PARK CITY, UTAH: John Slattery first read Pete Dexter’s novel God’s Pocket a good ten years ago, and knew that it would make a dynamite movie—but someone else had the rights. “And I forgot about it,” he told the audience at the film’s Sundance premiere Friday. Five years passed, and when he made another inquiry, he discovered that it was available. So he wrestled with the book, working up an outline that became a draft screenplay, “and then I called to say, ‘Okay, let’s go ahead,’ and they said, ‘Oh, we made a mistake, it’s still not available.’” Luckily for Slattery, he’d made a name for himself in the interim playing Roger Sterling on Mad Man (and directing several episodes of that show), so he was finally able to get the movie made, with Philip Seymour Hoffman in the lead, and Richard Jenkins, John Turturro, and his Mad Men co-star Christina Hendricks in supporting roles. The resulting film is, it must be said, a bit unruly. But Slattery shows real promise as a director, guiding his actors with ease and effectively evoking a very specific time and place. … Read More