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Yesterday, I suggested “collecting” writers, as opposed to actors or directors, as a good method for deciding which films to see. We started with five; here is the remainder of the top ten.

Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel

Geniuses at comedy which still manages to tug the proverbial heart strings. Occasionally farcical, melancholy but never maudlin, these guys are true masters of their craft. If Wilde was right, that dying is easy but comedy’s hard, than they may be the hardest working duo in filmdom.

They hit the big time with their first feature out of the gate It made Darryl Hannah and John Candy into stars, and catapulted Tom Hanks straight on to the A list. Then they followed with a string of comedic gold by churning out Gung Ho, the first of three of their screenplays each of which were vastly improved by the casting of Michael Keaton (Night Shift and Multiplicity); then the vastly underrated comedy/drama Parenthood and finally, the superior A League of their Own, again with Hanks.

Billy Crystal was a four-time lead in their movies; he starred in City Slickers and he also them co-write City Slickers II, Mr. Saturday Night and the rom-com Forget Paris, with Debra Winger.

More recently, they wrote EdTV, Where the Heart Is and Fever Pitch; the last being a singular achievement in that it is the only movie in which Jimmy Fallon has ever been funny.

Ganz and Mandel are, about as mainstream as it gets. You say you like your writing a little more edgy, a little bit out there?

Charlie Kaufman

I’d say Charlie Kaufman is your man. The film that lift him out of the obscure world of episodic television was Being John Malkovich, followed by the Michel Gondry-directed Human Nature.

Then came Adaptation, in which he wrote about a fictional version of himself and his twin-brother trying to overcome the problems inherent in adapting Susan Orleans “The Orchid Thief” which then morphs into the screenplay for the film audiences watch. He and his brother are co-credited with the screenplay, for which they both won Academy Awards. Kaufman does not have a twin-brother, let alone any brother. It was a bit heady for some, but for others it was the sort of quirky meta-storytelling that felt so right in so many ways. An adaptation and a satire of Hollywood all rolled into one.

Next, for George Clooney’s directorial debut, Kaufman adapted the autobiography of Chuck Barris, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. The masterpiece, of sorts, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind needs no introduction since it has become practically everyone’s favorite movie is you’re between the ages of 25-30.

His current project, in post-production, which will also mark Kaufman’s directorial debut is Synechdoche, New York, which if you look up the word synechdoche, you get a definition what makes you think, huh? And you weren’t even close to pronouncing it right. If you can figure out the plot then you’ll be our best friend.

John Milius

John Milius isn’t quite so big on metaphor and linguistic twists and turns. He wrote the serious bombs, Red Dawn and 1941. But, he did write the equally ridiculous—but much more entertaining—Conan the Barbarian. And, don’t forget that 1941 had a crapload of talented people attached including Belushi, Zemeckis and director Steven Spielberg; so, it may be unfair to lay the blame at Milius’s feet.

He is considered the man’s man writer, because he wrote the iconic first two Dirty Harry movies. He is capable of subtlety, however, as in the top-notch The Wind and the Lion and Coppola’s epic Apocalypse Now.

Thematically, he has written about war and combat numerous times, but the reason he makes my list is for a movie about a man who has had enough of war, just about enough of humans in general, and decides to go be a mountain man. One of my top five films of all time, the flawless Jeremiah Johnson. I can’t imagine that there is anyone who has not seen it, but if not, PLEASE do yourself a favor and go rent this movie. I won’t waste words and ruin the pleasure of it for you.

Paul Haggis

Paul Haggis is a fascinating case, a man who is a multiple Oscar winner for screenplays with complex, interweaving stories, whose early career showed none of that potential. He started out as co-creator and writer on Walker: Texas Ranger. Yeah, okay, it’s not like the show was completely unwatchable, but I don’t think William Goldman was losing any sleep at night thinking about Paul Haggis. Several trite sitcoms later - Different Strokes, Facts of Life and Who’s the Boss all appear on his resume, although he also had episodes of L.A. Law and the criminally underwatched Due South.

