Inspired by other recent posts here: Who is the Most Over-Rated Director?

[Mike 03]

I credit others in the Lounge for raising this topic, but I think it is quite interesting.

In your opinion, which movie director(s) are taken way more seriously than they deserve?

[MilesColtrane]

1. David Lynch

M. Night Shamalamadingdong

George Lucas

[Mike 03]

5. My God, I sure agree with you about M. Night Shalaman.

That is a brilliant selection. SIGNS sucked, and so did THE VILLAGE, and so did LADY IN THE WATER and THE HAPPENING.

Massively good pick!!

[GCP]

16. M. Knight and Taratino

Both horribly over-rated IMHO

[nuxvomica]

9. I thought Sixth Sense was brilliant

But The Village, Signs, and The Happening were complete letdowns. I'm mixed on Lady in the Water and Unbreakable.

[Zomby Woof]

29. I can't stand that prick Shystermyalan or whatever his name is

I figured out 'The Sixth Sense' very early in the movie, which made it duller than it already was - and really, should a director hinge all of his movies on a gimmick? I wasn't even trying, because I didn't even know there was a 'hook'.

He's a pompous asshole, which just adds to my contempt for his work.

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. Lately, Cameron.

No heart.

[Mike 03]

4. Cameron fascinates me, but I have heard that AVATAR is not all that great. But since

I have not seen it, I am in position to judge it.

[MilesColtrane]

8. It's great to look at, but take away the tech and it sucks.

[Mike 03]

13. I believe you 100%, and it matches up with everything I have heard. NT

[Fire Walk With Me]

35. I saw the last half and I agree with Miles as well.

Extremely good-looking, but smaller, warmer films with the same theme blow it away (Local Hero, Princess Mononoke, etc.)

If he helps a generation to be conservation activists, then it's well worth the memory it takes up in digital storage, so I'll give him that. I wish that "The Last Mimzy" had had the same attention and success, for the same reasons (although it is more of a child's film).

[Orrex]

23. In the past 15 years or so he's made several FANTASTIC half-hour movies

Unfortunately, he's stretched each and every one of them past the two-hour mark.

[progressoid]

41. It's interesting that Katherine Bigelow mentioned collaboration being in important part of film maki...

Conversely, Cameron has to have it his way or no way.

He's an egotistical dick.

[Auggie]

47. I think Cameron is a pretty good director

[NJmaverick]

49. Cameron has been overrated since Titanic

[Xipe Totec]

3. Daniel Myrick - Blair Witch Project nt

[Mike 03]

6. One of my fondest recollections is watching BLAIR WITCH with my mother and we were laughing

our heads off. NT

[nuxvomica]

7. Robert Zemeckis!

Here is my evidence:

Forrest Gump
What Lies Beneath
Polar Express
Contact
Death Becomes Her

Exculpatory evidence (just to be fair):

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Used Cars
Castaway

And a shout-out to Kenneth Branagh for such overblown crap as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Dead Again.

[begin_within]

10. Oh come on.

"Contact" is brilliant filmmaking.

[nuxvomica]

14. I thought the acting and writing where terrible

The special effects were awesome, though.

[begin_within]

18. I agree on those

there was no chemistry whatsoever between Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey, and that the cast never really coalesced. The script was, of course, a condensed version of the book, and as usual, a lot was lost when going from book to screenplay. But as far as directing, photography, effects, editing, sound - I believe it outclassed 'Titanic' which came out in the same year.

[nuxvomica]

19. Alright then, that's something we can agree on

Frankly I never got all the way through Titanic. And Contact gets points for the interesting way things finally played out in that story.

[cemaphonic]

27. He gets a pass for Back to the Future too

but not the sequels.

[REP]

11. Spielberg

Manipulative dreck. Well, I liked Jaws. And Duel.

[Mike 03]

12. WOW, I anticipated most every name on this thread so far, but never Spielberg.

But maybe I need a slap in the head. I love his work, but I am open to having my mind changed if there are good arguments in defiance of the talent of his work.

[pink-o]

15. His most commercial movies are surely manipulative.

And the last bit in Schindler's List where he has them going by the cemetery with their characters from the film almost wrecked it for me.

But I thought "Munich" was brilliant and totally underrated. Should've won against "Crash" that's for sure. And I usually like Paul Haggis, but that one bit of his directing is totally overrated!

[Mike 03]

17. I LOVED MUNICH, I agree with you about SCHINDLER'S LIST.

I think MUNICH deserved the Academy Award that year, way more than CRASH (or whatever other movie it lost to).

Also, I loved AI and MINORITY REPORT.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I do admit, I like many of his films, but I agree also that he has made some blunders, like THE COLOR PURPLE.

