By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 13

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Peter Brunette
Screen International

1 No Country for Old Men
2 Atonement
3 Assassination of Jesse James
4 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
5 4 Weeks, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
6 Gone Baby Gone
7 In the Valley of Elah
8 Michael Clayton
9 Into the Wild
10 Lars and the Real Girl
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J.R. Jones
Chicago Reader

1 Atonement
2 Away From Her
3 Gone Baby Gone
4 In the Valley of Elah
5 Into Great Silence
6 Lake of Fire
7 My Kid Could Paint That
8 Reservation Road
9 There Will Be Blood
10 Things We Lost in the Fire
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Michael Phillips
Chicago Tribune

1 Once
2 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
3 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
4 Ratatouille
5 There Will Be Blood
6 No End in Sight
7 Margot at the Wedding
8 The Bourne Ultimatum
9 Assassination of Jesse James
10 Knocked Up/Juno
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Donna Bowma
Nashville Scene

1 Ratatouille
2 Once
3 No Country for Old Men
4 The King of Kong
5 Atonement
6 12:08 East of Bucharest
7 Into the Wild
8 Zodiac
9 Into Great Silence
10 3:10 to Yuma
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Tom Tangney
KIRO Radio – Seattle

1 There Will Be Blood
2 Assassination of Jesse James
3 Once
4 No Country for Old Men
5 Sweeney Todd
6 The King of Kong
7 Juno
8 Away From Her
9 A Mighty Heart
10 The Lookout/Zodiac
Link to the List

N.P. Thompson
MoviesIntoFilm.com

1 Wind that Shakes the Barley
2 Killer of Sheep
3 Scott Walker: 30 Century mann
4 Cats of Mirikitani
5 I’m Not There
6 Syndromes and a Century
7 The Violin
8 Delirious
9 Goya’s Ghosts/Belle Toujours
10 Tekkonkinkreet
Link to the List

Stephanie Zacharek
Salon

1 I’m Not There
2 Control
3 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
4 Persepolis
5 Away From Her
6 Ratatouille
7 Grindhouse
8 Once
9 Joe Strummer
10 No End in Sight/Redacted
Link to the List

Joe Lozito
Big Picture Big Sound

1 No Country for Old Men
2 Juno
3 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
4 Eastern Promises
5 Once
6 The Hoax
7 Into the Wild
8 No End in Sight
9 Atonement
10 Gone Baby Gone
Link to the List

Utah Film Critics

1 3:10 to Yuma
2 Assassination of Jesse James
3 No Country for Old Men
4 I’m Not There
5 Into the Wild
6 Juno
7 Knocked Up
8 Michael Clayton
9 Once
10 There Will Be Blood
Link to the List

Kevin LaForest
Montreal Film Journal

1 There Will Be Blood
2 Beowulf
3 Daisy Diamond
4 Death Proof
5 I’m Not There
6 Spider-Man 3
7 Black Snake Moan
8 Hot Fuzz
9 The Darjeeling Limited
10 Eastern Promises

Donna Bowma | Peter Brunette | J.R. Jones | Kevin LaForest | Joe Lozito | Michael Phillips | Tom Tangney | N.P. Thompson | Utah Film Critics | Stephanie Zacharek

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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