And then, all of a sudden in 2004, Clint Eastwood directs Million Dollar Baby from Paul’s first draft of the screenplay; it wins for Oscars including Best Picture and Best Screenplay. Next year, same story with Crash, except he is also the director. He has gone on to write Flags of Our Fathers, co-wrote Letters From Iwo Jima with first-time screenwriter Iris Yamashita, and co-wrote Casino Royale, which has revitalized the Bond franchise. He wrote and directed the recent In the Valley of Elah, and has the new Bond film currently in production. Let’s hear it for late bloomers!!

Steve Zaillian

When the phrase “prestigious screenwriter” is used, Steve Zaillian is often the guy in question. He had already written the heartbreaking Awakenings (Robin Williams’ best on-screen work until the creepyOne Hour Photo), The Falcon and the Snowman and the little seen for no known reason, Searching for Bobby Fischer. The movie about a young chess prodigy also pushed actor Chaz Palmentieri into some of the best work of his career and that’s saying something. When Steven Spielberg fingered him to adapt Thomas Keneally’s book, Schindler’s List the two of them produced, arguably, one of the finest benchmarks in cinema history. He worked with Milius on Clear and Present Danger and wrote the first Mission Impossible.

We then have the perfectly adequate A Civil Action and Hannibal, followed by the more ambitious Gangs of New York under the hand of Scorsese. In many respects, that movie not helped reestablish Scorsese into a period of creativity that has yet to cease, but it also shepherded Leo DiCaprio into the second phase of his career by allowing him to portray a conflicted young man. 2005 produced the underrated The Interpreter and this year, the excellent American Gangster. He doesn’t escape the unwritten rule that sometimes the best writers produce the biggest bombs. In his case: the horrible mess that was 2006’s All the King’s Men remake.

Racism guru Paul Haggis, who also happened to win as Oscar for directing Crash, has taken the reigns of scripting the follow-up to Casino Royale. Though we’re not the biggest Paul Haggis fans - anyone else think Crash should have been titled Crash: Racism 101, or How I stopped worrying and learned to love people not like me? - we loved his script for the latest James Bond adventure.

So the LA Times is reporting that Haggis will be back scripting once again. That’s good news, except it’ll be interesting to see how well his script turns out when he doesn’t have an awesome Ian Fleming book to work with. More interesting that Haggis scripting is the list of directors rumored to be in line for helming the superspy flick.

Tony Scott, Jonathan Mostow, Marc Forster and Alex Proyas are all allegedly in negotiations to direct Bond 22. Of those four we think Forster or Proyas would be the best choices.

Tony Scott’s visual style (Domino, Man on Fire, Deja Vu) just doesn’t vibe well and Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Breakdown, U-571) has proven to be a pretty bland director.

Marc Forster (Monsters Ball, Finding Neverland, Stranger Than Fiction, Stay) has bounced from genre to genre and proven himself not only a visual wiz but also a fantastic storyteller. It seems every hat he wears he’s knocked it out of the park. We’d love to see him tackle an action movie first, but if Bond 22 is his first stab at action we think he’d nail it.

And really Alex Proyas (I, Robot, Dark City, The Crow) just gives us a boner thinking about his style mashed up with a James Bond story.

NBC has been making a huge push for it’s new show The Black Donnelly’s. As if you may not have heard already it’s the new show from multiple-Oscar winner Paul Haggis. It aired last night at 10 p.m. nearly commercial free. The executives figured the Irish-crime-family-coming-of-age story centered around four brothers in NYC would be a better fit with the runaway train known as Heroes. Speaking of, last nights ep was the best of the season yet. Gotta love young Hiro.

But back to the pedestrian show titled The Black Donnelly’s. In a way it’s fitting the show was created by Paul Haggis, who I’m firmly convinced sold his soul to someone for the right to birth not only this show but also the travesty known as Crash. Haggis may just be the most unskilled successful writer in Hollywood working today.

The good news in all of this is that fans of the much better written and directed show, Studio 60, can rejoice that the brilliant Aaron Sorkin show will be back sooner rather than later.

So you’re probably wondering then what’s wrong with The Black Donnelly’s? Short of writing a thesis paper on it out of the gates the show is all wrong. Haggis’s decision to tell the story of the Donnelly brothers through an unreliable narrator takes all the power and emotional heft out what could have been a fairly powerful coming of age story.

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