Reel Gone

My wife made an acute observation about the new Indiana Jones movie. She pointed out that we should have known what we were in for when we first saw the CGI prairie dogs. It is that part of movie making that has begun to wear on me. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that the tools exist to bring fantastic worlds to life, like "The Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter". Sure, it probably helps that I have friends in "the biz" and I have a predisposed affection for these films, but there's something else: A Story. When special effects become the show itself, you end up with, well, "Speed Racer."
That's why I felt the passing of Sydney Pollack came like the closing of an epoch. This was a guy who made movies with actors, many of whom were or would become movie stars. Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, and Al Pacino all trusted him to manage what for many of them become Oscar winning performances. And every so often, he would show up in one of his own films, like "Tootsie", or another director would ask him to appear to lend a little "Pollack-ness" to the proceedings, like Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut".
Then there was Harvey Korman. I grew up watching Harvey attempt to stifle his laughter at his comic foil, Tim Conway on "The Carol Burnett Show". Later, I rediscovered his manic energy in the films of Mel Brooks. When he broke the fourth wall and drove off the set in "Blazing Saddles", my film world opened to grand new possibilities, and big laughs. He would be missed if only for contributing the voice for the Great Gazoo on "The Flintstones."
But the end of an era truly came yesterday with the fire that destroyed much of the back lot of Universal Studios. The courthouse from "Back to the Future" has been used in so many different movies, TV shows and commercials, when I first saw if from the tram, it was like going back to my old neighborhood. And of course, it is primarily a sentimental issue for me that the King Kong exhibit from the tour was devoured by flame. It reminded me of how many of the sets of the 1933 original were burned to simulate the burning of Atlanta for "Gone With The Wind."
I can already hear the powers that be at Universal discussing next steps for the studio: "Can't we just do that digitally?" Harvey wouldn't do it, and neither would Sydney.