MCN Columnists
David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Best Picture Chart

BEST PICTURE
Picture
Studio
Director
Stars
Comment
The Frontrunners For Nomination
1
Dec 25
Nine
TWC
Marshall
Day-Lewis
Et al
With all the trouble, still looking like the pedigree choice
2
open
Up
Disney
Docter
Petersen
Just have to keep reminding people that its okay to vote animated
3
Dec 18
Avatar
Fox
Cameron
?
Could still come up way short… but could also come up Rings
4
Nov 13
Up In The Air
Par
Reitman
Clooney
Solid contender
5
open
An Education
SPC
Scherfig
Mulligan
Sarsgaard
Old School fave
6
Nov 6
Precious
LG
Daniels
Sidibe
‘Nique
Media loves it
7
Dec 11
Invictus
WB
Eastwood
Freeman
Is it Mandela Time yet?
8
open
A Serious Man
Focus
Coens
Stuhlbarg
Kind
Some Jewish pushback, but with 10, a strong pick
9
Nov
A Single Man
TWC
Ford
Firth
Right there at the edge
10
open
The Hurt Locker
Sum
Bigelow
Renner
Will there be enough push to get the votes it deserves?
11
open
Inglourious Basterds
TWC
Tarantino
Waltz
Could be damaged by an Avatar surge
12
Dec 25
The Lovely Bones
Par/DW
Jackson
Weiss
Ronan
Wahlberg
Tucci
In-house word of mouth improved… we’ll know when we see it.
13
open
Julie & Julia
Sony
Ephron
Streep
Adams
Could easily sneak in
The Chasers (by release date)
open
District 9
Sony
Blomkamp
Copley
Sony wants to believe it
Nov 6
Men Who Stare At Goats
Over
Heslov
Clooney
Bridges
Nov 20
Broken Embraces
SPC
Almodovar
Cruz
Nov 25
The Road
TWC
Hillcoat
Theron
Mortensen
Nov 20
The Blind Side
WB
Hancock
Bullock
Bates
Dec 4
Brothers
Lions
Sheridan
Maguire
Gyllenhaal
Dec 4
Everybody’s Fine
Mir
Jones
DeNiro
Dec 25
Sherlock Holmes
WB
Ritchie
Downey
Dec 25
It’s Complicated
U
Meyers
Streep
Baldwin
Martin
?
The Last Station
Hoffman
Plummer
Giamatti
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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