By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 6

Link to the List

Kent Tentschert
Webster-Kirkwood Times

1 (500) Days of Summer
2 Avatar
3 Crazy Heart
4 Inglourious Basterds
5 The Lovely Bones
6 The Messenger
7 Precious
8 The Road
9 Sherlock Holmes
10 Up/Up in the Air
Link to the List

Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun

1 Bad Lieutenant
2 Crazy Heart
3 An Education
4 The Hurt Locker
5 Inglourious Basterds
6 Knowing
7 Precious
8 A Serious Man
9 Up in the Air
10 The White Ribbon
Link to the List

Joe Neumaier
New York Daily News

1 Up in the Air
2 The Hurt Locker
3 Where the Wild Things Are
4 Crazy Heart
5 A Serious Man
6 Star Trek
7 Inglourious Basterds
8 Duplicity
9 An Education
10 District 9
Link to the List

Ann Hornaday
Washington Post

1 The Hurt Locker
2 Up in the Air
3 Precious
4 Sugar
5 The Baader Meinhof Complex
6 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
7 Star Trek
8 District 9
9 Where the Wild Things Are
10 Humpday
Link to the List

Phoenix Film Critics

1 Avatar
2 District 9
3 (500) Days of Summer
4 The Hurt Locker
5 Inglourious Basterds
6 Precious
7 Sherlock Holmes
8 Star Trek
9 Up
10 Up in the Air
Link to the List

Greg Ellwood
HitFix

1 Precious
2 The Hurt Locker
3 Inglourious Basterds
4 In the Loop
5 Avatar
6 A Prophet
7 District 9
8 A Single Man
9 Up in the Air
10 Bad Lieutenant
Link to the List

Brian Johnson
MacLeans

1 Up in the Air
2 Fantastic Mr. Fox
3 An Education
4 The Road
5 Bright Star
6 A Serious Man
7 Inglourious Basterds
8 The Hurt Locker
9 The Cove
10 Avatar
Link to the List

Tim Lammers
WCVB TV

1 Up
2 Inglourious Basterds
3 Avatar
4 Precious
5 Star Trek
6 Up in the Air
7 District 9
8 Invictus
9 Nine
10 The Hurt Locker
Link to the List

Stephen Farber
The Hollywood Reporter

1 Up in the Air
2 The Last Station
3 The Hurt Locker
4 Precious
5 The Cove
6 The Princess and the Frog
7 My One and Only
8 Lemon Tree
9 Adam
10 Seraphine
Link to the List

Frank Scheck
The Hollywood Reporter

1 Up in the Air
2 The Hurt Locker
3 Precious
4 Up
5 Inglourious Basterds
6 A Single Man
7 (500) Days of Summer
8 Invictus
9 The Messenger
10 The Last Station

Roger Ebert | Greg Ellwood | Steven Farber | Ann Hornaday | Brian Johnson | Tim Lammers | Joe Neumaier | Phoenix Film Critics | Frank Scheck | Ken Tentschert

Be Sociable, Share!

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

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