By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 19

Link to the List

Jim Slotek
Toronto Sun

1 Juno
2 Sweeney Todd
3 Letters from Iwo Jima
4 The Lives of Others
5 The Host
6 Grindhouse
7 Offside
8 Ten Canoes
9 3:10 to Yuma
10 Gone Baby Gone
Link to the List

Liz Braun
Toronto Sun

1 Away from Her
2 No Country for Old Men
3 The Italian
4 After the Wedding
5 Atonement
6 300
7 No End in Sight
8 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
9 I’m Not There
10 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
Link to the List

Gene Seymour
NY Newsday

1 Ratatouille
2 There Will Be Blood
3 Once
4 Eastern Promises
5 Persepolis
6 Juno
7 No End in Sight
8 Syndromes and a Century
9 Superbad
10 The Namesake
Link to the List

Robert Butler
Kansas City Star

1 Sweeney Todd
2 Once
3 Things We Lost in the Fire
4 Into the Wild
5 No Country for Old Men
6 Lars and the Real Girl
7 Juno
8 There Will be Blood
9 Away From Her
10 Michael Clayton
Link to the List

Bob Mondello
NPR

1 Sweeney Todd
2 No Country for Old Men
3 Assassination of Jesse James
4 Charlie Wilson’s War
5 Ratatouille
6 Persepolis
7 The Lives of Others
8 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
9 The Savages
10 Once
Link to the List

Jan Stuart
NY Newsday

1 There Will Be Blood
2 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
3 Eastern Promises
4 Once
5 The Savages
6 Knocked Up
7 Lars and the Real Girl
8 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
9 Live-In Maid
10 Michael Clayton
Link to the List

Michael Drakulich
Southtown Star

1 Atonement
2 No Country for Old Men
3 Sweeney Todd
4 Away From Her
5 Across the Universe
6 La Vie en Rose
7 The Hoax
8 Juno
9 The Italian
10 A Mighty Heart
Link to the List

Patrick Walsh
Cinematical

1 No Country for Old Men
2 Knocked Up
3 Into the Wild
4 Gone Baby Gone
5 Assassination of Jesse James
6 In the Valley of Elah
7 The Lookout
8 The King of Kong
9 The Mist
10 Michael Clayton
Link to the List

Tim Lammers
KNBC 4

1 Enchanted
2 Hairspray
3 Sweeney Todd
4 Grindhouse
5 Dan in Real Life
6 300
7 Transformers
8 Michael Clayton
9 There Will Be Blood
10 Knocked Up
Link to the List

Ethan Alter
Giant Magazine

1 There Will be Blood
2 The Lives of Others
3 Hot Fuzz
4 Lust, Caution
5 No End in Sight
6 After the Wedding
7 I’m Not There
8 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
9 Into the Wild
10 Beowulf

Ethan Alter | Liz Braun | Robert Butler | Michael Drakulich | Tim Lammers | Bob Mondello | Gene Seymour | Jim Slotek | Jan Stuart | Patrick Walsh

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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