By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 3

Link to the List

David Germain
Associated Press

1 Happy Go Lucky
2 Wall-E
3 Encounter at End of World
4 Slumdog Millionaire
5 Frozen River
6 The Visitor
7 The Wrestler
8 Frost/Nixon
9 The Dark Knight
10 Wendy & Lucy
Link to the List

Christy Lemire
Associated Press

1 The Wrestler
2 Frost/Nixon
3 Man on Wire
4 Waltz with Bashir
5 Wall-E
6 Curious Case of Benjamin Button
7 Frozen River
8 Milk
9 Paranoid Park
10 Iron Man
Link to the List

James Rocchi
Cinematical

1 Che
2 The Wrestler
3 Slumdog Millionaire
4 Milk
5 Reprise
6 Ballast
7 The Dark Knight
8 Man on Wire
9 Funny Games
10 Waltz with Bashir
Link to the List

Noel Murray
Onion AV Club

1 Wall-E
2 Burn After Reading
3 Synechdoche, NY
4 4 Mos, 3 Wks & 2 Days
5 The Dark Knight
6 Surfwise
7 Rachel Getting Married
8 Paranoid Park
9 Milk
10 My Winnipeg
Link to the List

Austin Film Critics

1 The Dark Knight
2 Slumdog Millionaire
3 Milk
4 Synechdoche, NY
5 Curious Case of Benjamin Button
6 The Wrestler
7 Wall-E
8 Frost/Nixon
9 Let the Right One In
10 Gran Torino
Link to the List

Dallas – Ft. Worth
Film Critics

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

Kris Tapley
In Contention

1 Slumdog Millionaire
2 Bolt
3 Synechdoche, NY
4 Pineapple Express
5 The Dark Knight
6 Hunger
7 The Wrestler
8 Dear Zachary
9 Gomorrah
10 Let the Right One In
Link to the List

Nathan Lee
WNYC

1 Une Catastrope
2 The Headless Woman
3 I No Longer Hear the Guitar
4 Before I Forget
5 Inside
6 Wall-E
7 Che
8 Mother of Tears
9 Flight of the Red Balloon
10 Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Link to the List

Ed Gonzalez
Slant Magazine

1 Rachel Getting Married
2 In the City of Sylvia
3 The Witnesses
4 Standard Operating Procedure
5 Summer Palace
6 Encounters at End of World
7 Mukhsin
8 My Father My Lord
9 Let the Right One In
10 Happy Go Lucky
Link to the List

Nick Schager
Slant Magazine

1 Synechdoche, NY
2 Flight of the Red Balloon
3 Boarding Gate
4 Reprise
5 The Dark Knight
6 Dear Zachary
7 Chris & Don
8 Encounters at End of World
9 The Strangers
10 August Evening

Austin Film Critics | Dallas Ft. Worth Film Critics | David Germain | Ed Gonzalez | Nathan Lee | Christy Lemire | Noel Murray | James Rocchi | Nick Schager | Kris Tapley

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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