By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 8

Link to the List

Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times

1 Juno
2 No Country For Old Men
3 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
4 Atonement
5 The Kite Runner
6 Away From Her
7 Across the Universe
8 La Vie En Rose
9 The Great Debaters
10 Into the Wild
Link to the List

Las Vegas Film Critics

1 No Country For Old Men
2 Sweeney Todd
3 3:10 to Yuma
4 Assassination of Jesse James
5 Zodiac
6 Into the Wild
7 Juno
8 Eastern Promises
9 The Lookout
10 Sunshine
Link to the List

David Ansen
Newsweek

1 Syndromes and a Century
2 There Will Be Blood
3 This is England
4 The Lives of Others
5 No Country for Old Men
6 Knocked up
7 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
8 Away From Her
9 The Hoax
10 Sweeney Todd
Link to the List

Lou Gaul
Phiully Burbs

1 No Country For Old Men
2 Atonement
3 Charlie Wilson’s War
4 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
5 Gone Baby Gone
6 The Great Debaters
7 Into the Wild
8 Juno
9 Once
10 Sweeney Todd
Link to the List

Martin Grove
The Hollywood Reporter

1 Atonement
2 American Gangster
3 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
4 Charlie Wilson’s War
5 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
6 Enchanted
7 Michael Clayton
8 No Country for Old Men
9 Persepolis
10 3:10 to Yuma
Link to the List

Ed Symkus
Daily News Tribune

1 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
2 I’m Not There
3 There Will Be Blood
4 The Bourne Ultimatum
5 Sweeney Todd
6 Beowulf
7 Eastern Promises
8 Gone Baby Gone
9 Hairspray
10 Juno
Link to the List

Austin Film Critics

1 There Will Be Blood
2 No Country for Old Men
3 Juno
4 Into the Wild
5 3:10 to Yuma
6 Knocked up
7 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
8 Atonement
9 American Gangster
10 Eastern Promises
Link to the List

Sam Adams
Philadelphia City Paper

1 Black Book
2 Syndromes and a Century
3 No Country for Old Men
4 Into the Wild
5 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
6 Across the Universe
7 12:08 East of Bucharest
8 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days
9 Bamako
10 Persepolis
Link to the List

African American
Film Critics

1 The Great Debaters
2 American Gangster
3 Talk to Me
4 Gone Baby Gone
5 No Country for Old Men
6 Michael Clayton
7 Juno
8 Sweeney Todd
9 Things We Lost in the Fire
10 There Will Be Blood
Link to the List

Dallas Ft. Worth
Film Critics

1 No Country for Old Men
2 Juno
3 There Will Be Blood
4 Atonement
5 Michael Clayton
6 Into the Wild
7 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
8 The Kite Runner
9 Assassination of Jesse James
10 Charlie Wilson’s War

Sam Adams | African American Film Critics | David Ansen | Austin Film Critics | Dallas Ft Worth Film Critics | Roger Ebert | Lou Gaul | Martin Grove | Las Vegas | Ed Symkus

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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