It’s a significant year for losses in the movie camps, o my readership, and long on the list is Sydney Pollack. Director of movies like Out of Africa and Tootsie, Pollack’s career was at its height in the seventies and eighties. Though it wasn’t all over when Reagan left the White House–his final on-screen appearance was in the very recent film Made of Honor, where he played Patrick Dempsey’s frequently-married father.

Pollack was seventy-three.

I’ll level with you here, folks….I haven’t seen very many Sydney Pollack works. Tootsie, Out of Africa, Made of Honor…these aren’t exactly my cup of tea. But you know what? A lot of people really liked his work, and that means that out there somewhere, maybe reading this right now, are a whole bunch of people who really notice the loss.

That’s who this one’s for…not for the ones who’ve never heard of Sydney Pollack, not the ones who think Dustin Hoffman is some kind of freaking egomaniac who thinks he’s somehow above it all because he was one of the first cinematic crossdressers (get in line behind Ed Wood there, chummer),. but for the people who are genuinely feeling a sense of loss at the knowledge that one of their favorite filmmakers is now gone.

It’s how I’d feel if George Romero had been the one up there in the RIP headline. And a lot of you would too. So if you know a Pollack fan, offer a note of commiseration because there but for the grace of God go we.

And in honor of the man and his cinematic legacy, why not play a round of Michael Clayton trivia on Kwanzoo, which he executive produced. Not the trivia, of course, but rather the movie.

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