By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 6

Link to the List

Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

1 Wall-E
2 Milk
3 The Dark Knight
4 Waltz with Bashir
5 Gomorrah
6 Wendy & Lucy
7 Trouble the Watter
8 Happy Go Lucky
9 Man on Wire
10 Tropic Thunder
Link to the List

David Ansen
Newsweek

1 Let the Right One In
2 Encounters at End of the World
3 Wendy & Lucy
4 Frost/Nixon
5 Man on Wire
6 Silent Light
7 The Wrestler
8 Tropic Thunder
9 Wall-E
9 Waltz with Bashir
Link to the List

Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

1 The Wrestler
2 The Dark Knight
3 Rachel Getting Married
4 Wall-E
5 Momma’s Man
6 The Edge of Heaven
7 Burn After Reading
8 The Class
9 Milk
10 Tell No One
Link to the List

Michael Phillips
Chicago Tribune

1 Wall-E
2 The Class
3 A Christmas Tale
4 Let the Right One In
5 The Flight of the Red Balloon
6 Alexandra
7 Man On Wire
8 Snow Angels
9 Still Life
10 The Dark Knight
Link to the List

Jennifer Merin
About.com

1 The Class
2 The Fall
3 Happy Go Lucky
4 Milk
5 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
6 The Reader
7 Slumdog Millionaire
8 Standard Operating Procedure
9 The Visitor
10 Wendy & Lucy
Link to the List

Glenn Kenny
SomeCameRunning

1 The Duchess of Langeaise
2 The Last Mistress
3 Razzle Dazzle: The Lost World
4 Romance of Astree & Celedon
5 Synechdoche, NY
6 A Christmas Tale
7 Flight of the Red Ballon
8 Gran Torino
9 The Wrestler
10 Che
Link to the List

Brian Tallerico
movietretriever.com

1 Wall-E
2 The Dark Knight
3 Milk
4 Slumdog Millionaire
4 Rachel Getting Married
6 Happy Go Lucky
7 The Wrestler
8 The Visitor
9 Let the Right One In
10 Hunger
Link to the List

Hank Sartin
Time Out Chicago

1 Milk
2 Hunger
3 Che
4 Dear Zachary
5 Happy Go Lucky
6 Wall-E
7 The Order of Myths
8 The Dark Knight
9 Let the Right One In
10 The Witnesses
Link to the List

African American
Film Critics

1 The Dark Knight
2 Slumdog Millionaire
3 Curious Case of Benjamin Button
4 Secret Life of Bees
4 Cadillac Records
6 Miracle at St. Anna
7 Milk
8 Seven Pounds
9 Doubt
10 Iron Man
Link to the List

Ethan Alter
Giant Magazine

1 Che
2 Synecdoche, NY
3 Speed Racer
4 Wall-E
5 Milk
6 Reprise
7 The Class
8 Up the Yangtze
9 The Edge of Heaven
10 Burn After Reading

African American Film Critics | David Ansen | Ethan Alter | Filmbrain | Owen Gleiberman | Glenn Kenney | Jennifer Merin | Michael Phillips | Hank Sartin | Lisa Schwarzbaum | Brian Tallerico

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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