By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 2

Link to the List

Richard Roeper
Chicago Sun Times

1 Slumdog Millionaire
2 The Dark Knight
3 The Wrestler
4 In Bruges
5 I’ve Loved You So Long
6 Gran Torino
7 Milk
8 The Visitor
9 Forgetting Sarah Marshall
10 Frozen River
Link to the List

Susan Wloszczyna
USA Today

1 The Visitor
2 The Wrestler
3 Frozen River
4 Let the Right One In
5 I’ve Loved You So Long
6 Tell No One
7 A Christmas Tale
8 Slumdog Millionaire
9 Doubt
10 Man on Wire
Link to the List

AFI

1 Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2 The Dark Knight
3 Frost/Nixon
4 Frozen River
5 Gran Torino
6 Iron Man
7 Milk
8 Wall-E
9 Wendy & Lucy
10 The Wrestler
Link to the List

SoEastern Film Critics

1 Milk
2 Slumdog Millionaire
3 Wall-E
4 The Dark Knight
5 The Wrestler
6 Curious Case of Benjamin Button
7 The Reader
8 The Visitor
9 Frost/Nixon
10 Revolutionary Road
Link to the List

Milan Paurich
Cleveland Scene

1 A Christmas Tale
2 Curious Case of Benjamin Button
3 Wall-E
4 Revolutionary Road
5 Changeling
6 Synechdoche, NY
7 Milk
8 Che
9 Gran Torino
10 Ashes of Time Redux/As Tears Go By/My Blueberry Nights
Link to the List

Philip French
The Observer

1 Appaloosa
2 Changeling
3 Couscous
4 Diving Bell & the Butterfly
5 The Edge of Heaven
6 Gomorrah
7 In Bruges
8 Man on Wire
9 No Country for Old Men
10 Waltz with Bashir
Link to the List

Joanna Langfield
The Movie Minute

1 Slumdog Millionaire
2 The Reader
3 Doubt
4 The Wrestler
5 Milk
6 Happy Go Lucky
7 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
8 Wall-E
9 Frost/Nixon
10 I’ve Loved You So Long
Link to the List

Stephen King
Entertainment Weekly

1 The Dark Knight
2 Slumdog Millionaire
3 Wall-E
4 Tropic Thunder
5 Funny Games
6 The Bank Job
7 Lakeview Terrace
8 The Ruins
9 Redbelt
10 Death Race
Link to the List

Rebecca Murray
About.com

1 The Dark Knight
2 Curious Case of Benjamin Button
3 Slumdog Millionaire
4 Wall-E
5 The Reader
6 Frost/Nixon
7 In Bruges
8 Milk
9 The Visitor
10 Defiance
Link to the List

The Guardian Staff

1 No Country for Old Men
2 Man on Wire
3 There Will Be Blood
4 Gomorrah
5 Waltz with Bashir
6 In Bruges
7 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
8 Diving Bell & The Butterfly
9 Hunger
10 Wall-E

AFI | Philip French | Guardian Staff | Steve King | Joanna Langfield | Rebecca Murray | Milan Paurich | Richard Roeper | SouthEastern Film Critics | Susan Wloszczyna

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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