[gratuitous]

26. You loved AI?

Correct, you are wrong. If that wasn't the absolute worst premise for a movie of all time, then I'd hate to see something worse. Regardless of how the boy comes into the house (and the contrived nature of that set-up was just wretched), nobody would ask that monster in. Yeah, it's cute how he's eight years old and all when you take him in when you're 32. But when you're 40, he's still . . . eight years old. When you're 50, he's, uh, eight. Never progresses past third grade. Never hits puberty. Never matures. Never does anything but exists as an eight year old. You're 64 and you've just barked your shin on the coffee table, hopping toward to bathroom to get some ibuprofen, and here's litte Marblehead with drawing number 8,759 in a never-ending series of drawings of "Mommy and Me." Get out of the way, you little shit!

Spielberg took this over from Stanley Kubrick, a project that Kubrick had kicked around for years before he died. My guess is that Kubrick didn't have any idea how to get into or out of the set-up, which is why the story never got done. Spielberg took it on, and should have just burned the footage and moved on to something else of a more enduring quality. Say a remake of "1941" with an all gerbil cast.

[edbermac]

38. A.I. is pretty interesting.

Nice review here:

http://www.thepaincomics.com/A.I.pdf

[REP]

22. He's too busy telling the audience what they should be feeling, instead of doing the work

Too much 'magic of children,' too much reliance on heavy-handed musical scores, too few real reasons to care about many of the characters in many of his movies once the spell of the music and moving pictures has worn off. There are some that are fine entertainment, but not much more than that; there are some that could have been great but he couldn't resist making sure that the audience was 'feeling' enough (Schindler's List, for example). I think it's the combination of pomposity and superficiality that bothers me so much about the majority of his work.

[Ron Green]

30. Bingo.

His last good movie was "Jaws," and even then you could feel twinges of the emotional manipulation that would become his method.

[MrCoffee]

44. "too much reliance on heavy-handed musical scores"

Absolutely dead-on.

[Zomby Woof]

31. I liked "Close Encounters" before he ruined it later

...with a goddamned 'Special Edition'. You nailed it in another post below - he doesn't know when to leave well enough alone, or let the audience do the work. In the original CE3K, he left it a mystery on what Dreyfuss saw when he boarded the mother ship. That was part of the movie's charm - the sense of mystery and awe such an occurrence would bring to us. Not showing us what he saw allowed our imaginations to take over.

So 2 years later he decides to issue a 'Special Edition', and lure people back in the theaters just so we can see HIS vision of the mother ship. Which really wasn't all that spectacular or awe-inspiring as we were supposed to expect - hence another form of manipulation. I never trusted him after that, although I enjoyed the first installment of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' - but the sequels only reinforced my distrust. And 'E.T.' cemented my loathing of him.

[peekaloo]

34. Thank you.

:hug:

[Rabrrrrrr]

36. That's the one! Not that he hasn't pulled off some genius stuff, but mostly emotionally manipulative

pablum.

I rarely feel as cheated as I do after a Spielberg movie.

[Deep13]

42. I'm forced to agree.

I wanted to like War of the Worlds and it would have been great without all the family drama, the scared kid shots and the images of people looking at things off screen. In short, it was like every other Spielberg movie I have seen since Close Encounters.

[Archae]

20. Uwe Boll.

Has he ever NOT fucked it up?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

21. Tarantino and Kevin Smith.

My kid made me watch: Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Dogma, and (I think) Reservoir Dogs.

Lots of crappy violence and shit I don't remember.

Dogma baffled me. The only part I got was George Carlin's bit as the priest introducing "Buddy Christ". That was funny.

I thought Clerks was really funny.

Titanic was good except for the shitty script. And the fact that Leo wasn't really old enough to be a leading man. And Billy Zane as a cardboard Snidely Whiplash.

[progressoid]

40. Yes and yes

Both are waaay over rated.

[Richardo]

24. Oliver Stone

The deft touch of a sledgehammer

[DerekG]

25. David Lynch, definitely

Hey Lynch, remember Elephant Man, Blue Velvet and the Straight Story. Do that again! Stop masturbating and present me with a goddamn narrative!

[Zomby Woof]

28. Frank Capra

The Master of Cloyingly Sentimental Dreck. :puke:

[OmahaBlueDog]

32. Terry Gilliam

After MP&THG, it was all downhill. I'll give him props for "The Fisher King", but "Jabberwocky" may be one of the worst films ever made, and "Brazil" and "Time Bandits" are vastly overrated.

[MrCoffee]

48. 12 Monkeys was brilliant and no other director alive could have pulled off Fear and Loathing

[Patsy Stone]

33. Oliver Stone

Hands down.

[Initech]

37. Tim Burton

[Tommy_Carcetti]

39. Kevin Smith.

Clerks was passable due to it being somewhat original and creative. The rest of his movies are just pretentious, annoying hipster-fanboy hybrid crap.

[Deep13]

43. Cecil B. DeMille nt

[Auggie]

45. I was going to say Guy Ritchie until you reminded me of DeMille. I concur.

[MrCoffee]

46. Woody Allen

How many times has Woody Allen made the same movie over and over and over again?