Who do you think the most overrated director is?
@ Matt:
I appreciate Spielberg as well………it’s just in vogue to trash him right now…..wait until you see all the appreciation heaped on him after he’s dead.
I didn’t know there were so many Whitney Houston fans until she died…..
A lot of the Whitney Houston mourners are grieving over their own lost youth and reflecting on their own inevitable decline and fall.
There is no “most” for me, but there are directors who are overrated in my opinion. Like…
P.T. Anderson: Didn’t like There Will Be Blood. Yes, his stuff is pretty good (Boogie Nights is his best in my opinion), but I can’t help but notice just how too many people worship this guy. There is nothing I can see in his movies that can make me be a big fan.
Michael Haneke: Ugh, the pretension and the “society is messed up” bullshit…Cache was good, though.
Ang Lee(2000s): Crouching Tiger was awesome as fuck, but other than that, I can’t get around this guy’s stuff.
Troy Nixey: Fuck Saints.
David Fincher and Steven Spielberg
Fincher – How could his films be so dull? Don’t get me wrong, I love Fight Club. But everything else is so, hmmm, slow and moody. I’ve tried to love his films. But it hasn’t happened. I should give them a second watch perhaps.
Spielberg – Mawkishly sentimental. Contrived dialogue. I did, however, adore Saving Private Ryan.
Everything else? Overrated.
I hate Whitney Houston.
Therefore my Spielberg insults were legitimate. ;)
Nobody rates Fincher any higher.
Oliver Stone
Sofia Coppola
Martin Scorsese
Steven Spielberg
I’d say Chris Nolan too, but I’m not sure if it’s him or his Batman movies that’s overrated.
@mikhael tarigan
It’s both Nolan and the Batman movies that are overrated. Following was lame. Memento was good but gimmicky and doesn’t age as well as one would think. Inception starts out decent and gets worse and worse the longer it goes on. When Inception first came out and became a hit, I remember one of my cinephile friends who said that Nolan might be the most successful filmmaker of his generation, which is probably still true but (monetary and mainstream critical) success does not necessarily equate to anything lasting or memorable.
@alex iles
Saving Private Ryan is one of those rare cases of a film almost being entirely ruined by a rather minute part. What part is that? The hokey overly dramatic prologue and epilogue that show Private Ryan as an old man visiting the graves. I almost laughed out loud in the theatre when they came back to that in the end.
Him. Take a look at Inception success.
Nolan, Cameron and Spielberg. Masters of the technical side, but that’s pretty much it.
Sofia Coppola
Around here Haneke or Malick
In real life Steven Spielberg
Gotta agree with Dennis Brian on Spielberg
I’ve gotta say Fincher is the one that irks me the most when I hear him brought up. I don’t like his style and what he thinks counts as storytelling.
Honestly, my issues with him turned into a constant itch when a group of his fanboys (on a different site) said I was completely wrong and a dumbass for not seeing his mastery. They failed to even explain to me what he was doing so excellently in the realm of filmmaking and instead just jizzed all over him while saying I didn’t understand a lick of film in general. So when I hear Fincher’s name and how so many people love him, I shudder at the thought of imitators in the future.
My pointless beef with Fincher and his fanboys was sparked that day… I respect those of you who calmly disagree and have good points to make about him that could open my eyes, but for now, I grunt.
.
.
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Also, Im taking serious issue with Steven Spielberg. I like to love Raiders, Close Encounters, Jaws, Schindler’s List, Munich, Minority Report, and recent Tin-Tin. But War Horse has surprisingly tainted my image of him. The grey sides of his filmmaking are starting to show…
Top 10 WAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY OVER-RATED:
Terrance Malick
Lars vonTrier
Hal Hartley
James Cameron
Joshua Logan
George Lucas
RW Fassbinder
Todd Solondz
James L Brooks
Whit Stillman
Dreyer, Bresson, and Tati, especially Tati. At least Dreyer has THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC and VAMPYR and Bresson has A MAN ESCAPED, but I haven’t seen a single Tati I’ve liked and I’ve seen all his most acclaimed pictures.
Spielberg is overrated, but at least he has JAWS, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, E.T., and the underrated SUGARLAND EXPRESS and TEMPLE OF DOOM.
Fincher is overrated, especially ZODIAC. Nolan is also overrated, especially MEMENTO and THE DARK KNIGHT. BATMAN BEGINS was fun.
Charles Chaplin and Howard Hawks
Steven Spielberg – Nothing short of shallow, sappy, sentimental shite. Jaws and Catch Me if You Can were flukes. Shit list: Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, The Lost World, Duel, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, Amistad, The Terminal. How does one director make so many awful films?
Jean-Luc Godard – He started a trend of showboating while completely eschewing purpose or substance in filmmaking, and he’s probably the most pretentious filmmaker to do so.
Francis Ford Coppola – One of the worst “New Hollywood” filmmakers. His films are insufferably dry.
