By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 7

Link to the List

Shawn Levy
The Oregonian

1 A Christmas Tale
2 Happy Go Lucky
3 Synechdoche, NY
4 Rachel Getting Married
5 Stranded
6 Frost/Nixon
7 Tell No One
8 Wendy & Lucy
9 Wall-E
10 Doubt
Link to the List

Marc Mohan
The Oregonian

1 Young at Heart
2 Let the Right One In
3 The Dark Knight
4 Snow Angels
5 Man on Wire
6 Tropic Thunder
7 Tell No One
8 Iron Man
9 OSS 117: Nest of Spies
10 4 Mos, 3 Wks & 2 Days
Link to the List

Peter DeBruge
Variety

1 Wall-E
2 The Wrestler
3 Man on Wire
4 Gomorrah
5 The Order of Myths
6 Vicky Cristina Barcelona
7 Shotgun Stories
8 Hunger
9 The Visitor
10 The Dark Knight
Link to the List

Richard Brody
The New Yorker

1 Still Life
2 Curious Case of Benjamin Button
3 Woman on the Beach
4 Fengming: A Chinese Memoir
5 The Other Half
6 Cassandra’s Dream
7 Frownland
8 Gran Torino
9 Paraguayan Hammock
10 Summer Palace
Link to the List

Sam Adams
Philadelphia City Paper

1 Savage Grace
2 Taxi to the Dark Side
3 Wendy & Lucy
4 Wall-E
5 Blindness
6 The Class
7 The Edge of Heaven
8 Encounters at End of the World
9 Burn After Reading
10 Speed Racer
Link to the List

Steven Persall
St. Petersburg Times

1 Slumdog Millionaire
2 The Reader
3 The Dark Knight
4 The Wrestler
5 Milk
6 Let the Right One In
7 Rachel Getting Married
7 Happy Go Lucky
9 Frost/Nixon
10 Gonzo
Link to the List

Manohla Dargis
New York Times

1 Happy Go Lucky
2 Synechdoche, NY
3 Alexandra
4 Flight of the Red Balloon
5 Silent Light
6 Paranoid Park
7 The Dark Knight
8 Encounters at End of the World
9 Still Life
10 Wendy & Lucy
Link to the List

A.O. Scott
New York Times

1 Wall-E
2 Silent Light
3 Secret of the Grain
4 Man on Wire
5 The Edge of Heaven
6 Happy Go Lucky
7 Wendy & Lucy
8 Milk
9 Rachel Getting Married
10 Cadillac Records
Link to the List

Stephen Holden
New York Times

1 4 Mos, 3 Wks & 2 Days
2 The Edge of Heaven
3 Wall-E
4 Milk
5 The Last Mistress
6 Happy Go Lucky
7 A Christmas Tale
8 Tell No One
9 Frozen River
10 The Visitor
Link to the List

Anne Thompson
Variety

1 Wall-E
2 Slumdog Millionaire
3 Milk
4 Everlasting Moments
5 Happy Go Lucky
6 A Christmas Tale
7 Man on Wire
8 Waltz with Bashir
9 Wendy & Lucy
10 Appaloosa

Sam Adams | Richard Brody | Manohla Dargis | Peter DeBruge | Stephen Holden | Shawn Levy | Marc Mohan | Steven Persall | A.O. Scott | Anne Thompson

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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