By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 14

Link to the List

Craig Outhier
Orange County Register

1 There Will Be Blood
2 Sweeney Todd
3 Eastern Promises
4 Golden Door
5 The Bourne Ultimatum
6 Into the Wild
7 Once
8 Beowulf/300
9 Superbad/Knocked Up
10 No Country for Old Men
Link to the List

Leonard Klady
Movie City News

1 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
2 Assassination of Jesse James
3 Into the Wild
4 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
5 Lake of Fire
6 The Lookout
7 I’m Not There
8 Once
9 La Vie en Rose
10 Away From Her
Link to the List

Sean Elliott
iF Magazine

1 Sweeney Todd
2 Enchanted
3 Elizabeth: The Golden Age
4 The Martian Child
5 Spider-Man 3
6 Pirates of the Caribbean 3
7 Ratatouille
8 300
9 The Host
10 Transformers
Link to the List

Anders Wright
San Diego CityBeat

1 Assassination of Jesse James
2 Atonement
3 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
4 Juno
5 Knocked Up
6 No Country for Old Men
7 Once
8 Ratatouille
9 The Savages
10 There Will Be Blood
Link to the List

Southeastern
Film Critics

1 No Country For Old Men
2 There Will Be Blood
3 Atonement
4 Juno
5 Michael Clayton
6 Zodiac
7 Assassination of Jesse James
8 Gone Baby Gone
9 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
10 Into the Wild
Link to the List

Robert Horton
The Herald

1 No Country for Old Men
2 There Will Be Blood
3 Assassination of Jesse James
4 Margot at the Wedding
5 Grindhouse
6 Eastern Promises
7 Lady Chatterley
8 Exiled
9 Black Snake Moan
10 Once
Link to the List

Kent Jones
Film Comment

1 Zodiac
2 There Will Be Blood
3 Black Book
4 Regular Lovers
5 The Darjeeling Limited
6 I’m Not There
7 Private Fears in Public Places
8 Southland Tales
9 The Simpsons Movie
10 Bug
Link to the List

Kristin M. Jones
Film Comment

1 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
2 Southland Tales
3 No Country for Old Men
4 Zodiac
5 Eastern Promises
6 Syndromes and a Century
7 Margot at the Wedding
8 I’m Not There
9 The Savages
10 The Bourne Ultimatum
Link to the List

Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader

1 Black Book
2 Bamako
3 Colossal Youth
4 The Silence Before Bach
5 Away from Her
6 My Brother’s Wedding
7 Blade Runner
8 Private Fears in Public Places
9 Honeydripper
10 In the Valley of Elah
Link to the List

Susan Gerhard
SF360

1 Once
2 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
3 Pesepolis
4 Into the Wild
5 The Host
6 Sicko
7 The Bourne Ultimatum
8 I’m Not There
9 I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone
10 The Golden Compass

Sean Elliott | Susan Gerhard | Robert Horton | Kent Jones | Kristin M. Jones | Leonard Klady | Craig Outhier | Jonathan Rosenbaum | Southeastern Film Critics | Anders Wright

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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