antonioni, anderson, von trier, and the most over rated of them all Kubrick, for the 2-3 good movies he made (spartacus, the killing) which he actually disowned, so there you go, the good stuff he wasn’t proud of but of tripe like Dr. strangelove or full metal jacket he was proud of! or tukeys like Eyes wide shut, or worst of them all the most hermetic, and least insightfull but most revered nonsequitur of a movie. 2001.
but antonioni holds a special part of my hatred. boredom is not art.
This is going to sound ignorant and possibly retarded— so please don’t judge ALL my film preference based on this, but I think Hitchcock is somewhat over-rated. Or maybe “over-rated” is the wrong word, but for some reason those of his films widely regarded as his “best” – Vertigo, and Rear Window, I didn’t really like. The four others that I saw by him— Notorious, Strangers on a Train, Psycho, and Rebecca, I have liked more.
Raging Bull, you can’t hold Hitchcock responsible for what others say about his films. Hitchcock films ‘look easy’, but when other directors try to make ‘a Hitchcock’ we see how hard it must be. Just the humour, deeply embedded throughout his work, is inimitable, and he was very good at understanding and toying with the viewer’s expectations. Then there’s the mothers and the Freudian content….
This is a great thread, and I’m pleased to see others share my opinion about Wes Anderson. I loved The Royal Tenebaums, but he’s been in a nosedive since then. I sat agog watching Zissou, wonderng whether anything interesting was ever going to happen, and Darjeeling was a pretty offensive depiction of three Americans rampaging through a picture-postcard India. I’ve just got the wrong type of sense of humour for Anderson.
Darren Aronofsky, Mel Gibson and the very last Spelberg.
Strawdawg: “Rossoneri Fan: wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more, say no more”
Er…what?
Now I’ve seen The Wrestler I’ve forgiven Darren Aronofsky for Requiem For A Dream.
Mel Gibson is fairly underrated in my opinion (especially with his best film Apocalypto, a beautiful film), but I hate Aronofsky. He’s pretentious and none of his movies, and I mean none of them, work for me.
I did read a while back though that he was planning on directing an episode of Lost, and I still think that would be cool.
Eastwood, Lynch, Nolan (though I love Memento)
For what Spielberg is viewed as by the general public— he IS over-rated. Indiana Jones, Jaws, Jurassic Park, E.T., Schindler’s List – these are movies that everyone knows, and for that, most casual movie-goers would view Spielberg as the best director of all time simply because they don’t know better.
Spielberg has been an influential director in Hollywood, and his films can be entertaining, even good, but on my list he’s not in the Top 5 best American directors of all time, let alone even qualifying on a top 25 international scale.
I also agree with Sam Mendes.. American Beauty was horribly over-rated, in my opinion.
Okay, I’ll take the bait and blaspheme: Martin Scorsese
IMHO 2 good films in his catalogue:
After Hours
King Of Comedy
Yes, I am wearing a bullet proof vest and cup AND I am ducking.
Wes Anderson.
I recently saw “The Darjeeling Limited” for the first time and Wes Anderson appears to be getting worse. He has an eye for color and composition, but this only makes the film all the more painful to watch, becuase between the generic family dysfunction plot and the flat, quirk-driven charcters, there isn’t much there to justify a film about a train voyage through India.
I see Anderson relying too much on pleasing compositions, with plot and character as seeming afterthoughts. In “The Darjeeling Limited”, it looks like he’s trying to combine tragedy and comedy, but the comedy is reduced to his charcters’ quirks, and the tragic element is not believable because the characters are not believable.
I watch cringingly as Anderson asks me to care about his flat characters; especially when I am supposed to believe that they have grown or come to some new awareness.
Wes Anderson has a distict style but I don’t see much substance.
It could be argued that style IS substance, and in that case, I think Wes Anderson’s style is weak.
wes anderson is sooooo overrated! I also agree that american beauty was weak (almost like a so so episode from the simpsons) but sam mendes at least has improved with time, yet he’s still a bit overrated. and to still be naming Spielberg and lucas is just being lazy, the’re not even overrated among ppl who care about cinema but just among casual movie goers only. it’s such a cheap safe shot, so please stop naming those two guys.
gaspar noe is also full of shit, being a “schoker” in these times is a bit demode if you ask me, and he’s always pshing ppls buttons to get a knee jerk reaction out of them. the same about Lars von trier and his awfull movies.
I’ll admit once again in the open that Kubrick being a good director is just far from being the titan most ppl claim he is, his ideas are quite pedestrian, and I’m not impressed by most of his movies, but to be fair, both, The Killing and Spartacus are awesome, yet he always resented those movies and was proud of his awful later films. 2001…. please, lazy symbolism for the artsy tipe. and calling it boring would be like saying that antonioni movies are action packed. both those guys i hate. and even more so because ppl use them to look all smart and deep. and also ppl are in love with kubrick’s genius persona, rather than his movies ppl usually admire him for his quirks and phobias (he wouldn’t fly, he was recluse etc…) like thats the proof of him being a great filmaker.. Please! is just the cult of personality overwhelming ppls rationality.
go watch bresson, kieslowski if you really want to see good films.
Most interesting aspect of this thread … lot of people willing to say Vertigo ain’t all that and a bag of chips.
Hah, this will piss people off. Kubrick. 2001 is phenomonal and strangelove is classic, but other than that. . . eh. Ophuls is overrated too imo. Madame de. . . feels very stiff. Tarantino is very overrated, even Pulp Fiction, his “masterpiece”, consists of ripping off techniques and calling it a homage.
