By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 1

Link to the List

National Board
of Review

1 Assassination of Jesse James
2 Atonement
3 The Bourne Ultimatum
4 The Bucket List
5 Into the Wild
6 Juno
7 The Kite Runner
8 Lars and the Real Girl
9 Michael Clayton
10 Sweeney Todd
Link to the List

Michael D. Reid
Victoria Times

1 Hairspray
2 Zodiac
3 Ratatouille
4 Away From Her
5 The Lives of Others
6 Sicko
7 In the Valley of Elah
8 Superbad
9 The Hoax
10 Rescue Dawn
Link to the List

Georgetown Voice

1 The Lives of Others
2 Pan’s Labyrinth
3 Superbad
4 Knocked Up
5 Darjeeling Limited
6 Michael Clayton
7 Children of Men
8 Ratatouille
9 Waitress
10 American Gangster
Link to the List

John Waters
Artforum

1 Grindhouse
2 Before I Forget
3 Away From Her
4 Zoo
5 Lust, Caution
6 Brand Upon the Brain
7 An American Crime
8 I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
9 Flanders
10 I’m Not There
Link to the List

T.J. Wilcox
Artforum

1 Black Book
2 The Darjeeling Limited
3 Planet Earth
4 La Vie en Rose
5 Superbad
6 The Sarah Silverman Program
7 Blades of Glory
8 Eastern Promises
9 Control
10 Sicko
Link to the List

James Quandt
Artforum

1 These Encounters of Theirs
2 Pour vos beaux yeaux
3 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
4 Useless
5 Tarahi VI
6 La Morte Rouge
7 Fengming, A Chinese Memoir
8 Les Amours d’Astree et de Celadon
9 Alexandra
10 At Sea
Link to the List

Paste Magazine
Staff

1 Juno
2 Once
3 Eastern Promises
4 Away From Her
5 Margot at the Wedding
6 Michael Clayton
7 Wind That Shakes the Barley
8 No Country for Old Men
9 The Kite Runner
10 Syndromes and a Century
Link to the List

Amy Taubin
Artforum

1 Zodiac
2 Paranoid Park
3 Eastern Promises
4 Razzle Dazzle: The Lost World
5 No End in Sight
6 Terror’s Advocate
7 Dance Party USA
8 Michael Clayton
9 Southland Tales
10 Blade Runner / Killer of Sheep
Link to the List

Thierry Jousse
Frieze Magazine

1 Zodiac
2 Syndromes and a Century
3 La fille coupée en deux
4 Paranoid Park
5 I’m Not There







Link to the List

Juliane Wanckel
Frieze Magazine

1 Calle Santa Fe
2 This is England
3 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
4 Alexandra
5 Persepolis
6 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
7 I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone
8 Syndromes and a Century
9 Killer of Sheep
10 Berlin Alexanderplatz

The Georgetown Voice | Thierry Jousse | National Board of Review | Paste Magazine | James Quandt | Michael D. Reid | Amy Taubin | Juliane Wanckel | John Waters | TJ Wilcox

Be Sociable, Share!

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

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