By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 4

Link to the List

Rex Reed
NY Observer

1 Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2 Revolutionary Road
3 Rachel Getting Married
4 The Reader
5 Slumdog Millionaire
6 Frost/Nixon
7 Milk
8 4 Mos, 3 Wks & 2 Days
9 The Visitor
10 Good
Link to the List

Greg Ellwood
MSN

1 The Dark Knight
2 The Reader
3 Slumdog Millionaire
4 Frost/Nixon
5 Let the Right One In
6 The Wrestler
7 U2 3D
8 Vicky Cristina Barcelona
9 The Wackness
10 Boy A
Link to the List

Sean Axmaker
MSN Movies

1 A Christmas Tale
2 The Edge of Heaven
3 Milk
4 Wall-E
5 Let the Right One In
6 The Dark Knight
7 The Fall
8 Standard Operating Procedure
9 My Blueberry Nights
10 Rachel Getting Married
Link to the List

Karina Longworth
Spoutblog

1 A Christmas Tale
2 Synechdoche, NY
3 Build a Ship, Sail to Sadness
4 My Winnipeg
5 Woman on the Beach
6 Rachel Getting Married
7 La France
8 Mister Lonely
9 Flight of the Red Ballon
10 Encounters at End of World
Link to the List

Jim Emerson
MSN Movies

1 Pineapple Express
2 In Bruges
3 Wendy & Lucy
4 The Edge of Heaven
5 A Christmas Tale
6 Let the Right One In
7 Chop Shop
8 Che
9 The Fall
10 Shotgun Stories
Link to the List

David Fear
MSN Movies

1 Happy Go Lucky
2 Ballast
3 The Secret of the Grain
4 Man on Wire
5 Waltz with Bashir
6 Wall-E
7 Let the Right One In
8 Gomorrah
9 The Edge of Heaven
10 Duchess of Langeais
Link to the List

Keith Phipps
Onion AV Club

1 Rachel Getting Married
2 Wall-E
3 Wendy and Lucy
4 Che
5 The Dark Knight
6 Milk
7 Vicky Cristina Barcelona
8 Reprise
9 Let the Right One In
10 Happy Go Lucky
Link to the List

Nathan Rabin
Onion AV Club

1 Rachel Getting Married
2 The Dark Knight
3 Synechdoche, NY
4 Wall-E
5 Operation Filmmaker
6 Reprise
7 Stuck
8 The Wrestler
9 Happy Go Lucky
10 Milk
Link to the List

Tasha Robinson
Onion AV Club

1 The Fall
2 Wall-E
3 Man on Wire
4 Redbelt
5 Synechdoche, NY
6 Cloverfield
7 Surfwise
8 The Reader
9 The Edge of Heaven
10 The Pool
Link to the List

Scott Tobias
Onion AV Club

1 Rachel Getting Married
2 Wall-E
3 4 Mos, 3 Wks & 2 Days
4 Standard Operating Procudure
5 Paranoid Park
6 Man on Wire
7 Funny Games
8 Wendy & Lucy
9 The Dark Knight
10 Stuck

Sean Axmaker | Greg Ellwood | Jim Emerson | David Fear | Karina Longworth | Keith Phipps | Nathan Rabin | Rex Reed | Tasha Robinson | Scott Tobias |

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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