By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 29

Link to the List

NP Thompson
Movies Into Film

1 Unrelated
2 Sita Sings the Blues
3 Breath
4 The Gates
5 Flight of the Red Balloon
6 The Band’s Visit
7 Persepolis
8 Trouble the Water
9 Opera Jawa
10 Priceless
Link to the List

Andy Klein
Los angeles CityBeat

1 The Dark Knight
2 Gran Torino
3 In Bruges
4 Let the Right One In
5 My Winnipeg
6 Roman de Gare
7 Stuck
8 Synecdoce, NY
9 Tropic Thunder
10 Wall-E
Link to the List

Blackfilm.com

1 The Dark Knight
2 Slumdog Millionaire
3 Milk
4 Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5 Tell No One
6 Vicky Cristina Barcellona
7 Ballast
8 Rachel Getting Married
9 Gommorah
10 Let the Right One In
Link to the List

TT Stern-Enzi
Dayton City Paper

1 The Visitor
2 The Dark Knight
3 W
4 I’ve Loved You So Long
5 Curious Case of Benjamin Button
6 Slumdog Millionaire
7 Synecdoche, NY
8 Man on Wire
9 Rachel Getting Married
10 The Wrestler
Link to the List

Lisa Miller
Imperial Valley News

1 The Dark Knight
2 Wall-E
3 Iron Man
4 Frozen River
5 Appaloosa
6 Mamma Mia!
7 The Bank Job
8 Traitor
9 Burn After Reading
10 Ghost Town
Link to the List

Chris Knight
National Post

1 Wall-E
2 Doubt
3 Curious Case of Benjamin Button
4 Synecdoche, NY
5 Encounters at End of the World
6 Man on Wire
7 JCVD
8 Son of Rambow
9 Tell No One
10 The Visitor

Blackfilm.com | Andy Klein | Chris Knight | Lisa Miller | TT Stern-Enzi | NP Thompson

Be Sociable, Share!

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

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