Eric Rohmer – Drier than a witch’s cunt. Characters purposelessly muse about fatuous philosophical questions with absolutely no inflexion whatsoever. It’s like listening to an audiobook of Plato’s Republic read by Jon Heder.
Wes Anderson – One of the most pretentious directors of the modern epoch. Hollow story lines to showboat a bland visual style. It’s as if Seth MacFarlane directed indie films.
Andrei Tarkovsky – yet another director who makes films about absolutely nothing to showcase a visual style that isn’t even impressive to being with. OMG HE LIT A COW ABLAZE! HOW AVANT-GARDE
Michael Curtiz – Basically, the Steven Spielberg of his day. Shallow vacuous emotion with corny one-liners. Although, he is really just a one hit wonder for Casablanca, his other films are likewise rubbish.
Robert Altman – I really don’t see what’s so great about him. Supposedly he’s good at filming ensembles, which is just a style he admittedly ripped off from The Rules of the Game. Also, you’d have to put me in a strait-waistcoat to get me to watch McCabe & Mrs Miller again.
Ridley Scott – To me, he’s just a British Steven Spielberg. And like Steven Spielberg, when he ventured into making indie style films, he was actually quite good (I am speaking respectively of Catch Me if You Can and Matchstick Men). Gladiator, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, Alien, and Prometheus all exhibited the most contrived qualities in Hollywood filmmaking.
Jim Jarmusch – Okay, I’ve only seen Stranger Than Paradise, but it’s already enough to throw me off of his style completely (especially since it’s considered his magnum opus). It’s dry; it’s just dry. Which is so amazing considering that this guy takes pride in ripping other people off.
Alain Resnais – Another filmmaker who is extremely skilled at making films about absolutely nothing. Hiroshima Mon Amour was immediately forgettable, and I switched off Last Year at Marienbad (something I rarely do even for the worst of films).
Ingmar Bergman – Probably the director I loathe the most. He is so excessively and obsessively praised, yet so rarely criticised. Even Jonathan Rosenbaum’s critique was lukewarm. Of all the directors that use showboated imagery to convert absolutely nothing, he is beyond a reasonable doubt the worst, the most obnoxious, and the most pretentious.
I don’t know if Cineastic is being genuine or not (a part of me feels like it’s either a troll post or a gag), but it did make me chuckle. It reminds of the scene in Manhattan where Keaton’s character is going off on the artists on her all-time “overrated” list and Woody Allen’s character replies with disgust, “Overrated? Why don’t you throw in Mozart, why you’re at it.”
Robert Mueller is a pretty overrated director. Bobby Ray Inman is an underrated director.
no matter what its still the one viewer and a film its almost impossible to account for that when evaluating work one must expect this, that if I’m sitting here getting all this from a film there is another who see’s the same film but receives nothing when you felt all you could.
@Jazzahola
Yes, I am being completely sincere. What part of my post did you think was facetious?
whats his name oh yeah EDGAR WRIGHT
@Cineastic
Given the dozen directors you mentioned, and what you said about them I’d be most interested to hear your opposite dozen (directors you think are underrated).
Woody’s it’s ironic to include that but unfortunately for him Keaton has the truth when she speaks about Bergman, a director you may like at 19/20/21/22 when you take life too seriously.
Yeah, I too would like to know which directors you do like Cineastic – and I don’t mean to sound catty, but it’s interesting because they cover a whole lot of different types of filmmaking.
The only criticism I’d call BS on is the Jarmusch one – I don’t love him as much as I used to, but you can’t put him as overrated after seeing one film. And who called Stranger his magnum opus? It’s his shoestring budget debut – having seen all his feature length efforts, it is not his best, by a long shot. And even though some would make the argument it is, it also isn’t indicative of his later efforts – Dead Man and Limits of Control, my two favourites, are very far removed from that.
The others seem to be a matter of taste, fair enough. My own two cents is that I don’t see the praise for Truffaut and Kurosawa, though I’ve only seen 3 (though to be fair, the three most generally well regarded) from each.
@Cineastic
Yes, I am being completely sincere. What part of my post did you think was facetious?
Oh OK.
To answer the question, I just thought you listed some really terrific directors. Plus, the descriptions seemed a bit over-the-top—e.g., “drier than a witch’s….” Then there’s recurring criticism of “dry” cinema. It just like you were trying to be funny. If not, I apologize. Carry on.
@B-Rad
*And who called Stranger his magnum opus? It’s his shoestring budget debut – *
Oh, is Permanent Vacation not a feature-length film? Still, that’s a minor technicality. I really like Stranger, by the way, but I also think some of Jarmusch’s films can be quite different. Stranger isn’t the same as Limits of Control or Mystery Train. All three are fairly different, I’d say. But none of these films are “wet” so, I’m pretty sure Cineastic won’t like them.
Westley
I’m defining “overrated” as directors that a lot of other people love that I personally do not love.
Albert Brooks
Jim Jarmusch
David Lynch
Terry Gilliam
Guillermo Del Toro
Michel Gondry