By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Page 1 for Decade

Al Alexander | David Germain | Kirk Honeycutt | LA Film Critics | Christy Lemire | Anne Thompson | Shawn Edwards | Peter Ranier | Mike Ward | Gary Wolcott

Link to the List

David Germain
Associated Press

1 Pan’s Labyrinth
2 You Can Count on Me
3 The Barbarian Invasions
4 Once
5 O Brother Where Art Thou?
6 The hurt Locker
7 The Saddest Music in the World
8 Wall-E
9 Adaptation
10 Moulin Rouge
Link to the List

Christy Lemire
Associated Press

1 No Country for Old Men
2 There Will Be Blood
3 American Splendor
4 Far from Heaven
5 Sideways
6 Memento
7 Mystic River
8 The Squid & the Whale
9 Wall-E
10 Wonder Boys
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Gary Wolcott
AtomicTown

1 Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
2 Hero
3 The Lives of Others
4 Standing in the Shadows of Motown
5 The Station Agent
6 O Brother Where Art Thou
7 Pirates of the Caribbean
8 Mystic River | Million Dollar Baby
9 Wall-E
10 Once
Link to the List

LA Film Critics

1 Mulholland Drive
2 There Will Be Blood
3 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4 Brokeback Mountain
5 No Country for Old Men
6 Yi Yi
7 4 Mos, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
8 Spirited Away
9 United 93
10 Sideways
Link to the List

Peter Ranier
Christian Science Monitor

1 Before Sunset
2 4 Mos, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
3 No Country for Old Men
4 The Pianist
5 Sideways
6 Spirited Away
7 Time Out
8 Waltz With Bashir
9 Y Tu Mama Tambien
10 The Wind Will Carry Us
Link to the List

Al Alexander
Patriot Ledger

1 Donnie Darko
2 The Departed
3 Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
4 Pan’s Labyrinth
5 Brokeback Mountain
6 Sideways
7 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
8 4 Mos, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
9 No Country for Old Men
10 Letters From Iwo Jima
Link to the List

Kirk Honeycutt
The Hollywood Reporter

1 Letters From Iwo Jima
2 United 93
3 No Country for Old Men
4 The Fog of War
5 4 Mos, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
6 Far From Heaven
7 Divine Intervention
8 Cache
9 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
10 The White Ribbon
Link to the List

Mike Ward
Richmond.com

1 Sideways
2 Cinderella Man
3 Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
4 Thank You for Smoking
5 Up in the Air
6 Inglourious Basterds
7 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
8 The Departed
9 The Squid and the Whale
10 The Royal Tenenbaums
Link to the List

Anne Thompson
IndieWire

1 The Best of Youth
2 No Country for Old Men
3 Wall-E
4 25th Hour
5 A Christmas Tale
6 Talk to Her
7 A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
8 A History of Violence
9 Spirited Away
10 Red Cliff
Link to the List

Shawn Edwards
FOX-TV

1 City of God
2 The Dark Knight
3 Traffic
4 Kill Bill 1/2
5 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
6 Slumdog Millionaire
7 25th Hour
8 Moulin Rouge!
9 40-Year-Old Virgin
10 Mean Girls
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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