A tribute to the late Sydney Pollack by Bill Horberg, who worked for him a long time at Mirage, on Anne Thompson‘s site. And here, finally, are those Husbands and Wives clips I was looking for before.

A seemingly new site for The Dark Knight.

Looking to explain coming editorial staff cuts at the L.A. Times, Tribune Co. chief operating officer Randy Michaels yesterday told Variety‘s Cynthia Littleton that “the average journalist in Hartford or Baltimore does over 300 pages a year. [And we have found that] you can eliminate a fair number of people while [not] eliminating very much content. We think we have a way to right-size the papers and significantly reduce our costs.”
I wonder what the average output is for internet columnists? You probably can’t measure it in “pages” (well, maybe) but I’ll bet it beats “over 300 pages a year” all to hell.

“People talk about this grand, epic quality in [David] Lean‘s films, but I love them because they are pure. Clean, simple — even minimalist. He never uses anything he doesn’t need, and, like the match and the sunrise, it encapsulates more than a million words.

“No one else comes close, but it gives me something to aspire to.” — Atonement director Joe Wright writing yesterday (6.5) in the Times Online on the occasion of a British Film Institute tribute.

I wish I could think of something to add to the Clint Eastwood-Spike Lee argument. I do at all. I don’t see why there’s a debate at all because (and I got this straight from my old man, an ex-Marine who fought at Iwo Jima) there were no black solders doing any early-wave fighting during that horrific encounter, so Lee is wrong.
My beef with Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers has never been addressed or answered, to wit: why were the grunts who went for a swim at the finale wearing white underwear when every G.I. in the Pacific theatre wore skivvies, socks and T-shirts colored olive drab?

“Well, you know right now America is in a state of upheaval. But we’ve got this guy out there now who is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up…Barack Obama. He’s redefining what a politician is, so we’llhave to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I’m hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to.√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√Ǭù — Bob Dylan speaking to Times Online‘s Alan Jackson in a 6.6 interview piece.
This is what visionary poet-gods do when they get older. They come down to earth and say sensible things and stand on the side of positive upheavals. Which is fine. Of course, the Dylan of Legend — the one who held mountains in the palm of his hands — would have never endorsed anyone. Not out of apathy or disdain, but because he had bigger fish to fry. Politicians — the brave ones — endorsed him.

The fact that TV commentators are genuinely wondering if Hillary Clinton will say the right things tomorrow (and in the right way) speaks volumes. Her reputation for egocentric ungraciousness is now the stuff of legend.

Clint Eastwood did a little drop-by last night in front of a packed house at Santa Monica’s Aero theatre. The visit followed a screening of Michael Henry Wilson‘s Clint Eastwood: A Life in Film, a tribute doc about aspects of Eastwood’s life and career.

Following last night’s Clint Eastwood visit to Santa Monica’s Aero theatre — Thursday, 6.5.08, 9:40 pm

Wilson’s film has exactly one talking head — Eastwood. The descriptive terms are “intimate,” “straight,” “unfettered” and “revealing.” The other Eastwood doc, Bruce Ricker and Dave Kehr‘s Clint Eastwood: Out of the Shadows, is more comprehensive, but Wilson’s doc, being less of a show and less slick, gives you a quieter, gentler appreciation of the man within.
Clint was his usual low-key, reflective, straight-dopey self during the discussion. He shared the small stage with Wlson and L.A. Weekly critic Scott Foundas, who moderated. Foundas’s questions were intelligent but a little too inside-baseball. Ditto the audience questions, which were also a little suck-uppy. Nobody asked about the Spike Lee brouhaha. Nobody asked about Gran Torino. Nobody asked whether Clint likes McCain or Obama. (The former, I’m guessing.)
When I arrived around 7:15 pm and given my ticket, I was told that the Aero management didn’t want me to ask “any journalist questions.” What’s that supposed to mean? I asked. I’m supposed to…what, ask only fanboy kiss-ass questions? It turned out to be a moot discussion because Foundas never picked me. I was sitting about halfway back on the left side.
There was also a rule about no photos, which I respected.