By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 25

Link to the List

Joe Morgenstern
Wall Street Journal

1 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
2 Ratatouille
3 There Will Be Blood
4 Atonement
5 Into the Wild
6 Juno
7 Lars and the Real Girl
8 Manufactured Landscapes
9 Once
10 Waitress
Link to the List

David Poland
Movie City News

1 I’m Not There
2 Lake of Fire
3 Michael Clayton
4 No Country for Old Men
5 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
6 Day Night Day Night
7 Ratatouille
8 Lars and the Real Girl
9 Superbad
10 The Savages
Link to the List

Aaron Mesh
Willamette Week

1 There Will Be Blood
2 No Country for Old Men
3 Superbad/Knocked Up
4 I’m Not There
5 Margot at the Wedding
6 Offside
7 The Host
8 King Corn
9 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
10 Breach
Link to the List

Victor Diaz
News 8 Austin

1 Juno
2 Once
3 Lars and the Real Girl
4 Eastern Promises
5 The Bourne Ultimatum
6 No Country for Old Men
7 Gone Baby Gone
8 There Will Be Blood
9 300
10 Talk to me
Link to the List

Stephen Becker
Dallas Morning News

1 Once
2 Juno
3 Knocked Up
4 American Gangster
5 Atonement
6 Margot at the Wedding
7 Eastern Promises
8 Gone Bably Gone
9 Beowulf
10 No Country for Old Men
Link to the List

Chris Vognar
Dallas Morning News

1 The Savages
2 American Gangster
3 Juno
4 Persepolis
5 The Bourne Ultimatum
6 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
7 There Will Be Blood
8 The King of Kong
9 Talk to Me
10 Assassination of Jesse James
Link to the List

Pat Graham
Chicago Reader

1 Inland Empire
2 Silent Light
3 Tears of the Black Tiger
4 Margot at the Wedding
5 Los Muertos
6 Colossal Youth
7 The Man From London
8 Flanders
9 The Taste of Tea
10 I’m Not There/Brand Upon the Brain
Link to the List

Brad Brevet
Rope of Silicon.com

1 The Bourne Ultimatum
2 Atonement
3 Assassination of Jesse James
4 Michael Clayton
5 Once
6 Things We Lost in the Fire
7 Reign Over Me
8 Zodiac
9 Sweeney Todd
10 The Orphanage
Link to the List

David Hudson
Greencine

1 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
2 Zodiac
3 Assassination of Jesse James
4 Yella
5 Duchess of Langeais
6 Persepolis
7 Ratatouille
8 Madonnas
9 Hannah Takes the Stairs
10 The Bourne Ultimatum
Link to the List

Noah Forrest
Movie City News

1 The Darjeeling Limited
2 There Will Be Blood
3 Zodiac
4 No Country for Old Men
5 Michael Clayton
6 Margot at the Wedding
7 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
8 Once
9 Into the Wild
10 The Devil Came on Horseback

Stephen Becker | Brad Brevet | Victor Diaz | Noah Forrest | Pat Graham | David Hudson | Aaron Mesh | Joe Morgenstern | David Poland | Chris Vognar

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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