Oscar-winning filmmaker Sydney Pollack, who last year bowed out of helming the just-released HBO flick Recount for health reasons, passed away Monday evening at the age of 73 from cancer. Very sad, all the way around, as Pollack — who acted in the Oscar-winning Michael Clayton and whose last two films behind the camera were 2005’s The Interpreter and the documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry — was one of the industry’s true nice guys, and a good, thoughtful interview to boot. He had varied interests, but also a real love of films in general, as evidenced by the fact that you could hold an interesting conversation with him about movies in which he was not involved.