By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 4

Link to the List

AFI

1 Before the Devil Knows
You’re Dead
2 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
3 Into the Wild
4 Juno
5 Knocked Up
6 Michael Clayton
7 No Country for Old Men
8 Ratatouille
9 The Savages
10 There Will Be Blood
Link to the List

Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

1 No Country for Old Men
2 Atonement
3 Into the Wild
4 Eastern Promises
5 Sweeney Todd
6 American Gangster
7 There Will Be Blood
8 Before the Devil Knows
You’re Dead
9 I’m Not There
10 Knocked Up/Juno
Link to the List

Jim Swenson
Telegraph Herald

1 Bella
2 Bug
3 Enchanted
4 Hairspray
5 Lars and the Real Girl
6 Talk to Me
7 3:10 to Yuma
8 The Final Season
9 The Hoax
10 Waitress
Link to the List

Sean Axmaker
MSN

1 Into the Wild
2 No Country for Old Men
3 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
4 There Will Be Blood
5 Zodiac
6 I’m Not There
7 Assassination of Jesse James
8 Margot at the Wedding
9 This is England
10 Sunshine
Link to the List

Greg Ellwood
MSN

1 Atonement
2 No Country for Old Men
3 Assassination of Jesse James
4 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
5 There Will be Blood
6 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
7 Broken English
8 I’m Not There
9 Once
10 Superbad
Link to the List

Jim Emerson
RogerEbert.com

1 No Country for Old Men
2 Inland Empire
3 I’m Not There
4 Zodiac
5 Persepolis
6 12:08 East of Bucharest
7 Eastern Promises
8 Breach
9 Assassination of Jesse James
10 Superbad/Once/The Orphanage/Ratatouille
Link to the List

Jack Mathews
NY Daily News

1 No Country for Old Men
2 Away From Her
3 Ratatouille
4 Assassination of Jesse James
5 Lust, Caution
6 Grindhouse
7 Michael Clayton
8 Before the Devil Knows
You’re Dead
9 Interview
10 Eastern Promises
Link to the List

David Germain
AP

1 No Country for Old Men
2 Once
3 Juno
4 Away From Her
5 Into the Wild
6 American Gangster
7 Stardust
8 Starting out in the Evening
9 The Band’s Visit
10 Year of the Dog
Link to the List

Christy Lemire
AP

1 No Country for Old Men
2 Gone Baby Gone
3 Once
4 Knocked Up
5 Away from Her
6 There Will Be Blood
7 The Lives of Others
8 Lars and the Real Girl
9 Into the Wild
10 The Bourne Ultimatum
Link to the List

Maxim Magazine

1 300
2 The Bourne Ultimatum
3 Superbad
4 Hot Fuzz
5 3:10 to Yuma
6 The Simpsons Movie
7 American Gangster
8 Live Free or Die Hard
9 The King of Kong
10 No Country for Old Men

AFI | Sean Axmaker | Greg Ellwood | Jim Emerson | David Germain | Christy Lemire | Jack Mathews | Maxim Magazine | Jim Senson | Peter Travers

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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