By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 3

Link to the List

Richard Corliss
Time Magazine

1 No Country for Old Men
2 The Lives of Others
3 Killer of Sheep
4 Atonement
5 Sweeney Todd
6 Persepolis
7 No End in Sight
8 In the Valley of Elah
9 Waitress
10 Beowulf
Link to the List

Richard Schickel
Time Magazine

1 Michael Clayton
2 No Country for Old Men
3 Before the Devil Knows
You’re Dead
4 After the Wedding
5 Black Book
6 Breach
7 The Savages
8 In the Valley of Elah
9 There Will Be Blood
10 Dan in Real Life
Link to the List

Baltimore City Paper

1 No Country for Old Men
2 I’m Not There
3 Zodiac
4 The Host
5 The Wind that Shakes the Barley
6 Syndromes and a Century
7 Atonement
8 Into the Wild
9 The Lives of Others
10 Away From Her
Link to the List

Scott Mantz
Access Hollywood

1 3:10 to Yuma
2 Juno
3 The Bourne Ultimatum
4 Charlie Wilson’s War
5 Ratatouille
6 Enchanted
7 Once
8 Away From Her
9 Before the Devil Knows
You’re Dead
10 In the Shadow of the Moon
Link to the List

Jeffrey Wells
Hollywood Elsewhere

1 Zodiac
2 No Country for Old Men
3 Control
4 Sweeney Todd
5 Before the Devil Knows
You’re Dead
6 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days
7 Things We Lost in the Fire
8 There Will Be Blood
9 I’m Not There
10 The Bourne Ultimatum
Link to the List

The Guardian

1 Control
2 Eastern Promises
3 Silent Light
4 The Lives of Others
5 Zodiac
6 Away from Her
7 Climates
8 Ratatouille
9 12:08 East of Bucharest
10 Letters from Iwo Jima
Link to the List

David Edelstein
NY Magazine

1 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
2 Away From Her
3 There Will Be Blood
4 Sweeney Todd
5 The Savages
6 No Country for Old Men
7 No End in Sight
8 Michael Clayton
9 Ratatouille/Persepolis
10 Grace is Gone
Link to the List

Ed Gonzalez
Slant Magazine

1 Killer of Sheep
2 Offside
3 Into Great Silence
4 Golden Door
5 Rescue Dawn
6 No Country for Old Men
7 The Exiled
8 Syndromes of a Century
9 Forever
10 The Life of Reilly
Link to the List

New York
Film Critics Online

1 Atonement
2 Before the Devil Knows
You’re Dead
3 The Darjeeling Limited
4 The Diving Bell & the Butterfly
5 I’m Not There
6 Juno
7 Michael Clayton
8 No Country for Old Men
9 Persepolis
10 Sweeney Todd/There Will Be Blood
Link to the List

Nick Schager
Slant Magazine

1 There Will Be Blood
2 Zodiac
3 Killer of Sheep
4 No Country for Old Men
5 Rescue Dawn
6 Persepolis
7 Away from Her
8 A Band’s Visit
9 Assassination of Jesse James
10 Paprika

Baltimore City Paper | Richard Corliss | David Edelstein | Ed Gonzalez | The Guardian | Scott Mantz | New York Film Critics | Nick Schager | | Richard Schickel | Jeffrey Wells

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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