By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 17

Link to the List

Ty Burr
Boston Globe

1 I’m Not There
2 No Country for Old Men
3 No End in Sight
4 There Will Be Blood
5 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
6 Ratatouille
7 Michael Clayton
8 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
9 Zodiac
10 Lake of Fire
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Wesley Morris
Boston Globe

/ No Country for Old Men
/ Zodiac
/ 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
/ Bamako/Syndromes and a Century
/ I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone
/ Golden Door/Day Night Day Night
/ The Host /Ratatouille
/ The Lives of Others/Eastern Promises
/ Killer of Sheep
/ There Will Be Blood/Grindhouse
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Jay Stone
Montreal Gazette

1 Atonement
2 No Country for Old Men
3 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
4 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
5 I’m Not There
6 Charlie Wilson’s War
7 The Bourne Ultimatum
8 Gone Baby Gone
9 Ratatouille
10 Juno
Link to the List

Michael Sragow
Baltimore Sun

1 Ratatouille
2 The Lives of Others
3 Killer of Sheep
4 In the Shadow of the Moon
5 Wind that Shakes the Barley
6 No End in Sight
7 Pan’s Labyrinth
8 Starting Out in the Evening
9 No Country for Old Men
10 Atonement
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John Beifuss
Memphis Commercial

1 Killer of Sheep
2 Assassination of Jesse James
3 Children of Men
4 Pan’s Labyrinth
5 Zodiac
6 Ratatouille
7 Grindhouse
8 The Host
9 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
10 Waitress/Juno
Link to the List

John Griffin
Montreal Gazette

1 Once
2 Juno
3 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
4 Into the Wild
5 The Lookout
6 Assassination of Jesse James
7 In the Valley of Elah
8 Away From Her /I’m Not There
9 Red Road/Eastern Promises
10 No Country for Old Men/4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
Link to the List

James Verniere
Boston Herald

1 Zodiac
2 Eastern Promises
3 The Bourne Ultimatum
4 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
5 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
6 The Orphanage
7 Ratatouille
8 Things We Lost in the Fire
9 Once
10 There Will Be Blood
Link to the List

Jeffrey Westhoff
Northwest Herald

1 Ratatouille
2 Lars and the Real Girl
3 Sicko
4 Once
5 No Country for Old Men
6 Knocked Up
7 Hot Fuzz
8 Rendition
9 Hairspray
10 American Gangster
Link to the List

Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall

1 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
2 No Country for Old Men
3 Paranoid Park
4 The Edge of Heaven
5 Hallam Foe
6 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
7 This is England
8 Ratatouille
9 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
10 I’m Not There
Link to the List

Michael Janusonis
Providence Journal

1 Sweeney Todd
2 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
3 Into the Wild
4 Michael Clayton
5 No Country for Old Men
6 Hairspray
7 Enchanted
8 You Must Be This tall
9 Knocked Up
10 Gone Baby Gone

John Beifuss | Ty Burr | Rich Cline | John Griffin | Michael Janusonis | Wesley Morris | Michael Sragow | Jay Stone | James Verniere | Jeffrey Westhoff

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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