Sumner, you think Kubrick pisses people off, here’s one for ya’…
Most overrated director? SCORSESE.
OOOOHHHH. He used slow motion and classical music in RAGING BULL. Big deal.
I’m one of those people who really likes Wes Anderson and Tarantino (although I won’t deny the latter is big on rip-offs.)
That’s easy—Ron Howard.
Woody Allen
>>I watch cringingly as Anderson asks me to care about his flat characters; especially when I am supposed to believe that they have grown or come to some new awareness.<<
Hmn … What I get from Anderson’s films is that his characters may think they’ve grown to a new awareness but they’re usually still as clueless by the end of the movie as they were at the beginning.
>>That’s easy—Ron Howard.<<
Oh, brother. I second that.
The only really good Altman film I’ve seen is The Player. Short Cuts sucked and so did Thieves Like Us. My Prairie Home Companion was decent. Others: Spielberg, Ron Howard (or should I say mr. Wannabespielberg), Ripley Scott (Alien is great, but I’ve never understood the fuzz about Blade Runner). I guess there’s a bunch o others that I can’t remember.
@Alex:
While i disagree about Blade Runner, i’ll agree 110% that Ridley Scott is horribly over-rated, having not made a decent film since.
His movies are boring. They say something in 1,000 words that could easily be expressed in a sentence. His films, while undeniably influential, inspired American directors to take his own aesthetics and create better movies with them. His characters exist as mouthpiece and blanks instead of…actual characters. His movies crackle with sloppy editing, inconsistent photography and poor audio synchronization. And despite the fact that most of his movies are clearly garbage, they will always be critically praised because of the fact that he directed it.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Jean-Luc Godard.
I agree wholeheartedly with the previous Joe L.
GODARD- most overrated director of all time without a doubt. Can’t make an interesting character, much less story or theme, to save his life. Intellectually sophmoric and shallow as can be. Pretended to be some kind of pseudo-communist who never understood at all what the ridiculous implications of what that actually meant. Extraordinarily misogynist as well -ever notice how women always equal the hated “bourgeois”, bringing down the free-spirited man, in all his films. That simplicity of theme gets old really quick. All I can say for him is he had some good visual ideas that other directors have taken and expressed infinitely better. He should have stayed a critic, probably would have been pretty good at that.
Aaarrrghhh! I could go on and on… Godard sucks!
I agree wholeheartedly with the previous Joe L.
GODARD- most overrated director of all time without a doubt. Can’t make an interesting character, much less story or theme, to save his life. Intellectually sophmoric and shallow as can be. Pretended to be some kind of pseudo-communist who never understood at all what the ridiculous implications of what that actually meant. Extraordinarily misogynist as well -ever notice how women always equal the hated “bourgeois”, bringing down the free-spirited man, in all his films. That simplicity of theme gets old really quick. All I can say for him is he had some good visual ideas that other directors have taken and expressed infinitely better. He should have stayed a critic, probably would have been pretty good at that.
Aaarrrghhh! I could go on and on… Godard sucks!
I don’t think any director, Save for Bay is overrated. Plus, this thread just seems to be for people to vent out directors that don’t match their tastes.
Well, so many directors have already been named, and I feel like being honest would just repeat the sentiments of others.
So, I guess I’ll just repeat the sentiments of others.
Kubrick – Others have mentioned him, and I agree. “Barry Lyndon” and “The Killing” are pretty incredible, and there are a couple others that I would be willing to watch again, but on the whole his films do seem a little too calculated. There’s no good way for me to justify the idea that his movies are calculated, or cold, but that’s what I get when I watch them. “2001” takes the crown for me as absolutely the most overrated film ever.
Godard – Everything you need to know about Godard has been said very well by R T Rolston and Joe L. He just tries too hard at being clever. His attempts at upending genre conventions and audience expectations are cute at best. R T Rolston describes him as “Intellectually sophomoric and shallow as can be.” Amen.
Lynch – “Twin Peaks” is literally the peak of Lynch’s career. There are a few others that I can stand, but Lynch seems way too obsessed with violence, violence toward women, and crazy non-sensical images to make his audience feel like something important is up on the screen.
Renior – This isn’t to say that Renior is a bad director, or that I haven’t enjoyed his work. But if we are talking about overrated, he fits the bill. Critics and cinephiles adore him, and to an extent, I see why. “Grand Illusion”, “The River”, and “The Crime of Monsieur Lang” are great movies, but everything else seems a little average.
After seeing a couple more of Godard’s films, I’m starting to lean towards the opinion that Godard is severly overrated. However, I’ll watch more of his films so I can form a proper opinion.
Jean Renoir- I’ve only seen The Grand Illusion, The Rules of the Game and A Day in the Country. But, none of his films have grabbed me and captivated me in its world. Kubrick, Leone, Ford, Scorsese and to a lesser extent Godard have done that to me.
And Stanley Kubrick overrated? Never!
I didn’t feel this way until I started hanging out online but I’d have to say Kubrick is overrated. I used to think people took shots at him that were maybe un-called for, maybe not, but it seems to me now that he blocks some people from being able to see anyone else. And that’s sort of the definition of overrated, imo. I think Kubrick himself would be the first to say that film history is rich with genius and that it marches on into the future, full of possibilities.
CLINT EASTWOOD!
K.A. Wright
Godard
The Coen Brothers