye's Wide Shut
4. Tootsie
5. The Interpreter

Top 5 films as director:

1. Tootsie
2. Three Days of the Condor
3. The Firm
4. The Way We Were
5. The Interpreter

Really need to see Jeremiah Johnson, They Shoot Horses Don't They?, The Electric Horseman, Out of Africa, Random Hearts, Absence of Malice, Havana. In truth I've seen half of those but can basically remember that I've seen them but not enough to rank them.