MCN Columnists
David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Best Picture Chart

BEST PICTURE
Release
Date
Picture
Studio
Globe
Nom
Comment
Nov 9
No Country For Old Men
Mira
D
The most locked
Oct 5
Michael Clayton
WB
D
The most likely consensus builder
Dec 21
Sweeney Todd
DW
M/C
The most muscled one
Dec 7
Atonement
Focus
D
The most in need of Leno and Letterman
Sept 21
Into The Wild
ParVan
Willing to fight and fight hard… would be interesting to see an anti-campaign campaign at this point… full of oddball events
Dec 5
Juno
FoxS
M/C
If you are in love with this film, what other film would you choose as “more likely?” It may be unique enough to get in… or too unique to be more than Actress and Screenplay
Nov 2
American Gangster
U
D
It doesn’t have the senior love of Seabiscuit or the actor love of Ray… but it feels like a film that could be shoehorned in (and it’s better than either of the previous UniMiracles).
Nov 30
The Diving Bell & The Butterfly
Mir
F
Can it find the traction?
Dec 26
There Will Be Blood
ParVan
D
Can this be “the critics’ pick” with No Country For Old Men also in the top group?
Sept 7
3:10 To Yuma
Lions
SAG offers hope.
Nov 28
The Savages
FoxS
SAG offers doom
Dec 14
The Kite Runner
ParVan
F
SAG didn’t notice… but was always a tough get for SAG, given little known names
Oct 26
Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead
Think
SAG seems to have forgotten, though Phil Hoffman didn’t come kiss up either
Dec 21
Charlie Wilson’s War
U
M/C
Would have to be shot from a really challenging angle
July 20
Hairspray
NL
M/C
If SAG didn’t go for Travolta, the nod becomes a longshot… even if there is an Ensemble nod
Sept 14
Eastern Promises
Focus
D
Looking more interesting in Actor and Screenplay again
Dec 25
The Great Debaters
TWC
D
Oct 12
Lars & The Real Girl
MGM/
Kim
Nancy Oliver has the best shot… Ryan Gosling next… and BP? Loooooooongshot.
Sept 14
Across The Universe
Sony
M/C
Just not a BP player… but craft awards?
Pretty Much Out Of The BP Race (by release date)
Jun 1
Knocked Up
U
June 8
La Vie En Rose
PictH
June 22
A Mighty Heart
ParVan
May 4
Away From Her
Lions
July 13
Rescue Dawn
MGM
Aug 24
Ressurecting The Champ
Yari
Sept 14
The Brave One
WB
Sept 14
In The Valley Of Elah
WIP
Sept 28
Lust, Caution
Focus
Sept 29
The Darjeeling Limited
FoxS
Oct 12
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
U
Oct 26
Things We Lost In The Fire
DW
Nov 9
Lions For Lambs
UA
Nov 16
Beowulf
Par
Nov 16
Love In the Time Of Cholera
NL
Nov 16
Margot At The Wedding
ParVan
Nov 21
I’m Not There
TWC
Dec 7
Grace Is Gone
TWC
Dec 7
The Golden Compass
NL
Dec 14
Youth Without Youth
SPC
Dec 25
The Bucket List
WB
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon