Haters Asked to Hate
June 2, 2015 9:38 AM Subscribe
After the Thrill is Gone: Has a director ever gotten so bad you start to wonder whether you were wrong to love their earlier movies?
I've had this with a book author too. Dan Simmons' Ilium & especially Olympos are so bad they made me question all his previous books, which I had liked.
posted by adamrice at 9:42 AM on June 2, 2015 [20 favorites]
posted by adamrice at 9:42 AM on June 2, 2015 [20 favorites]
I was waiting for someone in the article to mention Kevin Smith, and yep. I can't put it any better than this:
It became harder and harder to stay a fan as I grew up and his writing stayed immature.
posted by Metroid Baby at 9:42 AM on June 2, 2015 [29 favorites]
It became harder and harder to stay a fan as I grew up and his writing stayed immature.
posted by Metroid Baby at 9:42 AM on June 2, 2015 [29 favorites]
If you read Robert Heinlein's books in the order they were written you'll kind of start thinking this way too.
posted by GuyZero at 9:45 AM on June 2, 2015 [25 favorites]
posted by GuyZero at 9:45 AM on June 2, 2015 [25 favorites]
I think I'll always love Clerks but now that I'm in my 40s I can no longer understand why I was ever a Kevin Smith fan.
posted by bondcliff at 9:46 AM on June 2, 2015 [24 favorites]
posted by bondcliff at 9:46 AM on June 2, 2015 [24 favorites]
See Also: Nicholas Cage, Metallica, Lost.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 9:48 AM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 9:48 AM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
However, a Lost reboot directed by M.Night with a cast including Nic Cage and Metallica would be pretty good, surely?
posted by Jon Mitchell at 9:50 AM on June 2, 2015 [30 favorites]
posted by Jon Mitchell at 9:50 AM on June 2, 2015 [30 favorites]
I've had this with a book author too. Dan Simmons' Ilium & especially Olympos are so bad they made me question all his previous books, which I had liked.
That wasn't the worst of it with him, but rather that goddamn time traveller returns from the future to warn against Islam political screed of his that made me re-evaluate Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, already in doubt because of the sucky sequels. Turns out there was a lot of Islamophobia and hack writing in them as well...
posted by MartinWisse at 9:51 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
That wasn't the worst of it with him, but rather that goddamn time traveller returns from the future to warn against Islam political screed of his that made me re-evaluate Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, already in doubt because of the sucky sequels. Turns out there was a lot of Islamophobia and hack writing in them as well...
posted by MartinWisse at 9:51 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Neil Blomkamp is approaching this for me.
And Frank Miller is already there, way before he started directing his "films".
posted by FJT at 9:55 AM on June 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
And Frank Miller is already there, way before he started directing his "films".
posted by FJT at 9:55 AM on June 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
Shouldn't this just go in the previous Cameron Crowe thread?
posted by yhbc at 9:56 AM on June 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by yhbc at 9:56 AM on June 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
I’m glad they bring up Michael Bay, because he’s somebody that you almost forget HOW he became famous.
posted by French Fry at 9:56 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by French Fry at 9:56 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Spike Lee, obv.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 9:56 AM on June 2, 2015
posted by PeterMcDermott at 9:56 AM on June 2, 2015
I'm honestly surprised none of those people are in my boat, the one that's sailing as far away from Tarantino as possible.
posted by komara at 9:58 AM on June 2, 2015 [33 favorites]
posted by komara at 9:58 AM on June 2, 2015 [33 favorites]
As a teenager, I thought the Carlos Castenada's books weren't full of lies, especially since some bookstores placed them in the nonfiction shelf. When I found out he was a pathological liar, there was some disillusionment.
posted by uraniumwilly at 9:58 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by uraniumwilly at 9:58 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
More and more, it appears that these directors do good work when working with a good team, and got confused for being the good key component themselves.
The prime example is Michael Bay. Bay with screenplay by Abrams, Gilroy, Hensleigh, with Willis et al on screen: great! Bay with screenplay by Kurtzman and Orci, starring LaBoeuf: not great.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:58 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
The prime example is Michael Bay. Bay with screenplay by Abrams, Gilroy, Hensleigh, with Willis et al on screen: great! Bay with screenplay by Kurtzman and Orci, starring LaBoeuf: not great.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:58 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Ricky Gervais... from comedy genius to unwatchable arse
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:58 AM on June 2, 2015 [30 favorites]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:58 AM on June 2, 2015 [30 favorites]
Taran-fuckin-tino, for sure.
posted by ZipRibbons at 9:59 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by ZipRibbons at 9:59 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
I’m glad they bring up Michael Bay, because he’s somebody that you almost forget HOW he became famous.
But ... how could you ever forget his most seminal work?
posted by tocts at 9:59 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
But ... how could you ever forget his most seminal work?
posted by tocts at 9:59 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
NICK CAGE IS A GENIUS AND HAS ALWAYS BEEN A GENIUS YOU TAKE THAT BACK.
That said: In my private alternate universe, Dan Simmons wrote exactly one book, titled Hyperion, which consists of a complete narrative that happens to end midway through a pilgrimage. This makes sense, because:
That said: In my private alternate universe, Dan Simmons wrote exactly one book, titled Hyperion, which consists of a complete narrative that happens to end midway through a pilgrimage. This makes sense, because:
- It's not like Canterbury Tales ends with the pilgrims getting to Canterbury and having a big party at Becket's shrine or whatever, and,
- Ending in the middle serves as a corrective for the sci-fi/fantasy series tendency to resolve everything and overexplain everything, as if everything in life resolves and is explained.
*googles "Tusk Kevin Smith"*
Huh. That was a movie that came out, apparently.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:59 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Huh. That was a movie that came out, apparently.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:59 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
I do this with everybody. I bail on things I _like_ when I start to sense a downturn in quality, because my time is worth more than my sense of completion. I stopped reading Terry Prachett about the time I was in college because I was afraid I'd grow out of him and that would color my earlier appreciation (FWIW, I've dipped my toe back into that well and found it still pretty good, after a ten year hiatus).
And, yeah, from the article it pains me how much The X-Files doesn't stand up to a re-watch.
posted by gauche at 10:00 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
And, yeah, from the article it pains me how much The X-Files doesn't stand up to a re-watch.
posted by gauche at 10:00 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Neil Blomkamp is approaching this for me.
Yeah I was having a post-Chappie watch conversation the other day and starting to wonder if D9 wasn't as good as I thought (it's got some real dodgy plotting in the second half for a start)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:00 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Yeah I was having a post-Chappie watch conversation the other day and starting to wonder if D9 wasn't as good as I thought (it's got some real dodgy plotting in the second half for a start)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:00 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
I made a similar comment in the Cameron Crowe thread but I agree with most of these.
posted by octothorpe at 10:01 AM on June 2, 2015
posted by octothorpe at 10:01 AM on June 2, 2015
Anne Rice.
posted by kimberussell at 10:01 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by kimberussell at 10:01 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
Ridley Scott for me... started to wonder after a while whether Blade Runner and Alien were somehow accidental.
posted by selfnoise at 10:03 AM on June 2, 2015 [25 favorites]
posted by selfnoise at 10:03 AM on June 2, 2015 [25 favorites]
Ctrl-F "George Lucas".
You disappoint me, students.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 10:05 AM on June 2, 2015 [14 favorites]
You disappoint me, students.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 10:05 AM on June 2, 2015 [14 favorites]
(I know Anne Rice is an author, not a director, but yeah.)
posted by kimberussell at 10:05 AM on June 2, 2015
posted by kimberussell at 10:05 AM on June 2, 2015
See Also: Nicholas Cage
Unless you enjoy mentally recasting Cage as the SNL versions from Get In The Cage
posted by filthy light thief at 10:05 AM on June 2, 2015 [15 favorites]
Unless you enjoy mentally recasting Cage as the SNL versions from Get In The Cage
Nicolas Cage's Clone: Well, while, physically, we are exactly the same, there are some slight differences, personality wise.This makes things like National Treasure so much more fun. Add in a few "high praise"es and "I have brought shame to my dojo," and you can't help but smile at his Nomadic eyebrows, that have long since traveled from their home. The forehead village they grew up in was a safe haven! When ADVENTURE came calling! And like the gladiators of yore, they rode across the crescent moon that is his hairline! And THAT... is the audacity of hope.
Nicolas Cage: Yes. For example: This Nic... is calm and stealthy, like a ninja warrior.
Nicolas Cage's Clone: Whereas this Nick is an exaggerated, screaming psychopath... who just doesn't exist.
Nicolas Cage: That's high praise!
Seth Meyers: I just need to get this straight. So only one of you is currently starring in "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance", which opens this coming Friday.
Nicolas Cage: That's right, Seth. And it is not to be missed. For it has the two key qualities of a classic Nic Cage action film. Number one:
Nicolas Cage's Clone: All the dialogue is either whispered or screamed.
Nicolas Cage: And, of course, Number Two:
Nicolas Cage's Clone: Everything in the movie is on fire.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:05 AM on June 2, 2015 [15 favorites]
^F: Tim Burton...Yup.
And on preview... Ridley Scott has been breaking my heart for years. I have little faith in Blade Runner 2.
posted by sparklemotion at 10:05 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
And on preview... Ridley Scott has been breaking my heart for years. I have little faith in Blade Runner 2.
posted by sparklemotion at 10:05 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
On the music front, Rob Mitchum suggested this was true for Weezer in his review of Make Believe.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:06 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 10:06 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Speaking of M Night Shyamalan, I have a theory that he might actually be a pretty good cinematographer and maybe even a decent director. But he's an abysmal writer. And the worst kind of bad writer -- the kind who thinks he's an amazing genius.
posted by mhum at 10:06 AM on June 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by mhum at 10:06 AM on June 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
Spike Lee, obv.
Spike Lee should title his autobiography Did One Thing Right.
(Actually, Malcolm X was quite good, too.)
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:07 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Spike Lee should title his autobiography Did One Thing Right.
(Actually, Malcolm X was quite good, too.)
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:07 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
I was just taking some pictures of the church from the end of Kevin Smith's Dogma because it's only a block from my office and probably will get demolished fairly soon and starting thinking about Smith. It's hard to remember that at the time of Dogma, he was a big cultural force and people talked about his films over the watercooler and such.
Maybe some artists just have a limited amount of creativity and just run out after a few works.
posted by octothorpe at 10:07 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Maybe some artists just have a limited amount of creativity and just run out after a few works.
posted by octothorpe at 10:07 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Doctor Who, post Amy & Rory. Adored it before then, loathe it now.
posted by Windigo at 10:07 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Windigo at 10:07 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Also Ben Elton... he last sitcom, The Wright Way, for the BBC was almost mesmerizing in it's awfulness... and I'm starting to strongly suspect that his earlier good stuff (Young Ones, Blackadder) was brought up to its genius level by the contributions of other writers / performers (I've heard that a lot of Blackadder was work-shopped / improvised by the actors). See also Ricky Gervais and The Office.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:08 AM on June 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:08 AM on June 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
All of this bad evolution has me concerned about Jon Stewart
posted by uraniumwilly at 10:09 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by uraniumwilly at 10:09 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
sparklemotion: "And on preview... Ridley Scott has been breaking my heart for years. I have little faith in Blade Runner 2."
Scott's not making it. Denis Villeneuve is with Roger Deakins(!) shooting.
posted by octothorpe at 10:09 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
Scott's not making it. Denis Villeneuve is with Roger Deakins(!) shooting.
posted by octothorpe at 10:09 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
Is anyone else getting a big blank space where MartinWisse's comment supposedly should be? So odd, must be a display error or something.
posted by backseatpilot at 10:10 AM on June 2, 2015
posted by backseatpilot at 10:10 AM on June 2, 2015
Scott's not making it. Denis Villeneuve is with Roger Deakins(!) shooting.
And a brighter day was had by all.
posted by uraniumwilly at 10:11 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
And a brighter day was had by all.
posted by uraniumwilly at 10:11 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Metafilter when the img tag left?
posted by blue_beetle at 10:12 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by blue_beetle at 10:12 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Atom Eyes: "(Actually, Malcolm X was quite good, too.)"
How about Inside Man? I thought it was a pretty enjoyable heist film. Although, to be fair, it was also his least Spike Lee-esque movie.
posted by mhum at 10:12 AM on June 2, 2015 [14 favorites]
How about Inside Man? I thought it was a pretty enjoyable heist film. Although, to be fair, it was also his least Spike Lee-esque movie.
posted by mhum at 10:12 AM on June 2, 2015 [14 favorites]
Not a director thing, per se, but I watched Crash the first time and was really moved by it. Rewatching it some months later I was really embarrassed by how easily I was manipulated by its tripe of a storyline.
posted by docpops at 10:13 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by docpops at 10:13 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Terrence Malick. It's not that his movies are getting horrible, they're just becoming so... Terrence Malickey.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 10:13 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 10:13 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
I agree with this from Farran Nehme: "What's good stays good. I prefer the Wile E. Coyote School of Critical Optimism: 'Even a genius can have an off-day.' Or an off-year, or an off-decade..." Every great director has made at least one shit movie, and most of them have made many.
posted by blucevalo at 10:13 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by blucevalo at 10:13 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
also, how has nobody mentioned Cameron Crowe? or has he always sucked?
posted by docpops at 10:14 AM on June 2, 2015
posted by docpops at 10:14 AM on June 2, 2015
Happy Days, after the episode when Fonz jumps the shark.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:14 AM on June 2, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:14 AM on June 2, 2015 [10 favorites]
For me it's been Robert Rodriguez, not to say that his films are terrible but the title character in El Mariachi was a Chaplinesque everyman, which made me root for him. I couldn't have cared less about the fate of any of the characters in his subsequent works (the one's I've seen).
posted by bonobothegreat at 10:14 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by bonobothegreat at 10:14 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Terrence Malick. It's not that his movies are getting horrible, they're just becoming so... Terrence Malickey.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 10:13 AM on June 2 [1 favorite −] Favorite added! [!]
No such thing for me. I think the older I get and the more existential/navelgazey he gets the more I like him. But he's torture for the younger set I think.
posted by docpops at 10:15 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 10:13 AM on June 2 [1 favorite −] Favorite added! [!]
No such thing for me. I think the older I get and the more existential/navelgazey he gets the more I like him. But he's torture for the younger set I think.
posted by docpops at 10:15 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Has a director ever gotten so bad you start to wonder whether you were wrong to love their earlier movies?
No.
I like what I like when I liked it. I am not defined by the movies I watch. I do not worship directors or follow their work blindly.
I never did the cult worship thing very well, anyway, and I am not looking for reasons to question myself, either. I am just a fun-loving free spirit, leave it at that.
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 10:15 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
No.
I like what I like when I liked it. I am not defined by the movies I watch. I do not worship directors or follow their work blindly.
I never did the cult worship thing very well, anyway, and I am not looking for reasons to question myself, either. I am just a fun-loving free spirit, leave it at that.
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 10:15 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
The Happening is a superb comedy.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:17 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:17 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
So, I'm going to go and grab for the big brass ring, the comment that will immediately get me vilified.
I was a really big fan of John Lasseter. Like many, I thought Pixar had captured magic in a bottle, with that combination of next-generation visuals and solid, witty storytelling that they're so well known for. But after having been exposed to the formula and style time and time again, I've started to really resent everything Lasseter touches. It's not just the endless sequel attempts (Toy Story 4?!?) that are so galling after Lasseter said that he was going to put a stop to all of the cash-in Disney sequels, or the lazy storytelling of the endless Cars spinoffs - those earlier shorts and films have been tainted, where that overfamiliar Pixar flavor just gets me agitated.
What I thought was greatness was merely competence and novelty, and those haven't carried the films for me.
posted by eschatfische at 10:18 AM on June 2, 2015 [17 favorites]
I was a really big fan of John Lasseter. Like many, I thought Pixar had captured magic in a bottle, with that combination of next-generation visuals and solid, witty storytelling that they're so well known for. But after having been exposed to the formula and style time and time again, I've started to really resent everything Lasseter touches. It's not just the endless sequel attempts (Toy Story 4?!?) that are so galling after Lasseter said that he was going to put a stop to all of the cash-in Disney sequels, or the lazy storytelling of the endless Cars spinoffs - those earlier shorts and films have been tainted, where that overfamiliar Pixar flavor just gets me agitated.
What I thought was greatness was merely competence and novelty, and those haven't carried the films for me.
posted by eschatfische at 10:18 AM on June 2, 2015 [17 favorites]
I think this article focuses on the directors and completely misses the roles of the producers (where applicable) in creating great films. It would take some damning evidence to convince me that Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall didn't exert a tremendous moderating influence over M. Night Shyamalan during the making of The Sixth Sense and Signs—moderation that simply wasn't present in Unbreakable, The Village, or anything afterwards.
posted by infinitewindow at 10:19 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by infinitewindow at 10:19 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
So interesting when Shyamalan is used as an example of this. To me, he had only one great movie - Sixth Sense. I saw Unbreakable in the theater and was nonplussed by it. By the time Signs rolled around, I was openly and loudly mocking the guy. How anyone could think that was a great movie is completely beyond me. I think the goodwill from Sixth Sense just kept carrying on for a while until people wised up.
Terrence Malick is my choice for this, though I'm still in the process of disenchantment. Badlands, Days of Heaven, A Thin Red Line - these were unimpeachable masterpieces for me. The Tree of Life was the same, but something soured on second and third viewing as no hidden depths revealed themselves. To The Wonder came really close to self-parody. I'm very wary of the forthcoming Knight of Cups , and I'm also starting to wonder if there's not much going on under the (very beautiful) surface of his films.
posted by naju at 10:19 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Terrence Malick is my choice for this, though I'm still in the process of disenchantment. Badlands, Days of Heaven, A Thin Red Line - these were unimpeachable masterpieces for me. The Tree of Life was the same, but something soured on second and third viewing as no hidden depths revealed themselves. To The Wonder came really close to self-parody. I'm very wary of the forthcoming Knight of Cups , and I'm also starting to wonder if there's not much going on under the (very beautiful) surface of his films.
posted by naju at 10:19 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Terrence Malick. It's not that his movies are getting horrible, they're just becoming so... Terrence Malickey.
I feel the complete opposite way. As someone whose introduction to Malick was Tree of Life and To the Wonder, I find myself very disappointed by his earlier works. It's like getting your first taste of Whitman in Leaves of Grass, and expecting to enjoy his early temperance novel, Franklin Evans.
posted by jayder at 10:20 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
I feel the complete opposite way. As someone whose introduction to Malick was Tree of Life and To the Wonder, I find myself very disappointed by his earlier works. It's like getting your first taste of Whitman in Leaves of Grass, and expecting to enjoy his early temperance novel, Franklin Evans.
posted by jayder at 10:20 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Maybe works of art should simply be judged on their own merits instead of via the cult of personality of either director or star?
There's kind of a childishness to auteur models of criticism that seems often to take the pattern of "Daddy/Mommy/great director are amazing and can do no wrong" until some fall from grace reminiscent of an adolescent crisis realization her or his parents are flawed, then so often it veers to "OMG - how did I ever get duped into thinking they knew what they were doing, they're such a loser and everything they ever said or did is tainted..."
posted by aught at 10:22 AM on June 2, 2015 [28 favorites]
There's kind of a childishness to auteur models of criticism that seems often to take the pattern of "Daddy/Mommy/great director are amazing and can do no wrong" until some fall from grace reminiscent of an adolescent crisis realization her or his parents are flawed, then so often it veers to "OMG - how did I ever get duped into thinking they knew what they were doing, they're such a loser and everything they ever said or did is tainted..."
posted by aught at 10:22 AM on June 2, 2015 [28 favorites]
While he has a hell of a lot of masterpieces under his belt, Ridley Scott has been stinking up the joint in recent years.
posted by bfranklin at 10:23 AM on June 2, 2015
posted by bfranklin at 10:23 AM on June 2, 2015
Aronofsky. Black Swan was hugely overrated. Noah and The Wrestler were solidly mediocre. The Fountain had some ambition but ultimately fell short. He peaked early with Pi and Requiem, and the latter arguably leaned too heavily on cinematographic gimmickry (though this has always been his trademark vice).
posted by dephlogisticated at 10:24 AM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by dephlogisticated at 10:24 AM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
Spike Lee has always stretched himself and tried new things and there's always been mixed degrees of success there, but he's still great, as far as I'm concerned. "Did One Thing Right?" And then, what? Did Malcolm X, as you mention, and He Got Game, Bamboozled, 25th Hour, Inside Man...
posted by Navelgazer at 10:25 AM on June 2, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by Navelgazer at 10:25 AM on June 2, 2015 [13 favorites]
Atom Eyes: “Spike Lee should title his autobiography Did One Thing Right. (Actually, Malcolm X was quite good, too.)”
Seriously? She's Gotta Have It might be better than Do The Right Thing. The characters are certainly better-drawn. Almost all of his early movies are incredibly good; the problem is that few people seem to have seen them.
I guess I'm lucky. I haven't seen these recent Spike Lee movies that apparently disappoint people. It has sounded like he's taken some crap projects recently.
posted by koeselitz at 10:25 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Seriously? She's Gotta Have It might be better than Do The Right Thing. The characters are certainly better-drawn. Almost all of his early movies are incredibly good; the problem is that few people seem to have seen them.
I guess I'm lucky. I haven't seen these recent Spike Lee movies that apparently disappoint people. It has sounded like he's taken some crap projects recently.
posted by koeselitz at 10:25 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Woody Allen. And David Letterman post-NBC.
posted by Nevin at 10:25 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Nevin at 10:25 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
(But this is basically how I feel about the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Like... did they become insufferable hacks at some point, or did I just get better at recognizing that sort of thing?)
posted by Navelgazer at 10:25 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Navelgazer at 10:25 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
Nic Cage was just in Joe, now on Netflix, and was terrific.
He's still got it in him. With Cage, there's always been a lot of noise to signal, but, oh man, that signal.
posted by maxsparber at 10:26 AM on June 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
He's still got it in him. With Cage, there's always been a lot of noise to signal, but, oh man, that signal.
posted by maxsparber at 10:26 AM on June 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
(And, yeah, Navelgazer is right – Bamboozled, for example – really fantastic stuff, that.)
posted by koeselitz at 10:26 AM on June 2, 2015
posted by koeselitz at 10:26 AM on June 2, 2015
Two months ago I would have said George Miller, but then he ends up making his masterpiece.
There's hope for you yet, M. Night!
posted by cazoo at 10:27 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
There's hope for you yet, M. Night!
posted by cazoo at 10:27 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Ooh, yeah, Rob Reiner.
posted by Nevin at 10:27 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Nevin at 10:27 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
While he has a hell of a lot of masterpieces under his belt, Ridley Scott has been stinking up the joint in recent years.
I would argue that " a hell of a lot" is pushing it...Scott has two certified classics under his belt, and the more recent of those was originally released in 1982. Everything since has ranged from passably not-bad at best to unwatchable at worst, yet he's still held in incredibly high regard...I think he was a very specific visionary, and ever since his vision was unveiled to the world (and then was ripped off countless times) he's been treading water as a stylist and especially as a storyteller. However, I admit that I haven't seen everything he's made...Examples: sorry, A Good Year, sorry Someone to Watch Over Me...I just don't have the time.
posted by doctornecessiter at 10:28 AM on June 2, 2015
I would argue that " a hell of a lot" is pushing it...Scott has two certified classics under his belt, and the more recent of those was originally released in 1982. Everything since has ranged from passably not-bad at best to unwatchable at worst, yet he's still held in incredibly high regard...I think he was a very specific visionary, and ever since his vision was unveiled to the world (and then was ripped off countless times) he's been treading water as a stylist and especially as a storyteller. However, I admit that I haven't seen everything he's made...Examples: sorry, A Good Year, sorry Someone to Watch Over Me...I just don't have the time.
posted by doctornecessiter at 10:28 AM on June 2, 2015
Basically everybody.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:28 AM on June 2, 2015 [25 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:28 AM on June 2, 2015 [25 favorites]
Nic Cage's problem was that he ended up owing a shitton of money to the IRS, and was unable to turn down any work.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 10:28 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by 1970s Antihero at 10:28 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Well, Tim Burton settled into his niche a decade or two ago; he knows that he can spend his life making variations on ooky-kooky-spooky Halloweenie goth-candy, mixing in bits of midcentury LA low-culture for flavour, and the paychecks will keep coming in, so he started phoning it in. One can hardly blame him.
Though it does make me wonder how long Wes Anderson has got left…
posted by acb at 10:29 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Though it does make me wonder how long Wes Anderson has got left…
posted by acb at 10:29 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think I've hit the point where Joss Whedon and I part ways, but if I start to retroactively like Buffy less I will be VERY UPSET.
I do experience it very differently now than I did on first watching, though-- it was disconcerting, recently, to cue up some Season 2 and discover that Giles has become the only age-appropriate hottie onscreen.
posted by nonasuch at 10:30 AM on June 2, 2015 [18 favorites]
I do experience it very differently now than I did on first watching, though-- it was disconcerting, recently, to cue up some Season 2 and discover that Giles has become the only age-appropriate hottie onscreen.
posted by nonasuch at 10:30 AM on June 2, 2015 [18 favorites]
Yeah, Shyamalan is a classic, and people often cite "The Village", but I loved it. I guess I just approached it as a love story. I don't know. Maybe I don't even know why it worked for me, but it really did. I still love it.
posted by Ambient Echo at 10:30 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Ambient Echo at 10:30 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
Every Sofia Coppola movie I have seen makes me dislike all of the previous ones retroactively and increasingly
Yes!!!
posted by Nevin at 10:30 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yes!!!
posted by Nevin at 10:30 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Basically everybody.
All walks o' life!
posted by Navelgazer at 10:31 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
All walks o' life!
posted by Navelgazer at 10:31 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm starting to strongly suspect that his earlier good stuff (Young Ones, Blackadder) was brought up to its genius level by the contributions of other writers / performers (I've heard that a lot of Blackadder was work-shopped / improvised by the actors). See also Ricky Gervais and The Office.
I think this is probably relevant in a lot of cases. A movie or TV show has a lot of parts that go into the final product: producers, scriptwriters, actors (depending on the role) etc can all have a huge positive impact. It's easy to credit the director with his artistic vision, and obviously they had a lot to do with it. But sometimes they lucked into, or at one time realized they needed, a group of others to make something truly great. When they don't have those people, for whatever reason, you get a worse product. You can then go back to the previous work, and see shadows of the annoying ticks that were being edited out or tweaked into something more palatable.
posted by ghost phoneme at 10:31 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think this is probably relevant in a lot of cases. A movie or TV show has a lot of parts that go into the final product: producers, scriptwriters, actors (depending on the role) etc can all have a huge positive impact. It's easy to credit the director with his artistic vision, and obviously they had a lot to do with it. But sometimes they lucked into, or at one time realized they needed, a group of others to make something truly great. When they don't have those people, for whatever reason, you get a worse product. You can then go back to the previous work, and see shadows of the annoying ticks that were being edited out or tweaked into something more palatable.
posted by ghost phoneme at 10:31 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I can't help but question critics who think Signs was a good movie. It was deeply, deeply stupid. I thought so when it came out, and still do.
I do tend to agree that if he were working with a good writer, Shyamalan might be ok as a director or cinematographer.* He can create compelling shots and action. But when all of it is in service to an incredibly dumb plot, well. It angries up the blood.
*but then there's the whitewashing/shitty camerawork of The Last Airbender, so maybe not.
Now Roland Emmerich makes deeply stupid movies too, but they are fun to watch, and he doesn't really pretend he's doing anything but what he's doing. He likes to blow stuff up, particularly large American cities, and he has a lot of fun doing it. If Shyamalan blew up New York he'd have a sermon in the middle (delivered by him) and some sort of mystic child wandering around maybe to save the world or maybe not. Emmerich gives you ridiculous CGI wolves on a ship in the middle of Manhattan, and all he expects you to think is "OMG WOLVES WTF."
Nic Cage's problem was that he ended up owing a shitton of money to the IRS, and was unable to turn down any work.
Don't blame the IRS, blame Cage's love for buying pyramid tombs.
posted by emjaybee at 10:32 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
I do tend to agree that if he were working with a good writer, Shyamalan might be ok as a director or cinematographer.* He can create compelling shots and action. But when all of it is in service to an incredibly dumb plot, well. It angries up the blood.
*but then there's the whitewashing/shitty camerawork of The Last Airbender, so maybe not.
Now Roland Emmerich makes deeply stupid movies too, but they are fun to watch, and he doesn't really pretend he's doing anything but what he's doing. He likes to blow stuff up, particularly large American cities, and he has a lot of fun doing it. If Shyamalan blew up New York he'd have a sermon in the middle (delivered by him) and some sort of mystic child wandering around maybe to save the world or maybe not. Emmerich gives you ridiculous CGI wolves on a ship in the middle of Manhattan, and all he expects you to think is "OMG WOLVES WTF."
Nic Cage's problem was that he ended up owing a shitton of money to the IRS, and was unable to turn down any work.
Don't blame the IRS, blame Cage's love for buying pyramid tombs.
posted by emjaybee at 10:32 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Johnny Depp does it for me. For a very long time I believed that a movie with Johnny Depp was always worth watching for Johnny Depp. Even if the movie kind of sucked, he was usually interesting enough to make it worth my time.
Now it seems like what I thought was interesting was actually just Johnny Depp being Johnny Depp and I was bamboozled by the novelty of it, but it took a few years of his act wearing thin for me to be able to see his past work in the property context.
That's not to say that he doesn't have some great work, but the stuff that previously I thought was unwatchable-except-for-Depp is now just unwatchable.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 10:32 AM on June 2, 2015 [10 favorites]
Now it seems like what I thought was interesting was actually just Johnny Depp being Johnny Depp and I was bamboozled by the novelty of it, but it took a few years of his act wearing thin for me to be able to see his past work in the property context.
That's not to say that he doesn't have some great work, but the stuff that previously I thought was unwatchable-except-for-Depp is now just unwatchable.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 10:32 AM on June 2, 2015 [10 favorites]
WHEDON.
I re-watched some Buffy after the most recent Avengers shitstorm, and... wow. It hurts me. I must have first watched it at a really weird time in my life because I loved it then (and it DOES have some really fantastic episodes), but now it's so painful. Xander is such an asshole. I am desperately avoiding a re-watch of Firefly for fear of it also being terrible.
posted by specialagentwebb at 10:32 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
I re-watched some Buffy after the most recent Avengers shitstorm, and... wow. It hurts me. I must have first watched it at a really weird time in my life because I loved it then (and it DOES have some really fantastic episodes), but now it's so painful. Xander is such an asshole. I am desperately avoiding a re-watch of Firefly for fear of it also being terrible.
posted by specialagentwebb at 10:32 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Every Sofia Coppola movie I have seen makes me dislike all of the previous ones retroactively and increasingly
To be fair, that includes only The Virgin Suicides; and wasn't that largely the work of her collaborators?
posted by acb at 10:34 AM on June 2, 2015
To be fair, that includes only The Virgin Suicides; and wasn't that largely the work of her collaborators?
posted by acb at 10:34 AM on June 2, 2015
It's real, real weird that no one has mentioned Aaron Sorkin yet.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:34 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Navelgazer at 10:34 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
It's weird that people list M Night Shyamalan. Were folks really ever convinced that The Sixth Sense was a masterpiece? I mean, really – it always seemed like pap to me. Fun, yeah, but not much more than that.
A good answer in the article is Wim Wenders. Now there's a guy who made insanely good movies and then became calcified.
The best answer, of course, is Jordan Hoffman's.
posted by koeselitz at 10:35 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
A good answer in the article is Wim Wenders. Now there's a guy who made insanely good movies and then became calcified.
The best answer, of course, is Jordan Hoffman's.
posted by koeselitz at 10:35 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
For everyone who has (understandably) given up on Tim Burton, I recommend watching his 2014 movie Big Eyes.
posted by vibrotronica at 10:36 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by vibrotronica at 10:36 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Maybe works of art should simply be judged on their own merits — aught
There are schools of criticism that try to judge the work of art in isolation from other works or from the time and place the work was made or the audience, and that has never really worked for me. The merits of Guernica or Uncle Tom's Cabin or Triumph of the Will are so tightly coupled with the circumstances of their creation and release that it's difficult to understand them without understanding those circumstances. It's more difficult to critique or appreciate them without such knowledge.
In addition, I'm a big fan of the idea of an artistic dialogue. I don't think it's possible to fully appreciate Sweet Home Alabama without knowing about Southern Man. Even if the dialogue isn't between two creators, it exists within a body of work, which is a thing that can be looked at as a whole. Sometimes an author clarifies what he says in book 1 by writing book 2.
For me, it's more interesting to talk about "The Films of Baz Luhrmann" or "The Red Curtain Trilogy" and discuss the interconnected themes in the whole series than it is to just talk about Strictly Ballroom. It's more interesting to talk about how I thought The Matrix Trilogy was an artistic failure than to talk about any of the individual movies.
To each his own, but there's value to me in looking beyond looking at any single work in isolation, and my understanding of the larger context can easily change my reaction to an individual work.
posted by Mad_Carew at 10:36 AM on June 2, 2015 [12 favorites]
There are schools of criticism that try to judge the work of art in isolation from other works or from the time and place the work was made or the audience, and that has never really worked for me. The merits of Guernica or Uncle Tom's Cabin or Triumph of the Will are so tightly coupled with the circumstances of their creation and release that it's difficult to understand them without understanding those circumstances. It's more difficult to critique or appreciate them without such knowledge.
In addition, I'm a big fan of the idea of an artistic dialogue. I don't think it's possible to fully appreciate Sweet Home Alabama without knowing about Southern Man. Even if the dialogue isn't between two creators, it exists within a body of work, which is a thing that can be looked at as a whole. Sometimes an author clarifies what he says in book 1 by writing book 2.
For me, it's more interesting to talk about "The Films of Baz Luhrmann" or "The Red Curtain Trilogy" and discuss the interconnected themes in the whole series than it is to just talk about Strictly Ballroom. It's more interesting to talk about how I thought The Matrix Trilogy was an artistic failure than to talk about any of the individual movies.
To each his own, but there's value to me in looking beyond looking at any single work in isolation, and my understanding of the larger context can easily change my reaction to an individual work.
posted by Mad_Carew at 10:36 AM on June 2, 2015 [12 favorites]
For me it's John Carpenter. His early work is like a list of my Favorite Movies Ever: Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Thing, The Fog, Escape From New York, Big Trouble in Little China, They Live. Seriously, one dude directed all those cinematic gems in just over a decade. Then he made Vampires and Ghosts of Mars which made me want to stop watching all movies forever. They didn't make me go back and question his earlier work, but it's still such a disappointment.
See also: George Romero
posted by Timmoy Daen at 10:36 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
See also: George Romero
posted by Timmoy Daen at 10:36 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
I think it's a mark of how far Peter Bogdanovich's star has fallen that he isn't even considered for this list.
posted by maxsparber at 10:40 AM on June 2, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by maxsparber at 10:40 AM on June 2, 2015 [10 favorites]
It's real, real weird that no one has mentioned Aaron Sorkin yet.
He's mentioned in the article, FWIW.
I like Arron Sorkin with reservations. He's really, really bad when he gets preachy and he's not as clever as he thinks he is and all his characters sort of sound the same (and, despite being a Gilbert and Sullivan fan, I find his love of G&S to be really annoying), but I still like The West Wing and Sports Night because he does do some things very well. I find them more annoying now than I did when I first watched them, but I'm 10 years older and a lot has changed. The bits that worked well then still work for me now.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 10:40 AM on June 2, 2015
He's mentioned in the article, FWIW.
I like Arron Sorkin with reservations. He's really, really bad when he gets preachy and he's not as clever as he thinks he is and all his characters sort of sound the same (and, despite being a Gilbert and Sullivan fan, I find his love of G&S to be really annoying), but I still like The West Wing and Sports Night because he does do some things very well. I find them more annoying now than I did when I first watched them, but I'm 10 years older and a lot has changed. The bits that worked well then still work for me now.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 10:40 AM on June 2, 2015
Ctrl-F "George Lucas".
You disappoint me, students.
I think the reason Lucas isn't my first instinct on this question is that his run as a director is actually pretty short to begin with, and there's an enormous gap before he came back to take a crap on his earlier work. He basically stepped out of the director's chair for 21 years between SW Ep IV and SW Ep I (15 years if you give him credit for Ep V/VI, but at most on those he did some second unit work if I recall correctly).
So, when the prequels happened, my disappointment wasn't that George Lucas had fallen so badly, but that Star Wars had fallen so badly. And sure, that's mostly George's fault, but is a distinctly different thing from, say, watching the steady decline of Michael Bay's directorial output over a number of years.
posted by tocts at 10:41 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
You disappoint me, students.
I think the reason Lucas isn't my first instinct on this question is that his run as a director is actually pretty short to begin with, and there's an enormous gap before he came back to take a crap on his earlier work. He basically stepped out of the director's chair for 21 years between SW Ep IV and SW Ep I (15 years if you give him credit for Ep V/VI, but at most on those he did some second unit work if I recall correctly).
So, when the prequels happened, my disappointment wasn't that George Lucas had fallen so badly, but that Star Wars had fallen so badly. And sure, that's mostly George's fault, but is a distinctly different thing from, say, watching the steady decline of Michael Bay's directorial output over a number of years.
posted by tocts at 10:41 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
See also: George Romero
See also also: Dario Argento. I adore his 70s films, but at some point in the early 80s he went off his rocker.
posted by neckro23 at 10:41 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
See also also: Dario Argento. I adore his 70s films, but at some point in the early 80s he went off his rocker.
posted by neckro23 at 10:41 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
To be fair, that includes only The Virgin Suicides; and wasn't that largely the work of her collaborators?
Well the movie was scripted and directed by Coppola, is that not enough in your eyes to consider it her work?
I haven't liked Coppola's later works as much as I liked The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation, but I think TFA is wrong that it's because she keeps dipping into the same bag of tricks -- honestly, I'm enough of a sucker for the early aesthetic that I'd eat it up if she made more films that were just like them. I think her work evolved in a direction that has far less mass appeal and has resisted returning to the form that earned her early films acclaim.
posted by telegraph at 10:42 AM on June 2, 2015
Well the movie was scripted and directed by Coppola, is that not enough in your eyes to consider it her work?
I haven't liked Coppola's later works as much as I liked The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation, but I think TFA is wrong that it's because she keeps dipping into the same bag of tricks -- honestly, I'm enough of a sucker for the early aesthetic that I'd eat it up if she made more films that were just like them. I think her work evolved in a direction that has far less mass appeal and has resisted returning to the form that earned her early films acclaim.
posted by telegraph at 10:42 AM on June 2, 2015
I like Arron Sorkin with reservations. He's really, really bad when he gets preachy and he's not as clever as he thinks he is and all his characters sort of sound the same (and, despite being a Gilbert and Sullivan fan, I find his love of G&S to be really annoying), but I still like The West Wing and Sports Night because he does do some things very well. I find them more annoying now than I did when I first watched them, but I'm 10 years older and a lot has changed. The bits that worked well then still work for me now.
Basically my own feelings as well, but with Sorkin, I definitely got that feeling of "quirks that used to be cute when we were first dating will now spike my blood pressure."
posted by Navelgazer at 10:43 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Basically my own feelings as well, but with Sorkin, I definitely got that feeling of "quirks that used to be cute when we were first dating will now spike my blood pressure."
posted by Navelgazer at 10:43 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Carpenter does seem to sort of sum up the 70s/early 80s; he was everywhere, or at least TV ads for his movies were, when I was a kid. I watched The Fog a few months ago, it is a strange little movie, very 70s, but has some good scares. Still need to see They Live.
I still can't bring myself to watch The Thing; I mean, I watched a documentary about how they did the effects, and they still scare me anyway! Plus the whole premise of the movie just freaks me out so much I can't watch it.
posted by emjaybee at 10:44 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I still can't bring myself to watch The Thing; I mean, I watched a documentary about how they did the effects, and they still scare me anyway! Plus the whole premise of the movie just freaks me out so much I can't watch it.
posted by emjaybee at 10:44 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Not film, but I'm currently in the middle of Book 4 of A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones), and I'm increasingly starting to feel this way about George R. R. Martin. His earlier sins only seem to become amplified as the series progresses.
posted by schmod at 10:44 AM on June 2, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by schmod at 10:44 AM on June 2, 2015 [11 favorites]
> The Happening is a superb comedy.
"What? Noooooo!"
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:45 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
"What? Noooooo!"
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:45 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
After Mean Girls, I found myself in a spiral of dejection with Lindsay Lohan's performances. It kept on getting more and more awkward and depressing with each subsequent film, until all was forgiven with The Canyons. Finally, with it was a performance that equalled that moment of glory that made me keep giving the benefit of the doubt for all those years (and uneven performances).
So...Was The Canyons actually watchable, and Lohan gave a good performance? I share his despair over a career that showed great promise, spiraling down the drain, and keep hoping LL would sober-up enough to do something on-par with her performances of youth.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:46 AM on June 2, 2015
So...Was The Canyons actually watchable, and Lohan gave a good performance? I share his despair over a career that showed great promise, spiraling down the drain, and keep hoping LL would sober-up enough to do something on-par with her performances of youth.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:46 AM on June 2, 2015
"Though it does make me wonder how long Wes Anderson has got left…"
By whatever available metrics we have (age, gender, race, income level, hobbies, etc.) I should be a Wes Anderson fan, but I'm not. Never been anti-Anderson or anything, just never caught the appeal. I've seen a few of his films over the years and found them forgettable.
... until I made a bad life decision recently and watched The Grand Budapest Hotel. That would be the point at which if I had been a fan of Anderson I would have started to question my devotion. As it stands it was the point at which I decided I didn't need to waste any more time with him ever again.
posted by komara at 10:46 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
By whatever available metrics we have (age, gender, race, income level, hobbies, etc.) I should be a Wes Anderson fan, but I'm not. Never been anti-Anderson or anything, just never caught the appeal. I've seen a few of his films over the years and found them forgettable.
... until I made a bad life decision recently and watched The Grand Budapest Hotel. That would be the point at which if I had been a fan of Anderson I would have started to question my devotion. As it stands it was the point at which I decided I didn't need to waste any more time with him ever again.
posted by komara at 10:46 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
(But this is basically how I feel about the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Like... did they become insufferable hacks at some point, or did I just get better at recognizing that sort of thing?)
Yeah, what I refer to as the "Under the bridge downtown / that's where I lost my funk" effect.
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:47 AM on June 2, 2015
Yeah, what I refer to as the "Under the bridge downtown / that's where I lost my funk" effect.
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:47 AM on June 2, 2015
This really happened to me with Aaron Sorking, and felt a meaure of agreement (and sadness) to see him mentioned. It was sometime after getting very used to the tropes of writing in service of snappy wordplay that I saw that notorious scene from "A Few Good Men". All I could think when watching it was that he lobbed himself some verbal softballs, and knocked it out of the park.
But the Tom Cruise part was particularly clunky, and the whole thing seemed to fall flat in retrospect.
posted by doozer_ex_machina at 10:48 AM on June 2, 2015
But the Tom Cruise part was particularly clunky, and the whole thing seemed to fall flat in retrospect.
posted by doozer_ex_machina at 10:48 AM on June 2, 2015
I've never been a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan, but I have friends who are...and their critical opinion of the band seems to have followed a similar trajectory to Boomers who loved the Stones in the '60s and early '70s, before the long, long decline.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:50 AM on June 2, 2015
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:50 AM on June 2, 2015
Would "Disney in general" count? I've hated almost everything they've done since around 1990, when they decided every character needed a sassy sidekick and they had to throw in contemporary references that are awkward within 6 months. And compounding it all is the fact so many were recieved so well.
I can't help but question critics who think Signs was a good movie. It was deeply, deeply stupid
It definitely had problems, but at the time it came out I think Shyamalan was still in the "benefit of the doubt" stage of his career. Huge narrative plausibility issues aside, he did a pretty good job at a few things--there was some legitimately scary scenes and a good deal of suspense. But yeah, the way literally anything in the movie was resolved stank.
Shyamalan definitely belongs in this conversation. Kevin Smith too. George Lucas, Sorkin, Burton...yep.
But I will still go to bat for Tarantino and Rodriguez both. Tarantino was better before he could get the great big huge budgets and spectacle, I don't really disagree, but to me he still has that stupid fun irreverent garbage quality that appealed to me when I first saw Pulp Fiction even if some of the later stuff is a bit bloated and meandering at times. Much the same for Rodriguez: his stuff, from day 1, was fun trash. I haven't seen Sin City 2 and I gather it's awful, but I loved Once Upon A Time In Mexico, Grindhouse, Machete, and the From Dusk Til Dawn TV show was fun.
posted by Hoopo at 10:51 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I can't help but question critics who think Signs was a good movie. It was deeply, deeply stupid
It definitely had problems, but at the time it came out I think Shyamalan was still in the "benefit of the doubt" stage of his career. Huge narrative plausibility issues aside, he did a pretty good job at a few things--there was some legitimately scary scenes and a good deal of suspense. But yeah, the way literally anything in the movie was resolved stank.
Shyamalan definitely belongs in this conversation. Kevin Smith too. George Lucas, Sorkin, Burton...yep.
But I will still go to bat for Tarantino and Rodriguez both. Tarantino was better before he could get the great big huge budgets and spectacle, I don't really disagree, but to me he still has that stupid fun irreverent garbage quality that appealed to me when I first saw Pulp Fiction even if some of the later stuff is a bit bloated and meandering at times. Much the same for Rodriguez: his stuff, from day 1, was fun trash. I haven't seen Sin City 2 and I gather it's awful, but I loved Once Upon A Time In Mexico, Grindhouse, Machete, and the From Dusk Til Dawn TV show was fun.
posted by Hoopo at 10:51 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
"Though it does make me wonder how long Wes Anderson has got left…"
Well, let's see:
Bottle Rocket
Rushmore
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
The Darjeeling Limited
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Moonrise Kingdom
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Two questionable ones in the middle, but he seems to be doing fine.
posted by maxsparber at 10:52 AM on June 2, 2015 [12 favorites]
Well, let's see:
Bottle Rocket
Rushmore
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
The Darjeeling Limited
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Moonrise Kingdom
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Two questionable ones in the middle, but he seems to be doing fine.
posted by maxsparber at 10:52 AM on June 2, 2015 [12 favorites]
However, a Lost reboot directed by M.Night with a cast including Nic Cage and Metallica would be pretty good, surely?
The pungent combination of wretched anticipation and vicious pre-hate would merit at least two bags of popcorn, though.
posted by chavenet at 10:52 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
The pungent combination of wretched anticipation and vicious pre-hate would merit at least two bags of popcorn, though.
posted by chavenet at 10:52 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Definitely Tarantino and Kevin Smith. I would say George Lucas, but I don't think he could do something horrible enough to make me dislike THX-1138.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 10:53 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 10:53 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
For everyone who has (understandably) given up on Tim Burton, I recommend watching his 2014 movie Big Eyes.
This is probably unfair, but I suspect you could have given the script for Big Eyes to any competent director and gotten something at least as good (and I thought Big Eyes was pretty good). I'm not sure that's true of his more distinctive films like Beetlejuice or Ed Wood.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 10:53 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
This is probably unfair, but I suspect you could have given the script for Big Eyes to any competent director and gotten something at least as good (and I thought Big Eyes was pretty good). I'm not sure that's true of his more distinctive films like Beetlejuice or Ed Wood.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 10:53 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think it's a mark of how far Peter Bogdanovich's star has fallen that he isn't even considered for this list.
The Cat's Meow is kind of a fascinating train wreck cause you're watching the guy behind Paper Moon and The Last Picture show directing an especially murderous and cheap-looking episode of Gilmore Girls.
posted by The Whelk at 10:55 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
The Cat's Meow is kind of a fascinating train wreck cause you're watching the guy behind Paper Moon and The Last Picture show directing an especially murderous and cheap-looking episode of Gilmore Girls.
posted by The Whelk at 10:55 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Speaking of M Night Shyamalan, I have a theory that he might actually be a pretty good cinematographer and maybe even a decent director. But he's an abysmal writer. And the worst kind of bad writer -- the kind who thinks he's an amazing genius.
Replace "pretty good cinematographer" with "very talented production designer" and that sums up my opinion of Wes Anderson.
posted by ryanshepard at 10:55 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Replace "pretty good cinematographer" with "very talented production designer" and that sums up my opinion of Wes Anderson.
posted by ryanshepard at 10:55 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure that's true of his more distinctive films like Beetlejuice or Ed Wood.
the writing team behind Ed Wood wrote Big Eyes and where slated to direct until Burton stepped in.
It is however, surprisingly good and sweet, a perfectly fine nice little movie.
posted by The Whelk at 10:56 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
the writing team behind Ed Wood wrote Big Eyes and where slated to direct until Burton stepped in.
It is however, surprisingly good and sweet, a perfectly fine nice little movie.
posted by The Whelk at 10:56 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
If Tim Burton made Beetlejuice today, Johnny Depp would star in it. It's hard to know how Burton once made such a near-perfect movie, which works on so many levels, without some directorial tic of his. It's not that I don't like the kind of thing he's famous for -- I liked Charlie and the Chocolate Factory better than the original -- but he can phone it in so shamelessly.
I should really check out Big Eyes, I guess.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:56 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I should really check out Big Eyes, I guess.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:56 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
On the music front, Rob Mitchum suggested this was true for Weezer in his review of Make Believe.
I gave up on Weezer albums ago, but after hearing that Everything Will Be Alright in the End was pretty unanimously praised, I got it, and damn, it's good.
I agree with most of these, and I'll just add Jackie Chan, which breaks my goddamn heart. Not really his fault, I guess, but I was hoping as he got older he'd move into more physical comedy and work with some interesting directors instead of making increasingly bad paycheck movies. Nothing he ever does could possibly ruin Young Master thru his 80s work for me, though, no matter how bad.
posted by Huck500 at 10:57 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
I gave up on Weezer albums ago, but after hearing that Everything Will Be Alright in the End was pretty unanimously praised, I got it, and damn, it's good.
I agree with most of these, and I'll just add Jackie Chan, which breaks my goddamn heart. Not really his fault, I guess, but I was hoping as he got older he'd move into more physical comedy and work with some interesting directors instead of making increasingly bad paycheck movies. Nothing he ever does could possibly ruin Young Master thru his 80s work for me, though, no matter how bad.
posted by Huck500 at 10:57 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
It seems like there are so many examples of this, what about the opposite:
Creators who have never produced an inferior product? Not everything they've made has to be genius, but it has to be at least good. Maybe allow one or two stumbles, but almost everything they've made has to good.
Who would fit that bill?
posted by Sangermaine at 10:59 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Creators who have never produced an inferior product? Not everything they've made has to be genius, but it has to be at least good. Maybe allow one or two stumbles, but almost everything they've made has to good.
Who would fit that bill?
posted by Sangermaine at 10:59 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Two questionable ones in the middle, but he seems to be doing fine.
I always thought Anderson was an empty stylist (But I liked the style, how perfectionist and formalist it was) but Grand Budapest was the first of his films that really *worked* for me, maybe because of the motifs of decay and make-do and the importance of say, mannered artifice just to keep yourself sane. It was also just a fun adventure story.
posted by The Whelk at 10:59 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
I always thought Anderson was an empty stylist (But I liked the style, how perfectionist and formalist it was) but Grand Budapest was the first of his films that really *worked* for me, maybe because of the motifs of decay and make-do and the importance of say, mannered artifice just to keep yourself sane. It was also just a fun adventure story.
posted by The Whelk at 10:59 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Really it's just something that happens to almost everyone whose success has brought them to a point where they no longer have to work within tight constraints and fight and get clever to make their vision happen. That, and the thing that happens when someone has already said what they needed to say and the fire has started to flicker. It's rare that people don't fall into those traps, and rare to see someone pull themselves out of it after they have.
posted by jason_steakums at 11:00 AM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by jason_steakums at 11:00 AM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
Definitely Tarantino
I don't see this at all.
His fault is that he's still doing exactly the same thing for each new genre he tackles. It's been interesting to watch him ring the changes, but his formula has been remarkably consistent for the past two decades since Pulp Fiction: revenge, out-of-sequence call backs, fantastic elements in realistic settings and, of course, the kitch. But everything that was in the crime pulp drama of PF, he's echoed in everything else he's done.
He's been constant, but your tastes may have changed. Which can be an problem, but it's not the same problem as the descents into self-parody that M. Night Shyamalan or Kevin Smith have had.
posted by bonehead at 11:00 AM on June 2, 2015 [10 favorites]
I don't see this at all.
His fault is that he's still doing exactly the same thing for each new genre he tackles. It's been interesting to watch him ring the changes, but his formula has been remarkably consistent for the past two decades since Pulp Fiction: revenge, out-of-sequence call backs, fantastic elements in realistic settings and, of course, the kitch. But everything that was in the crime pulp drama of PF, he's echoed in everything else he's done.
He's been constant, but your tastes may have changed. Which can be an problem, but it's not the same problem as the descents into self-parody that M. Night Shyamalan or Kevin Smith have had.
posted by bonehead at 11:00 AM on June 2, 2015 [10 favorites]
The Wachowskis managed to make me dislike the original Matrix (that I remember really having a lot of time for when it came out) before they'd managed to finish the trilogy. Everything since has just been another nail in the coffin.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:01 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:01 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
"Though it does make me wonder how long Wes Anderson has got left…"
I actually like his more recent films much better than the earlier ones. I found Rushmore and Tenenbaums pretty insufferable but love Moonrise Kingdom and Grand Budapest Hotel.
posted by octothorpe at 11:01 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
I actually like his more recent films much better than the earlier ones. I found Rushmore and Tenenbaums pretty insufferable but love Moonrise Kingdom and Grand Budapest Hotel.
posted by octothorpe at 11:01 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
"Terrence Malick. It's not that his movies are getting horrible, they're just becoming so... Terrence Malickey."
I haven't seen any movies by Terrence Malickey but I'll keep an eye out! It sounds like he makes a lot of movies like the movies I make, so I might not like them very much, but I always like to learn about new things!
"Let me explain," like I once said to Colin Firth (is that his name? The guy from my movie "Paint With All The Colors Of The Wind"), let me explain: I think all my movies are pretty bad! Except for my movie " The Brave Little Toaster ". That one was pretty good. I do most of my movies as tax write offs! I do it under the name of my Second Life character, Ewe Boll. But then sometimes I have movie parts left over! So I send them to my editor who works at the post office and they take them together and release them under my name (TERRY) and that's where you get a movie like " To The Wonder" which is basically just deleted scenes from my movie "Daredevil".
Ben Aflack (LIKE THE DUCK) once told me, " Terry (TERRY) I don't like your beard and I don't like your movies, but I also don't like Matt Damon." Lol! HE WAS JASON BOURNE!
anyway, the important thing is that oh a mumuration at dusk oh god you are me and I am you always
posted by "Doctor" Terence Malick at 11:01 AM on June 2, 2015 [24 favorites]
I haven't seen any movies by Terrence Malickey but I'll keep an eye out! It sounds like he makes a lot of movies like the movies I make, so I might not like them very much, but I always like to learn about new things!
"Let me explain," like I once said to Colin Firth (is that his name? The guy from my movie "Paint With All The Colors Of The Wind"), let me explain: I think all my movies are pretty bad! Except for my movie " The Brave Little Toaster ". That one was pretty good. I do most of my movies as tax write offs! I do it under the name of my Second Life character, Ewe Boll. But then sometimes I have movie parts left over! So I send them to my editor who works at the post office and they take them together and release them under my name (TERRY) and that's where you get a movie like " To The Wonder" which is basically just deleted scenes from my movie "Daredevil".
Ben Aflack (LIKE THE DUCK) once told me, " Terry (TERRY) I don't like your beard and I don't like your movies, but I also don't like Matt Damon." Lol! HE WAS JASON BOURNE!
anyway, the important thing is that oh a mumuration at dusk oh god you are me and I am you always
posted by "Doctor" Terence Malick at 11:01 AM on June 2, 2015 [24 favorites]
> "I still can't bring myself to watch The Thing ..."
Maybe the musical version would be more to your taste?
posted by kyrademon at 11:02 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Maybe the musical version would be more to your taste?
posted by kyrademon at 11:02 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Woah, woah, woah on Wes Anderson and The Grand Budapest Hotel! I'd been falling out of love with him until I saw that movie.
What I really came to say -- as long as we're adding authors -- is that I'm surprised no one has added Stephen King to the list. Maybe it's not fashionable to love his earlier works? Over the last 20 years I've read an re-read (and re-read, and re-read) books like It, The Tommyknockers, The Stand, The Shining, and The Eyes of the Dragon; I'm sure I know many of those characters better than I know my own family. But IMHO, nothing after Rose Madder is tolerable (with the exception of Insomnia).
This is most evident if you try to read the Dark Tower series: the first book is a little raw but enjoyable; The Drawing of Three and The Waste Lands are both really good; Wizard and Glass and The Wolves of Calla are mediocre; and it's all shit afterwards.
posted by sbutler at 11:03 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
What I really came to say -- as long as we're adding authors -- is that I'm surprised no one has added Stephen King to the list. Maybe it's not fashionable to love his earlier works? Over the last 20 years I've read an re-read (and re-read, and re-read) books like It, The Tommyknockers, The Stand, The Shining, and The Eyes of the Dragon; I'm sure I know many of those characters better than I know my own family. But IMHO, nothing after Rose Madder is tolerable (with the exception of Insomnia).
This is most evident if you try to read the Dark Tower series: the first book is a little raw but enjoyable; The Drawing of Three and The Waste Lands are both really good; Wizard and Glass and The Wolves of Calla are mediocre; and it's all shit afterwards.
posted by sbutler at 11:03 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Kubrick obviously remains the clichéd example of consistent quality.
And I think history will be "Doctor" Malick's judge.
posted by fullerine at 11:03 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
And I think history will be "Doctor" Malick's judge.
posted by fullerine at 11:03 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Stop talking shit about Wes Anderson or I'm going to send you all strongly-worded, hand-letterpressed letters expressing my disappointment.
posted by maxsparber at 11:03 AM on June 2, 2015 [23 favorites]
posted by maxsparber at 11:03 AM on June 2, 2015 [23 favorites]
Is there anyone who has kept up a really high standard? It seems like there are so many directors with a few really great movies each, and a few other ones that aren't as spectacular. Besides Kubrick.
I mean, I'm a huge Mad Max fan, but I'm not about to say George Miller is a master - I didn't particularly like the new one, and in the meantime he's been making Happy Feet.
posted by teponaztli at 11:04 AM on June 2, 2015
I mean, I'm a huge Mad Max fan, but I'm not about to say George Miller is a master - I didn't particularly like the new one, and in the meantime he's been making Happy Feet.
posted by teponaztli at 11:04 AM on June 2, 2015
THE BABE MOVIES THO
posted by The Whelk at 11:05 AM on June 2, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 11:05 AM on June 2, 2015 [12 favorites]
The Cat's Meow is kind of a fascinating train wreck cause you're watching the guy behind Paper Moon and The Last Picture show directing an especially murderous and cheap-looking episode of Gilmore Girls.
The Cat's Meow is a movie with Charlie Chaplain as one of the main characters -- he's a film director who is having an affair with his underage starlet -- and he's supposed to be the good guy. At times, I wasn't sure if I was watching Chaplain and Marion Davies or Bogdonovich and Dorothy Stratton on the screen.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 11:05 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
The Cat's Meow is a movie with Charlie Chaplain as one of the main characters -- he's a film director who is having an affair with his underage starlet -- and he's supposed to be the good guy. At times, I wasn't sure if I was watching Chaplain and Marion Davies or Bogdonovich and Dorothy Stratton on the screen.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 11:05 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Also, not mentioned yet because I bet people here are as fond of his stuff as I have been but fuck, Terry Gilliam, please redeem yourself soon.
posted by Hoopo at 11:05 AM on June 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by Hoopo at 11:05 AM on June 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
I can't help but question critics who think Signs was a good movie. It was deeply, deeply stupid.
YES.
Because WATER.
posted by soundguy99 at 11:07 AM on June 2, 2015 [16 favorites]
YES.
Because WATER.
posted by soundguy99 at 11:07 AM on June 2, 2015 [16 favorites]
"Have you ever made fun of someone so much that you feel you should thank them for all the good times they gave you?" --Dave Attell
posted by Harvey Jerkwater at 11:07 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by Harvey Jerkwater at 11:07 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
It seems like there are so many examples of this, what about the opposite:
Creators who have never produced an inferior product? Not everything they've made has to be genius, but it has to be at least good. Maybe allow one or two stumbles, but almost everything they've made has to good.
Who would fit that bill?
Bob Dylan. But he's a genius.
posted by Nevin at 11:09 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Creators who have never produced an inferior product? Not everything they've made has to be genius, but it has to be at least good. Maybe allow one or two stumbles, but almost everything they've made has to good.
Who would fit that bill?
Bob Dylan. But he's a genius.
posted by Nevin at 11:09 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'd been falling out of love with him until I saw that movie.
it was an excellent showcase for The Majestic Nostrils of Adrien Brody
posted by poffin boffin at 11:09 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
it was an excellent showcase for The Majestic Nostrils of Adrien Brody
posted by poffin boffin at 11:09 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Who would fit that bill?
Back on earth though, I think that would have to be Richard Linklater. He has made some perfect films (the "Before" trilogy and Boyhood), but there are a few that I think are unwatchable, like Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly.
posted by Nevin at 11:10 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Back on earth though, I think that would have to be Richard Linklater. He has made some perfect films (the "Before" trilogy and Boyhood), but there are a few that I think are unwatchable, like Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly.
posted by Nevin at 11:10 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
and in the meantime he's been making Happy Feet
...a CGI cartoon animal musical at least partially about finding your way to atheism. I mean, ok, it's still a CGI cartoon animal musical, but in my hazy recollection it's kind of a remarkable one.
posted by brennen at 11:12 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
...a CGI cartoon animal musical at least partially about finding your way to atheism. I mean, ok, it's still a CGI cartoon animal musical, but in my hazy recollection it's kind of a remarkable one.
posted by brennen at 11:12 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Tarentino seems to be keeping the same quality level - it's all more or less the same but with more complicated structures and different settings -- I think tastes are changing and he's become a bit stuck in place but I still enjoy them for what they are.
The good will I had for Nolan post Memento/Prestige/Insomnia as a thriller director is just ..gone. Those Batman movies are a huge muddy slog and Inception is still one of the few movies I like less and less the more I see it.
Can we talk about Hitchcock's post 60s career? Cause I'm not sure it got bad just a lot freaking weirder and frantic.
posted by The Whelk at 11:12 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
The good will I had for Nolan post Memento/Prestige/Insomnia as a thriller director is just ..gone. Those Batman movies are a huge muddy slog and Inception is still one of the few movies I like less and less the more I see it.
Can we talk about Hitchcock's post 60s career? Cause I'm not sure it got bad just a lot freaking weirder and frantic.
posted by The Whelk at 11:12 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Creators who have never produced an inferior product? Not everything they've made has to be genius, but it has to be at least good. Maybe allow one or two stumbles.
Is there anyone who has kept up a really high standard?
Yeah, Stanley Kubrick as well as Alfred Hitchcock and Akira Kurosawa. Robert Altman maybe? I'd personally include David Lynch and Paul Thomas Anderson but I know they each have some movies people actively dislike but those people's opinions are wrong.
posted by Timmoy Daen at 11:12 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Is there anyone who has kept up a really high standard?
Yeah, Stanley Kubrick as well as Alfred Hitchcock and Akira Kurosawa. Robert Altman maybe? I'd personally include David Lynch and Paul Thomas Anderson but I know they each have some movies people actively dislike but those people's opinions are wrong.
posted by Timmoy Daen at 11:12 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
is that I'm surprised no one has added Stephen King to the list. Maybe it's not fashionable to love his earlier works?
Well, but I dunno that people re-assess King's earlier works after being disappointed in his later ones, except in the sense that they wish his later (bloated, excessively writerly-tic-y) works were edited with the ruthless efficiency of the earlier novels & stories. IOW, I suspect his earlier stuff gains in comparison.
posted by soundguy99 at 11:13 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Well, but I dunno that people re-assess King's earlier works after being disappointed in his later ones, except in the sense that they wish his later (bloated, excessively writerly-tic-y) works were edited with the ruthless efficiency of the earlier novels & stories. IOW, I suspect his earlier stuff gains in comparison.
posted by soundguy99 at 11:13 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I can't help but question critics who think Signs was a good movie. It was deeply, deeply stupid.
Signs makes me unreasonably, viscerally furious. I can't think of a movie that makes me as deeply angry as Signs. I mean, I'm good at suspending disbelief, and I have a lot of love for many stupid films and movies with seriously unrealistic premises. But Signs? You establish that these aliens can disable all of our nuclear weaponry, but they attack a planet mostly covered in water and don't maybe wear a fucking jacket? What if it was raining?
God, Signs makes me so angry.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 11:14 AM on June 2, 2015 [27 favorites]
Signs makes me unreasonably, viscerally furious. I can't think of a movie that makes me as deeply angry as Signs. I mean, I'm good at suspending disbelief, and I have a lot of love for many stupid films and movies with seriously unrealistic premises. But Signs? You establish that these aliens can disable all of our nuclear weaponry, but they attack a planet mostly covered in water and don't maybe wear a fucking jacket? What if it was raining?
God, Signs makes me so angry.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 11:14 AM on June 2, 2015 [27 favorites]
The good will I had for Nolan post Memento/Prestige/Insomnia as a thriller director is just ..gone.
I was a little iffy after the weird politics of the last Batman one, but then I watched Interstellar and now I think I do in fact hate the man's entire career.
posted by brennen at 11:14 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
I was a little iffy after the weird politics of the last Batman one, but then I watched Interstellar and now I think I do in fact hate the man's entire career.
posted by brennen at 11:14 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
The best Lost reboot was the new Tomb Raider game. No joke.
posted by Doleful Creature at 11:15 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Doleful Creature at 11:15 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Inception is still one of the few movies I like less and less the more I see it.
But it gave us this.
posted by soundguy99 at 11:15 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
But it gave us this.
posted by soundguy99 at 11:15 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
The Wachowskis' new GO BIG OR GO HOME feel really works for me, crazy regency romance tropes in SPACE! live anime pop-art for robots! High potential for TV series with PHYSIC ORGIES!
I admire to no-halfassing commitment to personal aesthetics there. Always use the whole ass.
posted by The Whelk at 11:15 AM on June 2, 2015 [15 favorites]
I admire to no-halfassing commitment to personal aesthetics there. Always use the whole ass.
posted by The Whelk at 11:15 AM on June 2, 2015 [15 favorites]
wait yeah I've genuinely enjoyed every PTA movie I've seen with the exception of Magnolia which I felt leaned too hard of gimmicks and distracted from the performances.
posted by The Whelk at 11:18 AM on June 2, 2015
posted by The Whelk at 11:18 AM on June 2, 2015
Aronofsky. Black Swan was hugely overrated. Noah and The Wrestler were solidly mediocre. The Fountain had some ambition but ultimately fell short. He peaked early with Pi and Requiem, and the latter arguably leaned too heavily on cinematographic gimmickry (though this has always been his trademark vice).
I couldn't stand Pi when it came out - I thought it was pretentious film-school trash. Requiem was over-wrought in the same way as PTA's Magnolia, though I love that film. For me, The Wrestler is his best work because he avoids the visual schtick and supernatural elements and reveals a gift for solid human drama.
I agree, though, that Black Swan was a turd of a film.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:19 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I couldn't stand Pi when it came out - I thought it was pretentious film-school trash. Requiem was over-wrought in the same way as PTA's Magnolia, though I love that film. For me, The Wrestler is his best work because he avoids the visual schtick and supernatural elements and reveals a gift for solid human drama.
I agree, though, that Black Swan was a turd of a film.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:19 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
You establish that these aliens can disable all of our nuclear weaponry, but they attack a planet mostly covered in water and don't maybe wear a fucking jacket? What if it was raining?
"If you're wondering how he eats and breathes / And other science facts / Then repeat to yourself 'It's just a show, / I should really just relax.'"
posted by Nevin at 11:19 AM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
"If you're wondering how he eats and breathes / And other science facts / Then repeat to yourself 'It's just a show, / I should really just relax.'"
posted by Nevin at 11:19 AM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
To be fair, the aliens in Signs were also vulnerable to emotionally-significant baseball bats.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:20 AM on June 2, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:20 AM on June 2, 2015 [12 favorites]
Well, but I dunno that people re-assess King's earlier works after being disappointed in his later ones
I gave up on King around The Regulators/Desperation. Last year I went back and read 'Salem's Lot, which I'd somehow missed the first time around reading his novels. I hated it, like "this is a bad book" hated it. I think King is one of those writers I just need to leave in my past: I'm terrified to re-read The Shining or The Stand and find out it's no longer for me.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 11:20 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I gave up on King around The Regulators/Desperation. Last year I went back and read 'Salem's Lot, which I'd somehow missed the first time around reading his novels. I hated it, like "this is a bad book" hated it. I think King is one of those writers I just need to leave in my past: I'm terrified to re-read The Shining or The Stand and find out it's no longer for me.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 11:20 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
God, Signs makes me so angry.
In the faintest possible defense of this execrable film, the opening credits helped me realize that BIG MELONS is an anagram of Mel Gibson. This was the sole enjoyable moment I had for the next 2h.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:21 AM on June 2, 2015 [40 favorites]
In the faintest possible defense of this execrable film, the opening credits helped me realize that BIG MELONS is an anagram of Mel Gibson. This was the sole enjoyable moment I had for the next 2h.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:21 AM on June 2, 2015 [40 favorites]
NOLAN
posted by wemayfreeze at 11:21 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by wemayfreeze at 11:21 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
BWAAAAAAAMP
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 11:22 AM on June 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 11:22 AM on June 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
Also, not mentioned yet because I bet people here are as fond of his stuff as I have been but fuck, Terry Gilliam, please redeem yourself soon.
I was thinking it but in my opinion nothing in the world could diminish Brazil.
posted by Dr-Baa at 11:22 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
I was thinking it but in my opinion nothing in the world could diminish Brazil.
posted by Dr-Baa at 11:22 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
except maybe the studio tacking on a happy ending
posted by The Whelk at 11:23 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 11:23 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
Black Swan works better if you mentally place it in the overheated 70s supernatural horror drama it so clearly wants to be.
posted by The Whelk at 11:24 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 11:24 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
What happened to Rob Reiner? He made four or five cult classics for entirely different cults, so to speak, at a rate of about one per year. Then he sucked for about twenty years straight. Did he renege on his deal with the Devil or something?
posted by ostro at 11:24 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by ostro at 11:24 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
except maybe the studio tacking on a happy ending
la la la la la can't hear you la la la la la
posted by Dr-Baa at 11:25 AM on June 2, 2015
la la la la la can't hear you la la la la la
posted by Dr-Baa at 11:25 AM on June 2, 2015
a CGI cartoon animal musical at least partially about finding your way to atheism
I've seen this movie tons of times because my 2-year-old is obsessed with penguins, but I don't think atheism is built in there. That never even occurred to me. It was partially about questioning conventional wisdom, but I think you have to basically tack an agenda on there to take away atheism from a movie that's pretty strongly a message about how being different isn't so bad.
posted by Hoopo at 11:26 AM on June 2, 2015
I've seen this movie tons of times because my 2-year-old is obsessed with penguins, but I don't think atheism is built in there. That never even occurred to me. It was partially about questioning conventional wisdom, but I think you have to basically tack an agenda on there to take away atheism from a movie that's pretty strongly a message about how being different isn't so bad.
posted by Hoopo at 11:26 AM on June 2, 2015
Maybe some artists just have a limited amount of creativity and just run out after a few works.
From an episode of Murder, She Wrote: "Maybe we just have so many words in us, and I'm not sure that I want to waste any of mine..."
posted by filthy light thief at 11:26 AM on June 2, 2015
From an episode of Murder, She Wrote: "Maybe we just have so many words in us, and I'm not sure that I want to waste any of mine..."
posted by filthy light thief at 11:26 AM on June 2, 2015
Ingmar Bergman and the Coen Bros are also consistently wonderful (if you pretend The Ladykillers doesn't exist).
posted by Timmoy Daen at 11:26 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Timmoy Daen at 11:26 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
The Wachowskis are total geniuses, and I say this even though I don't actually enjoy great swathes of their work. Speed Racer, especially, is a genuinely remarkable meditation on contemporary media, created through slathering exactly enough brightly colored candy coating over everything. I say this even though I personally didn't actually enjoy it that much. And look, Cloud Atlas was a beautiful trainwreck, and despite a couple of really boneheaded decisions (mostly involving awkward racebending and a miscast Tom Hanks), the world would be worse off without it.
Okay, screw it, I'm going to go ahead and give them all the credit, just as a polemical point. Here goes: The Wachowskis make big silly fun smart action movies that look and feel like what big silly fun smart action movies in a post-patriarchal society would look and feel like. They're these crazy half-incomprehensible artifacts from a better future that we may not ever reach. Even if their work is not exactly for you, it's a goddamned miracle that their films exist, and that they've have gotten to work with so much money and so much top-flight talent for so long.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:27 AM on June 2, 2015 [18 favorites]
Okay, screw it, I'm going to go ahead and give them all the credit, just as a polemical point. Here goes: The Wachowskis make big silly fun smart action movies that look and feel like what big silly fun smart action movies in a post-patriarchal society would look and feel like. They're these crazy half-incomprehensible artifacts from a better future that we may not ever reach. Even if their work is not exactly for you, it's a goddamned miracle that their films exist, and that they've have gotten to work with so much money and so much top-flight talent for so long.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:27 AM on June 2, 2015 [18 favorites]
Dan Simmons wrote exactly one book, titled Hyperion .... It's not like Canterbury Tales ends with the pilgrims
Now I'm imagining the Hollywood version of Hyperion:
Pilgrims vs. Predator
Longen ye to see it, this summer!
Like Cowboys vs Aliens, but without the commercial floppiness
posted by zippy at 11:27 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Now I'm imagining the Hollywood version of Hyperion:
Pilgrims vs. Predator
Longen ye to see it, this summer!
Like Cowboys vs Aliens, but without the commercial floppiness
posted by zippy at 11:27 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Ingmar Bergman and the Coen Bros are also consistently wonderful (if you pretend The Ladykillers doesn't exist).
And Intolerable Cruelty. And The Naked Man. And Gambit. And Unbroken. And, unless you happen to love it for being terrible as I do, Crimewave.
posted by maxsparber at 11:29 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
And Intolerable Cruelty. And The Naked Man. And Gambit. And Unbroken. And, unless you happen to love it for being terrible as I do, Crimewave.
posted by maxsparber at 11:29 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
THE BABE MOVIES THO
I've been meaning to rewatch Babe: Pig in the CIty after a friend said it's one of the weirdest and most underrated movies he's ever seen.
posted by naju at 11:30 AM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
I've been meaning to rewatch Babe: Pig in the CIty after a friend said it's one of the weirdest and most underrated movies he's ever seen.
posted by naju at 11:30 AM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
it's a crime noir about urban decay and organized crime featuring a city full of chimps.
I mean- you have to.
posted by The Whelk at 11:32 AM on June 2, 2015 [14 favorites]
I mean- you have to.
posted by The Whelk at 11:32 AM on June 2, 2015 [14 favorites]
I couldn't stand Pi when it came out - I thought it was pretentious film-school trash. Requiem was over-wrought in the same way as PTA's Magnolia, though I love that film. For me, The Wrestler is his best work because he avoids the visual schtick and supernatural elements and reveals a gift for solid human drama.
Oh man, I was going to write exactly this comment. The Wrestler is the only good movie Aranofsky's ever made, as far as I can tell. This seems to have a lot to do with the fact that he didn't write it. Pi just reminds me of that overwound coworker who always tries to embroil you in their freakout du jour but you couldn't possibly imagine ever caring about their peanut butter cookie problem.
posted by invitapriore at 11:32 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Oh man, I was going to write exactly this comment. The Wrestler is the only good movie Aranofsky's ever made, as far as I can tell. This seems to have a lot to do with the fact that he didn't write it. Pi just reminds me of that overwound coworker who always tries to embroil you in their freakout du jour but you couldn't possibly imagine ever caring about their peanut butter cookie problem.
posted by invitapriore at 11:32 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
also i think one of the monkeys falls into a cake which is very droll
posted by poffin boffin at 11:32 AM on June 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 11:32 AM on June 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
But Signs? You establish that these aliens can disable all of our nuclear weaponry, but they attack a planet mostly covered in water and don't maybe wear a fucking jacket? What if it was raining?
They really should have had the little girl idiosyncratically leaving glasses of nitroglycerin around the house.
posted by doctornecessiter at 11:36 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
They really should have had the little girl idiosyncratically leaving glasses of nitroglycerin around the house.
posted by doctornecessiter at 11:36 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
oh God please not the Signs water discussion again.
posted by Hoopo at 11:37 AM on June 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by Hoopo at 11:37 AM on June 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is when I pretty much gave up on both Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. But then, I never can stand to see Gene Wilder re-cast. Gene Wilder wasn't a fan either, IIRC.
posted by mrgoat at 11:38 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by mrgoat at 11:38 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
When was Bay's golden age supposed to have been exactly? The Rock and Armageddon? I never really saw them as much of an upgrade over Transformers.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:39 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Drinky Die at 11:39 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Nic Cage is a FANTASTIC actor. So good, in fact, that he can make people think he's utterly terrible... ok, there's not really anything I can add to a Nic Cage discussion that wasn't already covered in that one episode of Community (speaking of good things that went down hill...)
I think M. Night Shyamalan is best explained like this: He isn't a good filmmaker in ANY WAY. Except that he had an Idea of one REALLY GOOD MOVIE (ok, 2, I love Unbreakable). But that's it. Once he used up his really good ideas, he was done. He should have put all his twistastic prowess toward faking his own death after Unbreakable... think of how revered he would have been... oh, M. Night, you missed your chance to be immortal.
posted by ghostiger at 11:40 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think M. Night Shyamalan is best explained like this: He isn't a good filmmaker in ANY WAY. Except that he had an Idea of one REALLY GOOD MOVIE (ok, 2, I love Unbreakable). But that's it. Once he used up his really good ideas, he was done. He should have put all his twistastic prowess toward faking his own death after Unbreakable... think of how revered he would have been... oh, M. Night, you missed your chance to be immortal.
posted by ghostiger at 11:40 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Speaking of Pixar, Wall-E's "science" was just as bad as that of Signs, but it was a lot cuter and had dancing brave little robots so nobody cared.
I am incapable of hating Terry Gilliam movies, though. I don't care if he makes nothing but boring flops till he dies. He might fail mightily, but he never makes me angry with his incompetence.
posted by emjaybee at 11:40 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I am incapable of hating Terry Gilliam movies, though. I don't care if he makes nothing but boring flops till he dies. He might fail mightily, but he never makes me angry with his incompetence.
posted by emjaybee at 11:40 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
The Fountain was the only one of Aranofsky's that I really liked but I haven't seen Swan or Noah
posted by octothorpe at 11:41 AM on June 2, 2015
posted by octothorpe at 11:41 AM on June 2, 2015
Also, speaking as a huge fan of "The Rock" (Bay and Cage!), I was unaware that he was ever a good director...
posted by ghostiger at 11:42 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by ghostiger at 11:42 AM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Michael Mann. Check out this run from 1981 to 2004: Thief (1981), Manhunter (1986), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Heat (1995), The Insider (1999), Ali (2001), and Collateral (2004). I rate these all as very good-to-great movies.
I left out The Keep (1983) because I haven't seen it.
Then came Miami Vice in 2006. One of the reasons I love Heat is how Mann handles a large cast and gives you an idea of who most of the people on both sides of the law are. One of the reasons I love Collateral is the in-depth look at the two central characters. Miami Vice failed on both counts. It was hard to tell the cops from the bad guys and we didn't get to know the main characters.
I actually liked Public Enemies OK, but haven't seen it since it came out. Blackhat was released earlier this year, but I don't have any interest in seeing it.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:47 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
I left out The Keep (1983) because I haven't seen it.
Then came Miami Vice in 2006. One of the reasons I love Heat is how Mann handles a large cast and gives you an idea of who most of the people on both sides of the law are. One of the reasons I love Collateral is the in-depth look at the two central characters. Miami Vice failed on both counts. It was hard to tell the cops from the bad guys and we didn't get to know the main characters.
I actually liked Public Enemies OK, but haven't seen it since it came out. Blackhat was released earlier this year, but I don't have any interest in seeing it.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:47 AM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
When was Bay's golden age supposed to have been exactly?
Bad Boys II
posted by poffin boffin at 11:47 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
Bad Boys II
posted by poffin boffin at 11:47 AM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
I haven't seen Swan or Noah
I couldn't make it through Noah. I'm sure it was a deliberate stylistic decision, but it's one of the few films I've ever seen where the editing really called attention to itself. At the exact point after a line of dialog you're conditioned to expect a cut to another character to see their reaction the film would consistently cut to a bit of sky, or a rock, or an unrelated character. Incredibly jarring, and for me completely unwatchable, although I did come away from it with a renewed appreciation for the subtle craft of editing generally, so I suppose there's that.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 11:50 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I couldn't make it through Noah. I'm sure it was a deliberate stylistic decision, but it's one of the few films I've ever seen where the editing really called attention to itself. At the exact point after a line of dialog you're conditioned to expect a cut to another character to see their reaction the film would consistently cut to a bit of sky, or a rock, or an unrelated character. Incredibly jarring, and for me completely unwatchable, although I did come away from it with a renewed appreciation for the subtle craft of editing generally, so I suppose there's that.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 11:50 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Wall*E also had emotional intelligence, structure, and a reason for existing, none of which at all occurred to Shyamalan when making that flimsy useless piece of shit he titled "Signs." God I fucking hate that movie.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:52 AM on June 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by Navelgazer at 11:52 AM on June 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
I'm pretty sure this has made the rounds on MeFi before, but for those who haven't seen it: the Nicolas Cage Matrix
posted by adamrice at 11:55 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by adamrice at 11:55 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Spike Lee consistently reaches farther than most and so I can forgive him if it exceeds his grasp some times.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 11:56 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by Senor Cardgage at 11:56 AM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
It's discussions like this that make me all the more appreciate an artist like Damon Lindelof. He was bad when he started, he remained bad as he progressed and he is bad now. You know where you stand with him in the credits. What Hollywood certainly needs now is more artists with integrity such as this.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 11:57 AM on June 2, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by AGameOfMoans at 11:57 AM on June 2, 2015 [15 favorites]
Can we talk about Hitchcock's post 60s career? Cause I'm not sure it got bad just a lot freaking weirder and frantic.
They're weirder and frantic and in some cases bad: The Birds (1963), Marnie (1964), Torn Curtain (1966), Topaz (1969), Frenzy (1972), and Family Plot (1976).
His greatest stuff came between 1954 and 1960 (although there are plenty of good movies before the mid-fifties): Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), To Catch a Thief (1955), The Trouble with Harry (1955), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), The Wrong Man (1956), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960).
posted by kirkaracha at 11:57 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Does Liz Phair make movies?
posted by davebush at 11:59 AM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by davebush at 11:59 AM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
I agree with most of these, and I'll just add Jackie Chan, which breaks my goddamn heart.
Amen. I'm surprised his name hadn't come up already but considering the kind of stuff he's made and appeared in over the past 20 years, I'm understand people are perplexed by my admiration for the guy. Jackie Chan is one of the most interesting film makers of the 20th century.
posted by beau jackson at 12:00 PM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Amen. I'm surprised his name hadn't come up already but considering the kind of stuff he's made and appeared in over the past 20 years, I'm understand people are perplexed by my admiration for the guy. Jackie Chan is one of the most interesting film makers of the 20th century.
posted by beau jackson at 12:00 PM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
oh God please not the Signs water discussion again.
Hoopo
Are you referring to the "no guys it was actually about faith and demons" Shyamalan apologist bullshit?
posted by Sangermaine at 12:02 PM on June 2, 2015
Hoopo
Are you referring to the "no guys it was actually about faith and demons" Shyamalan apologist bullshit?
posted by Sangermaine at 12:02 PM on June 2, 2015
It's weird that people list M Night Shyamalan. Were folks really ever convinced that The Sixth Sense was a masterpiece? I mean, really – it always seemed like pap to me. Fun, yeah, but not much more than that.
I think that's the whole point (and the point of the article that a lot of other people here seem to be missing). It's not about a great director who goes downhill; it's about realizing that the director was never that great in the first place.
To me, Shyamalan was never great. And it looks like a lot of people are realizing that.
posted by kanewai at 12:08 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think that's the whole point (and the point of the article that a lot of other people here seem to be missing). It's not about a great director who goes downhill; it's about realizing that the director was never that great in the first place.
To me, Shyamalan was never great. And it looks like a lot of people are realizing that.
posted by kanewai at 12:08 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
ctrl-f 'Raimi'
phrase not found
goddamn right
posted by Existential Dread at 12:09 PM on June 2, 2015 [12 favorites]
phrase not found
goddamn right
posted by Existential Dread at 12:09 PM on June 2, 2015 [12 favorites]
180+ comments and no mention of John Hughes..
I think I had to give up on him after Beethoven
posted by bitdamaged at 12:11 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think I had to give up on him after Beethoven
posted by bitdamaged at 12:11 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Clint Eastwood has also produced complete dreck ever since Unforgiven.
posted by Nevin at 12:11 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Nevin at 12:11 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Are you referring to the "no guys it was actually about faith and demons" Shyamalan apologist bullshit?
uh, no?
posted by Hoopo at 12:13 PM on June 2, 2015
uh, no?
posted by Hoopo at 12:13 PM on June 2, 2015
Well, even if you take the metaphor in Signs into account, it was a really bad execution of the concept. Supermarket check-out line theology with a thin science fiction coating.
Big Eyes redeems Burton for me. First because it's obvious that he loves Margaret Keane in approaching her loose biography, and second because he doesn't try to push Walter Keane's weird through his own lens the way he did with Sleepy Hollow, Alice, and Charlie.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 12:13 PM on June 2, 2015
Big Eyes redeems Burton for me. First because it's obvious that he loves Margaret Keane in approaching her loose biography, and second because he doesn't try to push Walter Keane's weird through his own lens the way he did with Sleepy Hollow, Alice, and Charlie.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 12:13 PM on June 2, 2015
I have to agree with those mentioning Jackie Chan - not that it makes me not like his earlier work. More that his earlier work makes me sad at what he's become.
I know it's not "movies", but a personality I'm surprised not to see is Louis CK. Between his SNL monologue and his general skeeviness in the latter seasons of "Louie", it makes it hard for me to really watch anything of his anymore.
posted by dotgirl at 12:15 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
I know it's not "movies", but a personality I'm surprised not to see is Louis CK. Between his SNL monologue and his general skeeviness in the latter seasons of "Louie", it makes it hard for me to really watch anything of his anymore.
posted by dotgirl at 12:15 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Supermarket check-out line theology with a thin science fiction coating.
Exactly, the wafer-thin New Age schmaltz smuggled into Shyamalan's movies are just as bad as the ludicrous reveals and anything else.
posted by naju at 12:16 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Exactly, the wafer-thin New Age schmaltz smuggled into Shyamalan's movies are just as bad as the ludicrous reveals and anything else.
posted by naju at 12:16 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Were folks really ever convinced that The Sixth Sense was a masterpiece?
Yes, they were.
I think people are forgetting the hype surrounding him and that film at the time. It was after Signs that his rise began faltering then stopped.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:19 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yes, they were.
I think people are forgetting the hype surrounding him and that film at the time. It was after Signs that his rise began faltering then stopped.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:19 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
That wasn't the worst of it with him, but rather that goddamn time traveller returns from the future to warn against Islam political screed of his that made me re-evaluate Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, already in doubt because of the sucky sequels.
Flashback and that detestable Time Traveler essay have forever poisoned the Hyperion books for me. Which is sad, since I really liked the Hyperion novels and I still think they're a great tale. But when I try to reread those novels, I just can't forget that the guy who wrote them also wrote those two racist screeds. It's like finding a dead mouse in your cereal. Even if you really liked that cereal, you'll never pour another bowl without checking it out for a mouse corpse.
What's worse is that I'm starting to be nervous about reading new books from my favorite scifi authors. What if Stephenson has a Time Traveler in him? Would break my heart.
posted by longdaysjourney at 12:19 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
On the "consistently great" front: Hayao Miyazaki, of course. All the way up to his latest, The Wind Rises, he's never been anything but sublime. For decades.
posted by naju at 12:20 PM on June 2, 2015 [14 favorites]
posted by naju at 12:20 PM on June 2, 2015 [14 favorites]
To me, the first hour or so of Signs was a masterclass in atmosphere and building suspense, all the way up to the scene where they turn the flashlight on the kid and the hand curls around his neck. I loved it. But if I could, I would cut the end and splice it to Pumpkinhead or something with some goddamn payoff.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:20 PM on June 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by Existential Dread at 12:20 PM on June 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
ctrl-f 'Raimi'
I didn't see "Oz the Great and Powerful" but from the trailer it looked like a CGI horror.
posted by octothorpe at 12:21 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I didn't see "Oz the Great and Powerful" but from the trailer it looked like a CGI horror.
posted by octothorpe at 12:21 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
189 comments in and no one has mentioned Francis Ford Coppola!?!?
Around the time of Bram Stoker's Dracula & Jack he just lost his touch. Twixt, I can't even with how bad that film is.
posted by Fizz at 12:23 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Around the time of Bram Stoker's Dracula & Jack he just lost his touch. Twixt, I can't even with how bad that film is.
posted by Fizz at 12:23 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've always been an Aronofsky apologist. Sure, Pi and Requiem are a bit simplistic but they're so well made. The Fountain is fundamentally flawed, but the Micro as Macro graphics were cool as fuck and at least he's being ambitious. I really enjoyed Black Swan and The Wrestler is an amazing film.
But yeah, Noah.
There's nothing redeemable about that piece of shit.
posted by saul wright at 12:23 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
But yeah, Noah.
There's nothing redeemable about that piece of shit.
posted by saul wright at 12:23 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I still love The West Wing with all my heart, warts and all, but I recently got around to The Newsroom and... holy shit. What an abysmal show from (obnoxious) scene one. I don't think there's a single character moment that is earned in that show. What a waste of a great cast.
posted by brundlefly at 12:23 PM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by brundlefly at 12:23 PM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
I was disappointed to read all the Woody Allen apologists in the original article - Match Point is a shoddy, overlong, crapfest that they would never remember if it wasn't for their desperation to praise something Allen did. For me, he's firmly in the camp of Was Never That Great (though hugely influential in many good ways). Adam Katzman nails it.
posted by Gin and Broadband at 12:26 PM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Gin and Broadband at 12:26 PM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Also, even though I'm not such a big fan of Oliver Stone and his politics, you cannot deny the greatness or impact of: JFK, Nixon, Born on the Fourth of July, Natural Born Killers. And then you get World Trade Center, Alexander, & Wall Street: The Money Never Sleeps. Talk about decline.
posted by Fizz at 12:26 PM on June 2, 2015
posted by Fizz at 12:26 PM on June 2, 2015
189 comments in and no one has mentioned Francis Ford Coppola!?!?
Jack was worth it, if only for the fact that it gave the McElroy brothers a parallel film to Benjamin Button to discuss people growing at the wrong rate.
posted by maxsparber at 12:26 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Jack was worth it, if only for the fact that it gave the McElroy brothers a parallel film to Benjamin Button to discuss people growing at the wrong rate.
posted by maxsparber at 12:26 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
I've probably told this story here before, but walking out of To Rome With Love and into Moonrise Kingdom is probably the best life decision I've ever made.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:27 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Existential Dread at 12:27 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
You can take Bram Stoker's Dracula from me when you pry it from my cold, undead hands. I wrote a critical essay about it in high school that I am still proud of.
posted by brundlefly at 12:28 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by brundlefly at 12:28 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Francis Ford Coppola!?!?
Around the time of Bram Stoker's Dracula & Jack he just lost his touch.
It goes way further back than that. He very nearly died making Apocalypse Now, and was really never the same filmmaker since.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 12:29 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Around the time of Bram Stoker's Dracula & Jack he just lost his touch.
It goes way further back than that. He very nearly died making Apocalypse Now, and was really never the same filmmaker since.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 12:29 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Unbreakable was the M. Night movie I've ever really enjoyed (It's one of the best superhero movies I've ever seen, if a bit obvious), but even at the time I wondered why people liked Sixth Sense so much. It seemed a pretty standard twist, something that would have been fine as a Twilight Zone episode, but kinda thin stretched out to a full movie. All his stories would be better without his twists. Obvious plot devices are obvious. Anyway.
Are you referring to the "no guys it was actually about faith and demons" Shyamalan apologist bullshit?
I wouldn't be at all surprised if he actually meant that as an author and director. That doesn't mean that the symbolism in Signs wasn't muddy, hamfisted and crap either though.
posted by bonehead at 12:30 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Are you referring to the "no guys it was actually about faith and demons" Shyamalan apologist bullshit?
I wouldn't be at all surprised if he actually meant that as an author and director. That doesn't mean that the symbolism in Signs wasn't muddy, hamfisted and crap either though.
posted by bonehead at 12:30 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
brundlefly, I think the only reason I rented that film as a sex-obsessed teenager is because I heard there were some boob shots in it. I guess on that front, it did not disappoint.
posted by Fizz at 12:30 PM on June 2, 2015
posted by Fizz at 12:30 PM on June 2, 2015
You can take Bram Stoker's Dracula from me when you pry it from my cold, undead hands.
All flaws of that movie are wholly redeemed by Gary Oldman's ecstatic razor licking.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:32 PM on June 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
All flaws of that movie are wholly redeemed by Gary Oldman's ecstatic razor licking.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:32 PM on June 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
I have to agree with those mentioning Jackie Chan
This is the same problem I have with the John Woo citation in the article -- it's not a single actor or director, rather, it's every Asian who lands in Hollywood. You could just as easily cite Chow Yun Fat or Jet Li.
Then they go back to Asia and return to making decent films. Which makes one suspect that the problem isn't with the actor or director, as much as it is with the US film industry.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:33 PM on June 2, 2015 [13 favorites]
This is the same problem I have with the John Woo citation in the article -- it's not a single actor or director, rather, it's every Asian who lands in Hollywood. You could just as easily cite Chow Yun Fat or Jet Li.
Then they go back to Asia and return to making decent films. Which makes one suspect that the problem isn't with the actor or director, as much as it is with the US film industry.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:33 PM on June 2, 2015 [13 favorites]
Who hasn't gone down-hill over time? Probably depends on taste (I love Wes Anderson, Christopher Nolan, Brian Singer) but I'd nominate mother-f-ing Ang Lee for his utter brilliance in creating a catalog that can't be compared to itself:
Life of Pi
Taking Woodstock
Lust, Caution
Brokeback Mountain
Hulk
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
I Ride with the Devil
The Ice Storm
Sense and Sensibility
Eat Drink Man Woman
The Wedding Banquet
Pushing Hands
Was Crouching Tiger better or worse than Sense and Sensibility? I HAVE NO IDEA.
posted by ghostiger at 12:33 PM on June 2, 2015 [28 favorites]
Life of Pi
Taking Woodstock
Lust, Caution
Brokeback Mountain
Hulk
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
I Ride with the Devil
The Ice Storm
Sense and Sensibility
Eat Drink Man Woman
The Wedding Banquet
Pushing Hands
Was Crouching Tiger better or worse than Sense and Sensibility? I HAVE NO IDEA.
posted by ghostiger at 12:33 PM on June 2, 2015 [28 favorites]
The Whelk: "The Cat's Meow is kind of a fascinating train wreck cause you're watching the guy behind Paper Moon and The Last Picture show directing an especially murderous and cheap-looking episode of Gilmore Girls."
Hey, I liked The Cat's Meow!
posted by Chrysostom at 12:34 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Hey, I liked The Cat's Meow!
posted by Chrysostom at 12:34 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
All flaws of that movie are wholly redeemed by Gary Oldman's ecstatic razor licking.
Speaking of Gary Oldman, he was probably single-handedly responsible for Luc Besson's career. Thanks for Léon: The Professional and The Fifth Element, Gary.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:34 PM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
Speaking of Gary Oldman, he was probably single-handedly responsible for Luc Besson's career. Thanks for Léon: The Professional and The Fifth Element, Gary.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:34 PM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
I haven't seen Big Eyes and actually somehow missed out entirely on hearing about it before this thread, so I don't know if it's an exception, but the only latter-day Burton movie that I really liked was Big Fish, which - I used to think it was just his well-trod formula that didn't do anything for me and I liked Big Fish for exploring something outside of that, but the more I think about it, the more I think that his later movies usually just lack a heart that feels emotionally real. With the exception of the Batman movies and Mars Attacks, all of the Burton movies I like really have a relatable emotional core that makes them succeed even if their Burton-isms feel tired, and all of the ones I don't like don't have that heart. It's not so much the style but the lack of substance behind it.
posted by jason_steakums at 12:35 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by jason_steakums at 12:35 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I was going to throw in Ken Russell, but I suspect this is more a case of my seeing Women in Love when I was young and susceptible, and seeing Lisztomania (oh gawwwwd) when I was older and slightly smarter. I can't bring myself to go back now and rewatch Women in Love, for fear of lowering my opinion of teenage Kat's taste even below its present abyssal level.
posted by Kat Allison at 12:37 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Kat Allison at 12:37 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I haven't seen Babe 2 but am highly motivated to after my brother painstakingly explained his hypothesis that it is actually the first Mad Max movie, within the chronology of that universe.
As for authors? Anne Rice, pshaw. Anne MCCAFFREY.
posted by KathrynT at 12:40 PM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
As for authors? Anne Rice, pshaw. Anne MCCAFFREY.
posted by KathrynT at 12:40 PM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
This is the same problem I have with the John Woo citation in the article -- it's not a single actor or director, rather, it's every Asian who lands in Hollywood. You could just as easily cite Chow Yun Fat or Jet Li.
Then they go back to Asia and return to making decent films. Which makes one suspect that the problem isn't with the actor or director, as much as it is with the US film industry.
Yeah, although this probably mostly has to do with the U.S. film industry not really letting their stars do insanely dangerous stunts (see, for example, the hospital explosion at the end of Hard Boiled) and with HK/Chinese/Asian action films devoting like half of their shooting schedule to the action sequences, much more than the U.S. film industry, AFAIK.
posted by soundguy99 at 12:42 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Then they go back to Asia and return to making decent films. Which makes one suspect that the problem isn't with the actor or director, as much as it is with the US film industry.
Yeah, although this probably mostly has to do with the U.S. film industry not really letting their stars do insanely dangerous stunts (see, for example, the hospital explosion at the end of Hard Boiled) and with HK/Chinese/Asian action films devoting like half of their shooting schedule to the action sequences, much more than the U.S. film industry, AFAIK.
posted by soundguy99 at 12:42 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Martin Scorsese gets better and better and I appreciate his older films even more after watching his more recent films. He is the anti-Shyamalan
posted by Cookiebastard at 12:44 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Cookiebastard at 12:44 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'd map Big Eyes closer to Ed Wood and Big Fish than anything else in his catalog. It probably helps that Big Eyes is a story that came with a dysfunctional parent motif so he's not overly inspired to try to gratuitously invent one. (For fuck's sake, Wonka is a modernist faerie out to trap children in their own greed. Wonka doesn't have a daddy, much less dentist-daddy issues.)
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 12:46 PM on June 2, 2015
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 12:46 PM on June 2, 2015
Spielberg has made some clunkers but he's managed to make remarkable films throughout his career.
posted by octothorpe at 12:47 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 12:47 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Seriously though, with Heinlein I literally though he'd gone insane and it was the first time I'd ever looked up biographical information about an author to see how their life affected their art.
posted by Carillon at 12:47 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Carillon at 12:47 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
I think that there's a clear arc to quality in many cases. You have the early stuff (rough, but promising), the solid middle period, and then the decline (calcified and/or diminished powers).
It's not a universal, of course, but I think it applies to a lot of creative people and/or works. There's only so much there there, in a lot of cases.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:50 PM on June 2, 2015
It's not a universal, of course, but I think it applies to a lot of creative people and/or works. There's only so much there there, in a lot of cases.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:50 PM on June 2, 2015
What's worse is that I'm starting to be nervous about reading new books from my favorite scifi authors.
Oh, I have this problem ever since I started to find out a significant number of popular scifi authors weren't the progressive futurists I thought they were in my teens, but really just rather mean spirited troglodytes looking into their past, and either punishing the future for it, or wishing it was the future.
posted by smidgen at 12:51 PM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Oh, I have this problem ever since I started to find out a significant number of popular scifi authors weren't the progressive futurists I thought they were in my teens, but really just rather mean spirited troglodytes looking into their past, and either punishing the future for it, or wishing it was the future.
posted by smidgen at 12:51 PM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
but I'm not about to say George Miller is a master
I'LL SAY IT FOR YOU WOOOOOO FURY ROADDDDD WITNESS MEEEEE
posted by Windigo at 12:52 PM on June 2, 2015 [27 favorites]
I'LL SAY IT FOR YOU WOOOOOO FURY ROADDDDD WITNESS MEEEEE
posted by Windigo at 12:52 PM on June 2, 2015 [27 favorites]
Peter Jackson might fall into this category for me. I loved, loved, loved the LotR movies, but seeing his other movies makes me think that while he has a lot of great ideas and great vision, he also suffers from a distinct lack of taste and no real filter. You saw peeks of it during LotR, but they were smothered by many layers of awesome.
Then came the Hobbit films, which do make you wonder if they were done by the same guy. Perhaps the LotR movies were great despite him rather than because of him.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 12:55 PM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
Then came the Hobbit films, which do make you wonder if they were done by the same guy. Perhaps the LotR movies were great despite him rather than because of him.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 12:55 PM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
Neil Blomkamp I think lucked into something with the found-dialogue of his short, used that well for the first half of D9 and then fell back on his own writing style which is, it's rapidly becoming apparent, hugely lacking.
He needs a Dan O'Bannon.
posted by Artw at 12:59 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
He needs a Dan O'Bannon.
posted by Artw at 12:59 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
There's a theory that the last half of his life Heinlein was simply rewriting the books he wrote in his first half as satire.
posted by maxsparber at 1:02 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by maxsparber at 1:02 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Sangermaine: “Creators who have never produced an inferior product? Not everything they've made has to be genius, but it has to be at least good. Maybe allow one or two stumbles, but almost everything they've made has to good. Who would fit that bill?”
Mike Leigh. Not really any stumbles, either. Hell, Mr Turner might have been the least interesting film of his career, and it was still goddamned brilliant and incredibly fun to watch. And I have seen almost every one of Mike Leigh's films, so I can say – no missteps there, even stretching back to his tragically unwatched television films in the mid-seventies like Nuts in May and Abigail's Party and the consummately brilliant Kiss of Death. His first true feature release, High Hopes, is one of the movies I most often think of when I'm trying to sort out how a person is supposed to live in the world as it is today while holding onto their ideals; it's specifically a loving portrayal of the difficulty of being a true communist in a capitalist society. And of course since then he's gotten more well-known – a lot of people know Naked, easily the most striking film he's ever made, and also Secrets and Lies, and over the past few years he's almost become mainstream over the course of Vera Drake and Happy go Lucky and Mr Turner – but even in early days his films have always been well-shot and incredibly well-acted, largely (I think) because Leigh has a great interest in the actor's art and in facilitating that to the greatest degree possible.
posted by koeselitz at 1:03 PM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Mike Leigh. Not really any stumbles, either. Hell, Mr Turner might have been the least interesting film of his career, and it was still goddamned brilliant and incredibly fun to watch. And I have seen almost every one of Mike Leigh's films, so I can say – no missteps there, even stretching back to his tragically unwatched television films in the mid-seventies like Nuts in May and Abigail's Party and the consummately brilliant Kiss of Death. His first true feature release, High Hopes, is one of the movies I most often think of when I'm trying to sort out how a person is supposed to live in the world as it is today while holding onto their ideals; it's specifically a loving portrayal of the difficulty of being a true communist in a capitalist society. And of course since then he's gotten more well-known – a lot of people know Naked, easily the most striking film he's ever made, and also Secrets and Lies, and over the past few years he's almost become mainstream over the course of Vera Drake and Happy go Lucky and Mr Turner – but even in early days his films have always been well-shot and incredibly well-acted, largely (I think) because Leigh has a great interest in the actor's art and in facilitating that to the greatest degree possible.
posted by koeselitz at 1:03 PM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
There's a theory that the last half of his life Heinlein was simply rewriting the books he wrote in his first half as satire.
Heinlein went straight-up mentally ill - is there actually any disagreement on this?
posted by GuyZero at 1:05 PM on June 2, 2015
Heinlein went straight-up mentally ill - is there actually any disagreement on this?
posted by GuyZero at 1:05 PM on June 2, 2015
This is the Cohen brothers for me, in reverse. I thought all their movies were terrible until No Country for Old Men. Then I realized that all their movies were actually awesome.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 1:06 PM on June 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by paper chromatographologist at 1:06 PM on June 2, 2015 [8 favorites]
Martin Scorsese gets better and better and I appreciate his older films even more after watching his more recent films.
I generally like Scorsese's stuff, but Hugo had me seriously worrying that he was going down this path. Pleasant to watch, but oh my god, was it self-indulgent.
posted by schmod at 1:12 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I generally like Scorsese's stuff, but Hugo had me seriously worrying that he was going down this path. Pleasant to watch, but oh my god, was it self-indulgent.
posted by schmod at 1:12 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Peter Jackson might fall into this category for me. I loved, loved, loved the LotR movies, but seeing his other movies makes me think that while he has a lot of great ideas and great vision, he also suffers from a distinct lack of taste and no real filter.
Jackson's first movie was entitled Bad Taste. And indeed, it lived up to that title.
His second movie was an obscene Muppets parody called Meet the Feebles. One review described it as "so tasteless it scrapes genius." Which, to be fair, is accurate.
So yeah, you've nailed him exactly.
posted by Harvey Jerkwater at 1:12 PM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Jackson's first movie was entitled Bad Taste. And indeed, it lived up to that title.
His second movie was an obscene Muppets parody called Meet the Feebles. One review described it as "so tasteless it scrapes genius." Which, to be fair, is accurate.
So yeah, you've nailed him exactly.
posted by Harvey Jerkwater at 1:12 PM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
I live in a constant state of low-level terrified agitation that he will finally do something with the film rights to Temeraire and then everything will be ruined forever.
posted by poffin boffin at 1:15 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 1:15 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
FOREVER
posted by poffin boffin at 1:15 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 1:15 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
I've written before on the blue about my disinfatuation with Harlan Ellison, which dates to about the mid-eighties. Some of that disinfatuation has to do with The Comics Journal being increasingly critical of Ellison, due in no small part to publisher Gary Groth's falling-out with him over the lawsuit that nearly put TCJ out of business after they published an interview with Ellison and were sued for libel. However, it was the publication of the short story collection Angry Candy that permanently soured me on him; not only were the stories (at least the two that I read) not much of a much, but the foreword was some kind of an interminable rant about how furious he was that the people that he liked weren't immortal, or something. I can still appreciate the fiction that he wrote before then, but I looked at the nonfiction that he wrote--including the forewords to his other short story collections--with an increasingly jaundiced eye.
Joss Whedon, I never had that infatuation with, so I can appreciate his work for the good qualities that it has without being blind to its deficiencies as not only his hardcore Whedonistas are but as Whedon himself seems to be.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:17 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Joss Whedon, I never had that infatuation with, so I can appreciate his work for the good qualities that it has without being blind to its deficiencies as not only his hardcore Whedonistas are but as Whedon himself seems to be.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:17 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Heinlein went straight-up mentally ill - is there actually any disagreement on this?
No disagreement that he had health problems, but he suffered in later years from heart problems and emphysema. In my own grandparents similar issues lead to low blood oxygen levels and very noticeable emotional and intellectual impairments. When I discovered Heinlein's ailments had gotten much worse during the writing of I Will Fear No Evil and had never really let up, that was explanation enough for me.
posted by bonehead at 1:19 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
No disagreement that he had health problems, but he suffered in later years from heart problems and emphysema. In my own grandparents similar issues lead to low blood oxygen levels and very noticeable emotional and intellectual impairments. When I discovered Heinlein's ailments had gotten much worse during the writing of I Will Fear No Evil and had never really let up, that was explanation enough for me.
posted by bonehead at 1:19 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Huh, I'm not a big Jackson fan but I think Temeraire would be playing to his strengths. Just do a decent adaption like LoTR but using books that are far less bloated. Just make the studio demand a run time of an hour and fourty-five minutes max for each book.
posted by Drinky Die at 1:23 PM on June 2, 2015
posted by Drinky Die at 1:23 PM on June 2, 2015
WRONG he would cast bandersnatch crumplepants and it would be horrendous
posted by poffin boffin at 1:24 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 1:24 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
For me this is Margarethe von Trotta and Robert LePage.
posted by chapps at 1:28 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
See also: Sickboy's unifying theory of life.
posted by peeedro at 1:28 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by peeedro at 1:28 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Huh, I like that casting choice. You and I just may have different visions for ideal Temeraire movies. :P
posted by Drinky Die at 1:28 PM on June 2, 2015
posted by Drinky Die at 1:28 PM on June 2, 2015
Sting has retroactively ruined the Police for me, but I never bought into Shyamalan or Sorkin. The one that scares me now is Soderbergh. I mean, he's always sort of run hot and cold with all the different experiments, but the recut of 2001 just kind of puts a pall on it all.
posted by fedward at 1:29 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by fedward at 1:29 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Huh, I like that casting choice.
HOW DARE
posted by poffin boffin at 1:29 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
HOW DARE
posted by poffin boffin at 1:29 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
No one has mentioned Robert Zemeckis yet? From the glory of Back to the Future and Roger Rabbit to those horrible motion capture digital animated things?
posted by octothorpe at 1:30 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 1:30 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Heinlein went straight-up mentally ill - is there actually any disagreement on this?
I knew he had health problems but I've hadn't really seen much that said that. Granted I haven't looked in a while so maybe I missed something or there's something new?
posted by Carillon at 1:30 PM on June 2, 2015
I knew he had health problems but I've hadn't really seen much that said that. Granted I haven't looked in a while so maybe I missed something or there's something new?
posted by Carillon at 1:30 PM on June 2, 2015
Obviously the only person who could play Temeraire is Chow Yun-Fat.
posted by maxsparber at 1:31 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by maxsparber at 1:31 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Sting has retroactively ruined the Police for me
YUP!
posted by Navelgazer at 1:33 PM on June 2, 2015
YUP!
posted by Navelgazer at 1:33 PM on June 2, 2015
Jackson's first movie was entitled Bad Taste. And indeed, it lived up to that title.
His second movie was an obscene Muppets parody called Meet the Feebles. One review described it as "so tasteless it scrapes genius." Which, to be fair, is accurate.
Don't forget his 3rd movie, Dead Alive!
I loved M. Night even when everyone else said he was a hack. I even went to see The Happening in the theatre. After that, I finally came around to the fact that his movies just arent that good (but I will always love the Sixth Sense and the Village, the twists totally got me!). But even I hated hated hated signs.
Tarantino: I saw Reservoir Dogs before Pulp Fiction (I didn't see PF until many many years later), so it's weird to me to have everyone refer to PF as his big masterpiece when RD was much better in my opinion.
posted by LizBoBiz at 1:34 PM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
His second movie was an obscene Muppets parody called Meet the Feebles. One review described it as "so tasteless it scrapes genius." Which, to be fair, is accurate.
Don't forget his 3rd movie, Dead Alive!
I loved M. Night even when everyone else said he was a hack. I even went to see The Happening in the theatre. After that, I finally came around to the fact that his movies just arent that good (but I will always love the Sixth Sense and the Village, the twists totally got me!). But even I hated hated hated signs.
Tarantino: I saw Reservoir Dogs before Pulp Fiction (I didn't see PF until many many years later), so it's weird to me to have everyone refer to PF as his big masterpiece when RD was much better in my opinion.
posted by LizBoBiz at 1:34 PM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
The Wachowskis. Bound was great. The Matrix was brilliant. Everything after - complete bullocks.
posted by hoodrich at 1:35 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by hoodrich at 1:35 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Ingmar Bergman and the Coen Bros are also consistently wonderful ...
Have you seen The Serpent's Egg?
For me this is Margarethe von Trotta ...
COSIGN.
posted by Mothlight at 1:37 PM on June 2, 2015
Have you seen The Serpent's Egg?
For me this is Margarethe von Trotta ...
COSIGN.
posted by Mothlight at 1:37 PM on June 2, 2015
the only person who could play Temeraire is Chow Yun-Fat.
Christopher Walken is a bit old, true.
posted by bonehead at 1:38 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Christopher Walken is a bit old, true.
posted by bonehead at 1:38 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
LOTR holds up well, but it's amazing that it turned out as well as it did. I have no clue what New Line saw in Peter Jackson's previous work that made them trust him with such a huge and ambitious project.
posted by schmod at 1:40 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by schmod at 1:40 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Kubrick obviously remains the clichéd example of consistent quality. —fullerine
"Hello, Unpopular-Opinions-R-Us? I'd like the Kubrick Surprise Package, please. Yes, deliver it to MetaFilter, with my love…"
I am one of the minority who didn't like Eyes Wide Shut. Not enough to put Kubrick on the bad list here, but enough to knock him off my "consistent quality" list. It's likely that the problem is that I am not his target audience. If you are, more power to you. You can keep him on your list.
I thought he didn't get very good performances from his stars and that the material was about a generation too late to have anything interesting to say on the subject of love, sex, and relationships. It might've been the best picture of 1959 or 1981, but in 1999, it just seemed as if he'd missed the window by a couple of decades.
If he'd made it in the 1960s, when he acquired the rights, it might've been a interesting. If he'd kept the late-19th-century Viennese setting, it might've been Kate Chopin's The Awakening. Instead, it came across as an old, out-of-touch man's reminder to the kids to stay off his lawn, sexually speaking.
So, it didn't spoil me for Kurbric, but he can't go on my personal list of directors who never had a gutter ball.
posted by Mad_Carew at 1:42 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
"Hello, Unpopular-Opinions-R-Us? I'd like the Kubrick Surprise Package, please. Yes, deliver it to MetaFilter, with my love…"
I am one of the minority who didn't like Eyes Wide Shut. Not enough to put Kubrick on the bad list here, but enough to knock him off my "consistent quality" list. It's likely that the problem is that I am not his target audience. If you are, more power to you. You can keep him on your list.
I thought he didn't get very good performances from his stars and that the material was about a generation too late to have anything interesting to say on the subject of love, sex, and relationships. It might've been the best picture of 1959 or 1981, but in 1999, it just seemed as if he'd missed the window by a couple of decades.
If he'd made it in the 1960s, when he acquired the rights, it might've been a interesting. If he'd kept the late-19th-century Viennese setting, it might've been Kate Chopin's The Awakening. Instead, it came across as an old, out-of-touch man's reminder to the kids to stay off his lawn, sexually speaking.
So, it didn't spoil me for Kurbric, but he can't go on my personal list of directors who never had a gutter ball.
posted by Mad_Carew at 1:42 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I am one of the minority who didn't like Eyes Wide Shut.
What? Nobody liked Eyes Wide Shut. To this day I have to argue the merits of that film, and everybody treats me as though I were raving.
posted by maxsparber at 1:55 PM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
What? Nobody liked Eyes Wide Shut. To this day I have to argue the merits of that film, and everybody treats me as though I were raving.
posted by maxsparber at 1:55 PM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
In the faintest possible defense of this execrable film, the opening credits helped me realize that BIG MELONS is an anagram of Mel Gibson. This was the sole enjoyable moment I had for the next 2h.
Well, that's a gift that keeps on giving ...
posted by chavenet at 1:57 PM on June 2, 2015
Well, that's a gift that keeps on giving ...
posted by chavenet at 1:57 PM on June 2, 2015
old, out-of-touch man's reminder to the kids to stay off his lawn, sexually speaking.
except it's not about sex it's about money and murder.
posted by The Whelk at 1:59 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
except it's not about sex it's about money and murder.
posted by The Whelk at 1:59 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Ridley Scott, why Prometheus, why?
posted by zippy at 2:02 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by zippy at 2:02 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's a bit uncharitable to ding Kubrick for a film that came out posthumously. (Yes he finished it before he died, but just days before.)
posted by aspo at 2:02 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by aspo at 2:02 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
fwiw, here's david o. russell (talking with terry gross at the 20m mark) about coming back out of the wilderness after i heart huckabees: At Last, David O. Russell Is Making The Films He Was Meant To Make
posted by kliuless at 2:02 PM on June 2, 2015
posted by kliuless at 2:02 PM on June 2, 2015
Sting has retroactively ruined the Police for me
Bell Boy!
posted by Nevin at 2:05 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Bell Boy!
posted by Nevin at 2:05 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Ridley Scott, why Prometheus, why?
The trick is to watch it with the sound turned off. I did that on a flight once and it made perfect sense.
posted by Nevin at 2:06 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
The trick is to watch it with the sound turned off. I did that on a flight once and it made perfect sense.
posted by Nevin at 2:06 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's not just the endless sequel attempts (Toy Story 4?!?) that are so galling after Lasseter said that he was going to put a stop to all of the cash-in Disney sequels, or the lazy storytelling of the endless Cars spinoffs - those earlier shorts and films have been tainted, where that overfamiliar Pixar flavor just gets me agitated.
Hold up, I can't let this insinuation stand. Please do NOT lump in the Toy Story movies with the Cars movies. They are from the same studio, yes, but they might as well be from different universes. The Toy Story trilogy may very well be the best movie trilogy in film history, and by best I mean that each sequel is as good if not better than its precedent. You can't say that about any other film trilogy. Go on, I dare you.
We shall not talk about Cars
posted by zardoz at 2:09 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Hold up, I can't let this insinuation stand. Please do NOT lump in the Toy Story movies with the Cars movies. They are from the same studio, yes, but they might as well be from different universes. The Toy Story trilogy may very well be the best movie trilogy in film history, and by best I mean that each sequel is as good if not better than its precedent. You can't say that about any other film trilogy. Go on, I dare you.
We shall not talk about Cars
posted by zardoz at 2:09 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Peter Jackson might fall into this category for me. I loved, loved, loved the LotR movies, but seeing his other movies makes me think that while he has a lot of great ideas and great vision, he also suffers from a distinct lack of taste and no real filter.
Here's proof.
posted by Nevin at 2:10 PM on June 2, 2015
Here's proof.
posted by Nevin at 2:10 PM on June 2, 2015
Also, in contrast with Ridley Scott's arc, George Miller.
Man, I loved the first Mad Max, seen in my teens, but I hadn't revisited it out of fear that it wouldn't hold up.
Fury Road: I expected an awful reboot or hack story, and instead, it is brilliant and surprising and inventive and gorgeous and a snarling snapping beast, and shows how much Miller has grown as a director.
posted by zippy at 2:11 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Man, I loved the first Mad Max, seen in my teens, but I hadn't revisited it out of fear that it wouldn't hold up.
Fury Road: I expected an awful reboot or hack story, and instead, it is brilliant and surprising and inventive and gorgeous and a snarling snapping beast, and shows how much Miller has grown as a director.
posted by zippy at 2:11 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
There's a theory that the last half of his life Heinlein was simply rewriting the books he wrote in his first half as satire.
The great Usenet wit Blaine of Eddore created a desperate theory that Number of the Beast was a practical joke and a mental of how to write an SF story. Personally, I think the stress caused by the cognitive dissonance shortened Gharlaine's life.
At least Heinlein had brain damage for the being bit by the Brain Eater. Other authors, like Niven and Card and company had no excuse. That's why editors are vital.
posted by happyroach at 2:13 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Noooooooobody liked Eyes Wide Shut, and it's a brilliant pseudo-Freudo-Marxist meditation on class, privilege, sex and marriage. Oh, and MURDERS. And dreams. And the subconscious.
I just saw it for the second time last week in a theater and it's so fantastic. Like The Lady from Shanghai, I just grieve what it could have been had the director had full and final control.
posted by easter queen at 2:33 PM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
I just saw it for the second time last week in a theater and it's so fantastic. Like The Lady from Shanghai, I just grieve what it could have been had the director had full and final control.
posted by easter queen at 2:33 PM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
Noooooooobody liked Eyes Wide Shut
I sure didn't, initially. My whole reading of that film changed (in a good way) after following a link I saw posted here years ago, though: Introducing Sociology: A Review of Eyes Wide Shut by Tim Kreider
posted by Xavier Xavier at 2:42 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
I sure didn't, initially. My whole reading of that film changed (in a good way) after following a link I saw posted here years ago, though: Introducing Sociology: A Review of Eyes Wide Shut by Tim Kreider
posted by Xavier Xavier at 2:42 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
No preview: (The Whelk beat me to it, above. Kudos.)
posted by Xavier Xavier at 2:44 PM on June 2, 2015
posted by Xavier Xavier at 2:44 PM on June 2, 2015
Moral of the story: Never love anything.
I think it's a mark of how far Peter Bogdanovich's star has fallen that he isn't even considered for this list.
He's still Big Man on the competitive ascot circuit.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 2:49 PM on June 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
I think it's a mark of how far Peter Bogdanovich's star has fallen that he isn't even considered for this list.
He's still Big Man on the competitive ascot circuit.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 2:49 PM on June 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
Is there anyone who has kept up a really high standard?
Soderbergh, maybe? (I haven't seen the recut of 2001 so)
LOTR holds up well, but it's amazing that it turned out as well as it did. I have no clue what New Line saw in Peter Jackson's previous work that made them trust him with such a huge and ambitious project.
It was Miramax first, then New Line courtesy of a link through Mark Ordefsky. Honestly I think what they saw was 1) hey, at least the dude has a grand vision and has looked at a lot of the details, and 2) MEGA tax writeoff if it tanked.
And since we've done writers, musicians: Madonna has fallen very, very far.
And I loved Eyes Wide Shut.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:01 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Soderbergh, maybe? (I haven't seen the recut of 2001 so)
LOTR holds up well, but it's amazing that it turned out as well as it did. I have no clue what New Line saw in Peter Jackson's previous work that made them trust him with such a huge and ambitious project.
It was Miramax first, then New Line courtesy of a link through Mark Ordefsky. Honestly I think what they saw was 1) hey, at least the dude has a grand vision and has looked at a lot of the details, and 2) MEGA tax writeoff if it tanked.
And since we've done writers, musicians: Madonna has fallen very, very far.
And I loved Eyes Wide Shut.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:01 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Huh, I like that casting choice.
HOW DARE
Fine. Adrien Brody's nostrils to play the lead.
posted by Panjandrum at 3:17 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
HOW DARE
Fine. Adrien Brody's nostrils to play the lead.
posted by Panjandrum at 3:17 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Mike Leigh. Not really any stumbles, either.
Welllllll, okay, if you go with my theory that All or Nothing is self-parody and not meant to be taken seriously.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 3:18 PM on June 2, 2015
Welllllll, okay, if you go with my theory that All or Nothing is self-parody and not meant to be taken seriously.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 3:18 PM on June 2, 2015
Eyes Wife Shut is brilliant and fantastic but Barry Lyndon is sublime and no one talks about it ever.
posted by shakespeherian at 3:21 PM on June 2, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by shakespeherian at 3:21 PM on June 2, 2015 [12 favorites]
Michael Mann. Check out this run from 1981 to 2004...
Heat and The Insider are two of my all-time favourites, but after Collateral it has just been a tragic nosedive into mediocrity. Miami Vice and Public Enemies were both painful and boring, and Blackhat was...I don't even remember as I nodded off about a quarter of the way through.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:23 PM on June 2, 2015
Heat and The Insider are two of my all-time favourites, but after Collateral it has just been a tragic nosedive into mediocrity. Miami Vice and Public Enemies were both painful and boring, and Blackhat was...I don't even remember as I nodded off about a quarter of the way through.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:23 PM on June 2, 2015
Inception is still one of the few movies I like less and less the more I see it.
I've had the opposite experience. Enjoyed it on first viewing, have come to love it on subsequent viewings, particularly for a mainstream film.
I am one of the minority who didn't like Eyes Wide Shut.
The people who don't like that film constitute a minority?
posted by juiceCake at 3:25 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've had the opposite experience. Enjoyed it on first viewing, have come to love it on subsequent viewings, particularly for a mainstream film.
I am one of the minority who didn't like Eyes Wide Shut.
The people who don't like that film constitute a minority?
posted by juiceCake at 3:25 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's easier once you realize that all of Kubrick's films are comedies.
posted by shakespeherian at 3:26 PM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by shakespeherian at 3:26 PM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Peter Jackson and the Hobbit: I suspect that with the kind of budget The Hobbit would require to stay with the same sort of feel as LoTR they had to make it into 3 parts and try to recoup the investment by triple-dipping at the box office. But 3 parts and almost 8 hours for the Hobbit are way too many. A single 3-hour movie would have been plenty. Not sure how much of that decision is on Jackson specifically, rather than the studio or something, but it wasn't the kind of misfire that makes me question his ability as much as the wisdom of trying to make 8 hours of movie out of a single 300-page children's book.
Shyamalan: If he could get over how clever he thinks he is I think he could be a decent director. Even in (now many) his failures, he has shown he isn't terrible at the craft of making a film. He just writes a lot of really stupid stories and wastes the talent he does have telling those.
posted by Hoopo at 3:28 PM on June 2, 2015
Shyamalan: If he could get over how clever he thinks he is I think he could be a decent director. Even in (now many) his failures, he has shown he isn't terrible at the craft of making a film. He just writes a lot of really stupid stories and wastes the talent he does have telling those.
posted by Hoopo at 3:28 PM on June 2, 2015
I think it's a mark of how far Peter Bogdanovich's star has fallen that he isn't even considered for this list.
Did anyone ever see Texasville, the twenty year later sequel to Last Picture Show? Same cast, same author, Bogdanovich directing again and it's just terrible. It looks and acts like a TV sitcom version of the original.
posted by octothorpe at 3:34 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Did anyone ever see Texasville, the twenty year later sequel to Last Picture Show? Same cast, same author, Bogdanovich directing again and it's just terrible. It looks and acts like a TV sitcom version of the original.
posted by octothorpe at 3:34 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I too liked Eyes Wide Shut. I like it a lot!!
posted by supermedusa at 3:34 PM on June 2, 2015
posted by supermedusa at 3:34 PM on June 2, 2015
With the staggering amount of money LOTR made, even two movies at the same scale (said it before: There, And Back Again) would have cost 'only' ~$200M, and they could easily have guaranteed making that all back. A single movie would have been in the $100M range which they would have made back before the Sunday of opening weekend, probably. Also worth noting that (as I understand it) a significant part of the budget on LOTR was devoted to all the development of the concept art, the technologies, the materials used. All of that's built already, or at the very least extant on hard drives and in human brains, so the ramp-up would cost significantly less.
Sheer greed, is what it looks like to me. And, it seems, not one damn person saying PJ NO to his excesses. Or to his bloody rewrites. On LOTR some--even, one could argue, the majority--of the rewrites and changes made sense. The Hobbit is virtually filmable as written. Nothing needed to be added or changed, not Radagast sledding through the forest, not Gandalf magically saving them from the trolls, fucking none of it.
Perhaps what Miramax/New Line saw was an unfulfilled penchant for excess, and figured that was the best way to make LOTR.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:37 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Sheer greed, is what it looks like to me. And, it seems, not one damn person saying PJ NO to his excesses. Or to his bloody rewrites. On LOTR some--even, one could argue, the majority--of the rewrites and changes made sense. The Hobbit is virtually filmable as written. Nothing needed to be added or changed, not Radagast sledding through the forest, not Gandalf magically saving them from the trolls, fucking none of it.
Perhaps what Miramax/New Line saw was an unfulfilled penchant for excess, and figured that was the best way to make LOTR.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:37 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
shakespeherian: “Eyes Wife Shut is brilliant and fantastic but Barry Lyndon is sublime and no one talks about it ever.”
I really quite like Room 237, as a fascinating string of theories about The Shining many of which are stonking insane and just as many of which are compelling despite themselves. But the only moment during Room 237 during which I got actually physically angry was when one of the self-styled Kubrick experts pontificated on why he thought The Shining was an important revelation: because Kubrick's previous movie, Barry Lyndon, was boring crap made by a genius who knew he could do better. Anybody who can be so wrong has no business whatsoever being in a movie about a Kubrick film and acting like they know what they're talking about.
fedward: “Sting has retroactively ruined the Police for me...”
Honestly I don't mind adult-contemporary woo like the stuff Sting put out later. You know what retroactively ruined the Police for me? Re-listening to their first album, which is in the competition for having the most creepy and repugnant lyrics of any 80s pop album, no matter how catchy it may be. "Roxanne" is bad enough, but "I Can't Stand Losing You" – remember that one? That's the one where he literally threatens to kill himself if she doesn't stay with him. "And you'll be sorry when I'm dead / And all this guilt will be on your head." Ugh. Flat out disgusting.
posted by koeselitz at 3:39 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I really quite like Room 237, as a fascinating string of theories about The Shining many of which are stonking insane and just as many of which are compelling despite themselves. But the only moment during Room 237 during which I got actually physically angry was when one of the self-styled Kubrick experts pontificated on why he thought The Shining was an important revelation: because Kubrick's previous movie, Barry Lyndon, was boring crap made by a genius who knew he could do better. Anybody who can be so wrong has no business whatsoever being in a movie about a Kubrick film and acting like they know what they're talking about.
fedward: “Sting has retroactively ruined the Police for me...”
Honestly I don't mind adult-contemporary woo like the stuff Sting put out later. You know what retroactively ruined the Police for me? Re-listening to their first album, which is in the competition for having the most creepy and repugnant lyrics of any 80s pop album, no matter how catchy it may be. "Roxanne" is bad enough, but "I Can't Stand Losing You" – remember that one? That's the one where he literally threatens to kill himself if she doesn't stay with him. "And you'll be sorry when I'm dead / And all this guilt will be on your head." Ugh. Flat out disgusting.
posted by koeselitz at 3:39 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Anybody who can be so wrong has no business whatsoever being in a movie about a Kubrick film and acting like they know what they're talking about.
To be fair, Room 237 was in large part an exercise in point-and-laugh-at-the-weirdos
posted by Hoopo at 3:42 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
To be fair, Room 237 was in large part an exercise in point-and-laugh-at-the-weirdos
posted by Hoopo at 3:42 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Jackson's first movie was entitled Bad Taste. And indeed, it lived up to that title.
His second movie was an obscene Muppets parody called Meet the Feebles. One review described it as "so tasteless it scrapes genius." Which, to be fair, is accurate.
His fourth (?), Heavenly Creatures, is also worth a look. A complete departure from his previous films, and not yet in the kid-in-a-VFX-candy-shop territory of his subsequent fare.
posted by acb at 3:42 PM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
His second movie was an obscene Muppets parody called Meet the Feebles. One review described it as "so tasteless it scrapes genius." Which, to be fair, is accurate.
His fourth (?), Heavenly Creatures, is also worth a look. A complete departure from his previous films, and not yet in the kid-in-a-VFX-candy-shop territory of his subsequent fare.
posted by acb at 3:42 PM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
My favourite thing about Room 237 was imagining how many people with their own "interesting" theories watched it and gnashed their teeth and rent their garments over not being asked to participate.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:44 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:44 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Peter Jackson will forever have my love for Dead Alive/Braindead. The Frighteners is quite a bit of fun, too.
posted by brundlefly at 3:49 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by brundlefly at 3:49 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Room 237 was awesome. Kubrick laced his movies with so many tiny puzzles and mysteries, and it's a joy walking yourself through someone else's careful, frame-by-frame interpretation. That so many of them sound bonkers is just part of the fun - in some cases, you might even convince yourself that they're on to something. I don't think any of those interpretations are the One Solution, but I think a number of them have insights about things that Kubrick really did build into The Shining (allusions to Native American genocide, for example.)
posted by naju at 3:50 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by naju at 3:50 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Eyes Wife Shut is brilliant and fantastic
tim this is maybe the most wrong you have ever been
posted by poffin boffin at 3:54 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
tim this is maybe the most wrong you have ever been
posted by poffin boffin at 3:54 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
The Card Cheat: “My favourite thing about Room 237 was imagining how many people with their own ‘interesting’ theories watched it and gnashed their teeth and rent their garments over not being asked to participate.”
Ah, but didn't you notice? One of the biggest sources of "theories" was some internet guy who has a labyrinthine web site about The Shining who actually refused to participate – and they mention that in the film. Which makes me think about all the people who were in it but later must have regretted that – 'ah, refusing to participate! That's so much cooler than actually participating! Missed opportunities...'
posted by koeselitz at 3:58 PM on June 2, 2015
Ah, but didn't you notice? One of the biggest sources of "theories" was some internet guy who has a labyrinthine web site about The Shining who actually refused to participate – and they mention that in the film. Which makes me think about all the people who were in it but later must have regretted that – 'ah, refusing to participate! That's so much cooler than actually participating! Missed opportunities...'
posted by koeselitz at 3:58 PM on June 2, 2015
It's easier once you realize that all of Kubrick's films are comedies.
Someome plz add laff track to Eyes Wide Shut.
posted by zippy at 4:06 PM on June 2, 2015
Someome plz add laff track to Eyes Wide Shut.
posted by zippy at 4:06 PM on June 2, 2015
You know what retroactively ruined the Police for me? Re-listening to their first album, which is in the competition for having the most creepy and repugnant lyrics of any 80s pop album, no matter how catchy it may be.
Well, that is a bit of a running theme in Police lyrics.
posted by fedward at 4:10 PM on June 2, 2015
Well, that is a bit of a running theme in Police lyrics.
posted by fedward at 4:10 PM on June 2, 2015
... but Barry Lyndon is sublime and no one talks about it ever.
Immediately after finishing Barry Lyndon for the first time, I rewound both tapes and watched it again.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 4:14 PM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Immediately after finishing Barry Lyndon for the first time, I rewound both tapes and watched it again.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 4:14 PM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
tim this is maybe the most wrong you have ever been
It is two hours of Tom Cruise being humiliated. I stand by my statement.
posted by shakespeherian at 4:14 PM on June 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
It is two hours of Tom Cruise being humiliated. I stand by my statement.
posted by shakespeherian at 4:14 PM on June 2, 2015 [9 favorites]
We discussed EWS and many other films for the FanFare Spirit Of 99 viewing club! All 1999 All The Time!
posted by The Whelk at 4:19 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 4:19 PM on June 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Here's proof
Who wants chowdah? yt
Rich and creamy! Just the way I like it!
posted by Existential Dread at 4:22 PM on June 2, 2015
Who wants chowdah? yt
Rich and creamy! Just the way I like it!
posted by Existential Dread at 4:22 PM on June 2, 2015
"I Can't Stand Losing You" – remember that one? That's the one where he literally threatens to kill himself if she doesn't stay with him. "And you'll be sorry when I'm dead / And all this guilt will be on your head." Ugh. Flat out disgusting.
Uh, I think that song is very tongue in cheek, since the next lines in the song are
I guess you'd call it suicide
But I'm too full to swallow my pride
posted by Existential Dread at 4:24 PM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
Uh, I think that song is very tongue in cheek, since the next lines in the song are
I guess you'd call it suicide
But I'm too full to swallow my pride
posted by Existential Dread at 4:24 PM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
So, way too far down the thread for anyone to notice, but the key part of the question for me was "Did it make you rethink their previous works?"
While George Lucas progressively sucked, I don't see Star Wars Episodes IV and V in any worse light, but Jedi was the precursor to Jar Jar. American Graffiti holds fast. Nope.
Shymalan is the easiest target, his latter movies could make going back to the earlier successes and think, "hmmmm...."
Spielberg has had some shite movies, too, but they wouldn't make me regret seeing Jaws again.
posted by Chuffy at 4:30 PM on June 2, 2015
While George Lucas progressively sucked, I don't see Star Wars Episodes IV and V in any worse light, but Jedi was the precursor to Jar Jar. American Graffiti holds fast. Nope.
Shymalan is the easiest target, his latter movies could make going back to the earlier successes and think, "hmmmm...."
Spielberg has had some shite movies, too, but they wouldn't make me regret seeing Jaws again.
posted by Chuffy at 4:30 PM on June 2, 2015
Gus Van Sant already.
posted by Fritz Langwedge at 4:42 PM on June 2, 2015
posted by Fritz Langwedge at 4:42 PM on June 2, 2015
Creators who have never produced an inferior product? Not everything they've made has to be genius, but it has to be at least good. Maybe allow one or two stumbles, but almost everything they've made has to good.
Alexander Payne: Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt, Sideways, The Descendants, Nebraska.
The closest thing to a misstep I'd say is the marketing that made Descendants look like a comedy, fucking up my expectations.
And if we're stepping outside the world of movies, "So, yeah, here's yet another exemplary Aimee Mann album to add to the pile. Ho-hum" captures it.
posted by psoas at 4:44 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Alexander Payne: Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt, Sideways, The Descendants, Nebraska.
The closest thing to a misstep I'd say is the marketing that made Descendants look like a comedy, fucking up my expectations.
And if we're stepping outside the world of movies, "So, yeah, here's yet another exemplary Aimee Mann album to add to the pile. Ho-hum" captures it.
posted by psoas at 4:44 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
YMS has a pretty awesome review of Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones.
posted by Nevin at 4:54 PM on June 2, 2015
posted by Nevin at 4:54 PM on June 2, 2015
Fritz Langwedge: "Gus Van Sant already."
His latest seems to have been the worst reviewed film at Canne this year.
posted by octothorpe at 4:54 PM on June 2, 2015
His latest seems to have been the worst reviewed film at Canne this year.
posted by octothorpe at 4:54 PM on June 2, 2015
I am desperately avoiding a re-watch of Firefly for fear of it also being terrible.
I don't know if it's the nostalgia glasses talking, but FWIW I think Firefly holds up alright, aside from the whole "where are all the Asian people in this supposedly Sino-American future" thing and the problematic bits of Mal's treatment of Inara. And this is coming from someone who, during Age of Ultron, literally thought "I will never forgive you for this, Joss Whedon. NEVER." The thing was that it wasn't even one egregious thing that made me think that, it was just this slowly building sense of appalled disappointment, and by the end I was just weary and questioning my taste that I ever even loved the first Avengers movie or Serenity.
I got a similar feeling of enraged disappointment with Nolan's last Batman movie, which I thought was unforgivably full of clunky exposition and ponderous telling over showing. My disappointment was such that I never even bothered seeing Interstellar.
As far as a director who I think has been consistently good, I'll offer Alfonso Cuarón. Children of Men is my favorite movie, and going backwards or forwards from there, there aren't any real stinkers. (Though I will concede that the pilot to the short-lived show Believe wasn't a masterpiece, neither was it terrible enough to make me wonder if Cuarón had a lobotomy or something.) Also I'm pretty sure nothing will ever touch my pure and true love of Children of Men.
posted by yasaman at 5:05 PM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
I don't know if it's the nostalgia glasses talking, but FWIW I think Firefly holds up alright, aside from the whole "where are all the Asian people in this supposedly Sino-American future" thing and the problematic bits of Mal's treatment of Inara. And this is coming from someone who, during Age of Ultron, literally thought "I will never forgive you for this, Joss Whedon. NEVER." The thing was that it wasn't even one egregious thing that made me think that, it was just this slowly building sense of appalled disappointment, and by the end I was just weary and questioning my taste that I ever even loved the first Avengers movie or Serenity.
I got a similar feeling of enraged disappointment with Nolan's last Batman movie, which I thought was unforgivably full of clunky exposition and ponderous telling over showing. My disappointment was such that I never even bothered seeing Interstellar.
As far as a director who I think has been consistently good, I'll offer Alfonso Cuarón. Children of Men is my favorite movie, and going backwards or forwards from there, there aren't any real stinkers. (Though I will concede that the pilot to the short-lived show Believe wasn't a masterpiece, neither was it terrible enough to make me wonder if Cuarón had a lobotomy or something.) Also I'm pretty sure nothing will ever touch my pure and true love of Children of Men.
posted by yasaman at 5:05 PM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke was excellent, too.
Can't believe Baz Lurhmann hasn't gotten a mention. Australia was quite possibly one of the worst films I've ever viewed in my life, and even now I think about how much I loved Strictly Ballroom and flinch a bit.
posted by TwoStride at 5:06 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Can't believe Baz Lurhmann hasn't gotten a mention. Australia was quite possibly one of the worst films I've ever viewed in my life, and even now I think about how much I loved Strictly Ballroom and flinch a bit.
posted by TwoStride at 5:06 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Some of us couldn't stand Luhrmann from the beginning. Hold a shot for more than two seconds, dammit!
posted by downtohisturtles at 5:10 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by downtohisturtles at 5:10 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Barry Lyndon is sublime and no one talks about it ever.
I saw this for the first time the other day because I wanted to see the low-light scenes, and it's magnificent, as good as any other film Kubrick made. I did go to sleep at the intermission, but I couldn't wait to see the rest the next day.
posted by Huck500 at 5:14 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I saw this for the first time the other day because I wanted to see the low-light scenes, and it's magnificent, as good as any other film Kubrick made. I did go to sleep at the intermission, but I couldn't wait to see the rest the next day.
posted by Huck500 at 5:14 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Also I'm pretty sure nothing will ever touch my pure and true love of Children of Men.
Absolutely, the best director working IMO, and Children of Men is also my favorite movie for now, just stunningly great. I agree, nothing will ever change that.
posted by Huck500 at 5:17 PM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Absolutely, the best director working IMO, and Children of Men is also my favorite movie for now, just stunningly great. I agree, nothing will ever change that.
posted by Huck500 at 5:17 PM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
Yeah, that movie doesn't have a single dropped beat or misstep. It's perfection from start to finish.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 5:18 PM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 5:18 PM on June 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
I got a similar feeling of enraged disappointment with Nolan's last Batman movie, which I thought was unforgivably full of clunky exposition and ponderous telling over showing. My disappointment was such that I never even bothered seeing Interstellar.
Yes, the last Batman movie was so inferior to the previous two that it just didn't make sense to me... I had to see it again before I could accept that it really is that bad. I waited to see Interstellar as a netflix rental, and although I wasn't expecting too much, the last half hour was so stupid and obvious that it made me angry. No more Chris Nolan, and that sucks, because I like his stance on film and large-format cameras.
although I'll always give a filmmaker a few extra chances 'cause I'm a sucker
posted by Huck500 at 5:24 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yes, the last Batman movie was so inferior to the previous two that it just didn't make sense to me... I had to see it again before I could accept that it really is that bad. I waited to see Interstellar as a netflix rental, and although I wasn't expecting too much, the last half hour was so stupid and obvious that it made me angry. No more Chris Nolan, and that sucks, because I like his stance on film and large-format cameras.
although I'll always give a filmmaker a few extra chances 'cause I'm a sucker
posted by Huck500 at 5:24 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I was glad to see Wim Wenders on that list. I was so in love with his films. Paris, Texas. Im Lauf der Zeit (Kings of the Road). Alice in the Cities....The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick. So great--I even gave him a pass on Until the End of the World. At least it failed through ambition. But then Faraway, So Close? The End of Violence? Don't Come Knocking?
I gave up.
I felt the same way about Haruki Murakami, until his last effort returned to form somewhat.
posted by Kafkaesque at 5:28 PM on June 2, 2015
I gave up.
I felt the same way about Haruki Murakami, until his last effort returned to form somewhat.
posted by Kafkaesque at 5:28 PM on June 2, 2015
Then came Miami Vice in 2006.
Miami Vice is one of my favorite movies. I remember watching it when it came out, fresh off rewatching Heat and Collateral, and coming out of the theater having no idea what I had just seen. I caught it again in 2009 on cable, I think, and then it clicked for me.
This is an action movie with almost no action. It's a character drama with characters who have no detail. It's a movie about identity where identity doesn't matter. The big heroic action moment doesn't belong to either of the two leads, but happens when a background character who has said all of two words the entire movie just takes things into her own hands and flawlessly saves the day.
It dispenses with all expectations and does this marvelous thing with atmosphere and structure. It turns out that those two things are all I want in a movie. I just watched it again two weeks ago and I stand by my assessment.
There's a great essay about it here.
posted by Handstand Devil at 5:29 PM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
Miami Vice is one of my favorite movies. I remember watching it when it came out, fresh off rewatching Heat and Collateral, and coming out of the theater having no idea what I had just seen. I caught it again in 2009 on cable, I think, and then it clicked for me.
This is an action movie with almost no action. It's a character drama with characters who have no detail. It's a movie about identity where identity doesn't matter. The big heroic action moment doesn't belong to either of the two leads, but happens when a background character who has said all of two words the entire movie just takes things into her own hands and flawlessly saves the day.
It dispenses with all expectations and does this marvelous thing with atmosphere and structure. It turns out that those two things are all I want in a movie. I just watched it again two weeks ago and I stand by my assessment.
There's a great essay about it here.
posted by Handstand Devil at 5:29 PM on June 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
Miami Vice is one of my favorite movies.
IT WAS SO GOOD.
posted by poffin boffin at 5:39 PM on June 2, 2015
IT WAS SO GOOD.
posted by poffin boffin at 5:39 PM on June 2, 2015
Okay, Miami Vice sounds amazing. I have to watch this immediately.
posted by naju at 5:42 PM on June 2, 2015
posted by naju at 5:42 PM on June 2, 2015
it has been on HBO a lot recently.
posted by poffin boffin at 5:44 PM on June 2, 2015
posted by poffin boffin at 5:44 PM on June 2, 2015
For those despairing Pixar, the buzz is they are going to get their groove back with Inside Out. Sigh.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:52 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:52 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Abrams and Whedon seem to do best when under less pressure from their studios. I haven't seen it, but I gather that Ultron was the Pontiac Aztec of movies -- designed by committee from start to finish.
Lost was an incomprehensible mess, but the new Trek movies aren't nearly as bad as people have made them out to be, and Fringe was arguably one of the best shows of the past 10 years.
When both Fringe and Dollhouse realized that they were inexplicably immune to cancellation, they both went in really interesting directions, and delivered a really nice story arc.
posted by schmod at 6:02 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Lost was an incomprehensible mess, but the new Trek movies aren't nearly as bad as people have made them out to be, and Fringe was arguably one of the best shows of the past 10 years.
When both Fringe and Dollhouse realized that they were inexplicably immune to cancellation, they both went in really interesting directions, and delivered a really nice story arc.
posted by schmod at 6:02 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Kafkaesque at 5:28 PM on June 2
I agree somewhat about Wenders too, however the question is, 'did these films make you wonder if you were wrong to love his earlier films?' If you still love those older films then the answer is no and therefore he does not qualify. Plus, he has made a bunch of excellent documentaries so really it's only his fictional film output that has dropped off.
posted by Rashomon at 6:08 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I agree somewhat about Wenders too, however the question is, 'did these films make you wonder if you were wrong to love his earlier films?' If you still love those older films then the answer is no and therefore he does not qualify. Plus, he has made a bunch of excellent documentaries so really it's only his fictional film output that has dropped off.
posted by Rashomon at 6:08 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Ah Wim Wenders. I called it until the end of the movie. interminable. Made somewhat bearable because I saw the Montreal premier, with no subtitles, and everyone started simultaneously translating to neighbours they didn't know. There were five languages spoken in my little cluster. Fun! That loosened up the audience, so at 2 hours in, when the narrator said " I thought the story was over, but it had only begun" there was a collective groan, followed by laughter, and then everyone kicked back and chatted through the last hour.
posted by chapps at 6:23 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by chapps at 6:23 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I am an unapologetic Luhrmann lover. Some of us just thrive in a thick slurry of melodrama, yo. As for mIyazaki, whom I adore, his version of Howl's Moving Castle is one of the few movies to make me actively angry - though I concede it might be because I read the book first and his destruction of Sophie and Howl in that context is rancid (Sophie has to own her own power, not her own fsking beauty. Howl is never a hero. Ever. That is the point of Howl. Sophie is the hero, Howl backs into it despite himself. Get. It. Right.).
I think the closest I come is Whedon, but not because of his later work but rather because of my own changes in practical ethics and knowledge about the world. I still appreciate the effect he had on entertainment media in general - he helped birth Urban Fantasy, one of my favorite genres - but the racism, sexism, ableism, etc... in his stories stand out to me now in a way they never did when I was younger. The Horrible Summer When I Realized How Pervasive Racism Was In All My Favorite Things affected a lot of my favorite things profoundly, and while I've never had a similar Horrible Summer with another axis of discrimination, they have gradually seeped into my awareness in a way I no longer have any control over.
I think the biggest problem with the Matrix, was the author of the short story the first movie was based on never wrote sequels, since her story was stolen twice... >.> I'm sad I missed Jupiter Rising in the theater, though, as I am a huge fan of spectacle. I really need to get to Mad Max.
What I find interesting about this discussion is what peoples' favorites are and what our expectations are of various directors/authors/etc... I wonder if some of this is the tension between being consistent and being dynamic - if one is consistent, one may decline gracefully into muck; if one is dynamic, one is more likely to go stomping about half on marble, half in the swamp.
posted by Deoridhe at 6:50 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think the closest I come is Whedon, but not because of his later work but rather because of my own changes in practical ethics and knowledge about the world. I still appreciate the effect he had on entertainment media in general - he helped birth Urban Fantasy, one of my favorite genres - but the racism, sexism, ableism, etc... in his stories stand out to me now in a way they never did when I was younger. The Horrible Summer When I Realized How Pervasive Racism Was In All My Favorite Things affected a lot of my favorite things profoundly, and while I've never had a similar Horrible Summer with another axis of discrimination, they have gradually seeped into my awareness in a way I no longer have any control over.
I think the biggest problem with the Matrix, was the author of the short story the first movie was based on never wrote sequels, since her story was stolen twice... >.> I'm sad I missed Jupiter Rising in the theater, though, as I am a huge fan of spectacle. I really need to get to Mad Max.
What I find interesting about this discussion is what peoples' favorites are and what our expectations are of various directors/authors/etc... I wonder if some of this is the tension between being consistent and being dynamic - if one is consistent, one may decline gracefully into muck; if one is dynamic, one is more likely to go stomping about half on marble, half in the swamp.
posted by Deoridhe at 6:50 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
For me it's Mike Judge. B&B, Office Space, Idiocracy = genius. Extract was terrible and Silicon Valley is even worse.
posted by lock sock and barrel at 6:54 PM on June 2, 2015
posted by lock sock and barrel at 6:54 PM on June 2, 2015
Ridley Scott, why Prometheus, why?
A question for the ages.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:05 PM on June 2, 2015
A question for the ages.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:05 PM on June 2, 2015
Kevin Smith started to go really downhill, as far as I can tell, once he took up pot. I don't know if there's anything that obviously cite-able for everyone else in this thread, but hooooooooo boy did Smith start writing stinker plots and thinking Tusk was a good idea once he started smoking up. I'll always have a soft spot for the guy, I loved Dogma, and usually I don't think pot is a drug that messes people up much compared to most drugs, but I really don't think it's beneficial to him at all. Certainly not in the creative process.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:42 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:42 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I am not convinced there are any non-pot informed Kevin Smith movies.
posted by Artw at 8:51 PM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 8:51 PM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
KathrynT: "I haven't seen Babe 2 but am highly motivated to after my brother painstakingly explained his hypothesis that it is actually the first Mad Max movie, within the chronology of that universe."
Errr, is your brother on MeFi? I am interested in hearing more about this hypothesis.
posted by barnacles at 9:00 PM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Errr, is your brother on MeFi? I am interested in hearing more about this hypothesis.
posted by barnacles at 9:00 PM on June 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
See also also: Dario Argento.
Argento mostly has precisely one plot: American/British writer/actor/artist is in Rome for (thing) and gets involved in things that happen and involve people being killed; they may be the killer, or not! His '70's stuff all kind of runs together, for me, and some of his '80's stuff (like Phenomena) seems a lot more distinctive and memorable somehow.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 9:18 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Argento mostly has precisely one plot: American/British writer/actor/artist is in Rome for (thing) and gets involved in things that happen and involve people being killed; they may be the killer, or not! His '70's stuff all kind of runs together, for me, and some of his '80's stuff (like Phenomena) seems a lot more distinctive and memorable somehow.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 9:18 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Absolutely, the best director working IMO, and Children of Men is also my favorite movie for now, just stunningly great.
Children Of Men is also a great answer when someone asks about movies that are better than the book.
posted by chimaera at 9:25 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Children Of Men is also a great answer when someone asks about movies that are better than the book.
posted by chimaera at 9:25 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
"Kevin Smith started to go really downhill, as far as I can tell, once he took up pot."
And on the flip side of the coin, Stephen King went to shit as soon as he stopped drinking (and doing coke, and taking Valium, and Xanax, and smoking weed, and and and).
posted by komara at 9:27 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
And on the flip side of the coin, Stephen King went to shit as soon as he stopped drinking (and doing coke, and taking Valium, and Xanax, and smoking weed, and and and).
posted by komara at 9:27 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
So what you guys are saying is I really need to go watch Signs.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 9:36 PM on June 2, 2015
posted by buriednexttoyou at 9:36 PM on June 2, 2015
If you're getting ready for a street-fight, I would advise it, yes.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:43 PM on June 2, 2015
posted by Navelgazer at 9:43 PM on June 2, 2015
In my opinion: Room 237 was a load of crap, total hokum. Worse than 9/11 Truthers. Fabrications and ridiculousness at every turn. Cinematic morons participated in that film. Eyes Wide Shut is a considerably deep and wonderful film that was largely misunderstood due to very clever marketing, seeming to pitch towards the Skinamax crowd but going completely over their heads. Barry Lyndon holds up as one of the most gorgeous films ever shot, immaculately paced and meticulously structured, and is one of Scorcese's favorite films.
I agree that alongside Kubrick, Mike Leigh and Bergman are consistent filmmakers. I might add Cronenberg for overall career quality but he too has had some clunkers.
posted by ReeMonster at 9:58 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I agree that alongside Kubrick, Mike Leigh and Bergman are consistent filmmakers. I might add Cronenberg for overall career quality but he too has had some clunkers.
posted by ReeMonster at 9:58 PM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Hooray for us Miami Vice fans who can finally come out of the closet. I really quite liked the movie. Michael Mann, when he's good, is one of the few mainstream directors that channels much of the aesthetics and tones of great 70s films (Stephen Soderbergh is another director that does this). Miami Vice is a drama, not an action film, so if you realize that from the beginning, it's a perfectly solid film. Though I didn't really like the digital look to it--I wish he had stayed with film--but I'll give it a pass.
posted by zardoz at 10:22 PM on June 2, 2015
posted by zardoz at 10:22 PM on June 2, 2015
I am an unapologetic Luhrmann fan, I love the personal MOAR GLITTER aesthetic and over the top melodrama and I thought the recent Great Gatsby movie reeled in his more cut cut quick sensibility while also really working with the source story - like that kind of excess has to feel excessive kinda thing and its only real problems are the problems with any Gatsby adaptation...
But dear god Australia was terrible.
posted by The Whelk at 11:37 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
But dear god Australia was terrible.
posted by The Whelk at 11:37 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
it used music as effectively as the original series did as well, i think.
ugh now i want to watch it again and it's almost 3am, my life is in shambles.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:44 PM on June 2, 2015
ugh now i want to watch it again and it's almost 3am, my life is in shambles.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:44 PM on June 2, 2015
Also, RE: Oliver Stone. I saw Natural Born Killers for the first time like two nights ago and suddently so much of the 90s made sense. It's like a laundry list of "Things That Are Hip In The 90s We Are Into" -ironic appropriation of 50s kitsch! -an obsession with white trash Americana and facile concrern with desensitization of violence! - TV, esp. trashy proto-reality TV as evil force! -Tom Waits! -Baked out Austin/Seattle psychedelia!- and so on
It was like a 13 year old reading Tom Robbins for the first time and also cocaine. So much of what you where going on about in 1996 in zines and various internet message boards got explained
posted by The Whelk at 11:44 PM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
It was like a 13 year old reading Tom Robbins for the first time and also cocaine. So much of what you where going on about in 1996 in zines and various internet message boards got explained
posted by The Whelk at 11:44 PM on June 2, 2015 [7 favorites]
For me it's Nolan, Burton,Kevin Smith and Luhrmann where I find myself reassessing my love of the earlier films. Jackson, the Coens, John Lasseter - I went back to see if I'd overrated their earlier work but it turns out I still love it and it holds up well.
I think most storytellers just do better when they've got constraints, and flap around uselessly when they get everything they want.
Kubrick imposed his own constraints, which is maybe why he was so consistently good. (Would love to see a Fanfare for Barry Lyndon, though, since I don't get it). Terry Gilliam is a brilliant storyteller with absolutely zero of the project management skills which are essential for a director, so things get out of hand. Jackson, like other SFF storytellers like Rowling, GRRM and King, needs to be reined in or else the sprawl takes over.
posted by harriet vane at 2:37 AM on June 3, 2015
I think most storytellers just do better when they've got constraints, and flap around uselessly when they get everything they want.
Kubrick imposed his own constraints, which is maybe why he was so consistently good. (Would love to see a Fanfare for Barry Lyndon, though, since I don't get it). Terry Gilliam is a brilliant storyteller with absolutely zero of the project management skills which are essential for a director, so things get out of hand. Jackson, like other SFF storytellers like Rowling, GRRM and King, needs to be reined in or else the sprawl takes over.
posted by harriet vane at 2:37 AM on June 3, 2015
So what you guys are saying is I really need to go watch Signs.
This thread actually did make me go watch Signs last night. It actually does do a good job of building an eerie sense of tension in the first part of the movie, which it then completely squanders by having the latter part of the movie be a crapfest seemingly written on a napkin the day before shooting.
Signs is a metaphor for Shyamalan's career, basically.
posted by Panjandrum at 6:55 AM on June 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
This thread actually did make me go watch Signs last night. It actually does do a good job of building an eerie sense of tension in the first part of the movie, which it then completely squanders by having the latter part of the movie be a crapfest seemingly written on a napkin the day before shooting.
Signs is a metaphor for Shyamalan's career, basically.
posted by Panjandrum at 6:55 AM on June 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
komara: "And on the flip side of the coin, Stephen King went to shit as soon as he stopped drinking (and doing coke, and taking Valium, and Xanax, and smoking weed, and and and)."
I don't know. King definitely was starting to go off of the rails due to abuse of substances, too, though perhaps in a different way. I think the real divider was when he was hit by the van.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:09 AM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't know. King definitely was starting to go off of the rails due to abuse of substances, too, though perhaps in a different way. I think the real divider was when he was hit by the van.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:09 AM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Gatsby wasn't great but was about a million times better than Australia.
posted by Artw at 7:14 AM on June 3, 2015
posted by Artw at 7:14 AM on June 3, 2015
I went into Gatsby expecting the worst and ended up liking it, at least more than the stilted '70s version. Luhrmann's flashy and superficial style was a great fit for a story about flashy and superficial people.
posted by octothorpe at 7:48 AM on June 3, 2015
posted by octothorpe at 7:48 AM on June 3, 2015
> That loosened up the audience, so at 2 hours in, when the narrator said " I thought the story was over, but it had only begun" there was a collective groan, followed by laughter, and then everyone kicked back and chatted through the last hour.
That happened at my screening of Until The End of the World (in Kingston), too! Although, IIRC correctly, that line actually occurs fairly close to the end of the movie.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:56 AM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
That happened at my screening of Until The End of the World (in Kingston), too! Although, IIRC correctly, that line actually occurs fairly close to the end of the movie.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:56 AM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Sick Boy: It's certainly a phenomenon in all walks of life.
Renton: What do you mean?
Sick Boy: Well, at one time, you've got it, and then you lose it, and it's gone forever. All walks of life: George Best, for example. Had it, lost it. Or David Bowie, or Lou Reed...
Renton: Some of his solo stuff's not bad.
Sick Boy: No, it's not bad, but it's not great either. And in your heart you kind of know that although it sounds all right, it's actually just shite.
Renton: So who else?
Sick Boy: Charlie Nicholas, David Niven, Malcolm McLaren, Elvis Presley...
Renton: OK, OK, so what's the point you're trying to make?
Sick Boy: All I'm trying to do is help you understand that The Name of The Rose is merely a blip on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory.
Renton: What about The Untouchables?
Sick Boy: I don't rate that at all.
Renton: Despite the Academy Award?
Sick Boy: That means fuck all. Its a sympathy vote.
Renton: Right. So we all get old and then we can't hack it anymore. Is that it?
Sick Boy: Yeah.
Renton: That's your theory?
Sick Boy: Yeah. Beautifully fucking illustrated.
posted by Smedleyman at 9:04 AM on June 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
Renton: What do you mean?
Sick Boy: Well, at one time, you've got it, and then you lose it, and it's gone forever. All walks of life: George Best, for example. Had it, lost it. Or David Bowie, or Lou Reed...
Renton: Some of his solo stuff's not bad.
Sick Boy: No, it's not bad, but it's not great either. And in your heart you kind of know that although it sounds all right, it's actually just shite.
Renton: So who else?
Sick Boy: Charlie Nicholas, David Niven, Malcolm McLaren, Elvis Presley...
Renton: OK, OK, so what's the point you're trying to make?
Sick Boy: All I'm trying to do is help you understand that The Name of The Rose is merely a blip on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory.
Renton: What about The Untouchables?
Sick Boy: I don't rate that at all.
Renton: Despite the Academy Award?
Sick Boy: That means fuck all. Its a sympathy vote.
Renton: Right. So we all get old and then we can't hack it anymore. Is that it?
Sick Boy: Yeah.
Renton: That's your theory?
Sick Boy: Yeah. Beautifully fucking illustrated.
posted by Smedleyman at 9:04 AM on June 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
I will refute Sick Boy's theory by pointing out that, despite a mid-career slump, the now-42-year-old Jonny Lee Miller is turning into quite an enjoyable character actor. In fact, if Dark Shadows had just been him and Michelle Pfeiffer, it would have been great.
posted by maxsparber at 9:08 AM on June 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by maxsparber at 9:08 AM on June 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Sick Boy: ... Lou Reed...
Renton: Some of his solo stuff's not bad.
Sick Boy: No, it's not bad, but it's not great either. And in your heart you kind of know that although it sounds all right, it's actually just shite.
The Velvet Underground's records were shit compared to The Blue Mask, and I will fight anybody who tries to maintain otherwise.
posted by koeselitz at 9:12 AM on June 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
Renton: Some of his solo stuff's not bad.
Sick Boy: No, it's not bad, but it's not great either. And in your heart you kind of know that although it sounds all right, it's actually just shite.
The Velvet Underground's records were shit compared to The Blue Mask, and I will fight anybody who tries to maintain otherwise.
posted by koeselitz at 9:12 AM on June 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
Orson Welles made the mistake of making the best motion picture ever, and having that be his freshman attempt. It was destined to be a very long downhill spiral after that, and that is exactly what happened. But oh, to have made that movie...
posted by dbiedny at 9:20 AM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by dbiedny at 9:20 AM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
I am not convinced there are any non-pot informed Kevin Smith movies.
Artw
Smith claims he didn't start smoking weed until the filming of Zack and Miri Make a Porno in 2008. He really does need to stop. Tusk was literally created on one of his podcasts while he was completely baked and shooting the shit with a cohost and they came up with that dumbass idea. Then he was whining about how no one watched it.
The guy clearly has talent, he just needs to get himself together.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:22 AM on June 3, 2015
Artw
Smith claims he didn't start smoking weed until the filming of Zack and Miri Make a Porno in 2008. He really does need to stop. Tusk was literally created on one of his podcasts while he was completely baked and shooting the shit with a cohost and they came up with that dumbass idea. Then he was whining about how no one watched it.
The guy clearly has talent, he just needs to get himself together.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:22 AM on June 3, 2015
In my opinion: Room 237 was a load of crap, total hokum. Worse than 9/11 Truthers. Fabrications and ridiculousness at every turn.
I'm with you on that, and I thought that was actually the whole point of it, but it seems like every time it comes up here there are people whose opinions I generally agree with who think a bunch of the theories in Room 237 are plausible.
All the theories seem to follow this weird logic where we must start with Kubrick as a super genius. We know he paid great attention to detail, and because he's a super genius, anything and everything in all of his films is of great significance or a riddle (super geniuses obviously love riddles you see). There can be no minor errors, no coincidences, no internal inconsistencies, and nothing can ever be done for effect, because it is all necessarily the very deliberate "code" of a super genius. Which is also testament to his super genius. It's kind of circular and doesn't leave much room for a response beyond "yeah but what if no?"
posted by Hoopo at 9:29 AM on June 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
I'm with you on that, and I thought that was actually the whole point of it, but it seems like every time it comes up here there are people whose opinions I generally agree with who think a bunch of the theories in Room 237 are plausible.
All the theories seem to follow this weird logic where we must start with Kubrick as a super genius. We know he paid great attention to detail, and because he's a super genius, anything and everything in all of his films is of great significance or a riddle (super geniuses obviously love riddles you see). There can be no minor errors, no coincidences, no internal inconsistencies, and nothing can ever be done for effect, because it is all necessarily the very deliberate "code" of a super genius. Which is also testament to his super genius. It's kind of circular and doesn't leave much room for a response beyond "yeah but what if no?"
posted by Hoopo at 9:29 AM on June 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
A bunch of the theories in Room 237 actually are plausible. I gather people didn't really watch the movie very closely. At least one of the speakers is completely correct in everything he says – I think he's the guy who says at the beginning that he's a film archivist. For instance, his careful and close reading of that first interview scene at the hotel is superb and really quite correct – he has no magical theories about conspiracies, he just notes how careful Kubrick is as a filmmaker, points out the incredibly interesting details he's put into the film. That's how film is actually supposed to be read: close viewing, noting that the dissolves are beautifully lined up with each other, etc. And consistently, that speaker doesn't claim that Kubrick was doing magical things, or come up with wild theories to explain things. The closest he comes to being a crackpot is when he says wryly that obsessing over The Shining is really weird for him as someone who works at home in relative seclusion and who has a young son about the same age as Danny – which, frankly, is a perfectly sane thing to say.
And what's more, the theory that The Shining seems to really ride on the blood spilled in the native genocide is hard to argue against, I think. Sure, the Calumet Baking Powder thing is kind of silly, but the manager of the hotel actually says in the movie that it's built on "an Indian burial ground" and that its building involved fighting off native attacks.
Honestly, that is one of the funny things to me – if Room 237 had led off with that relatively straightforward conversation, then the connection of The Shining to native genocide wouldn't seem so crazy. But instead they led off with this somewhat more tenuous theory about a Calumet Baking Powder canister being prominent in the background of certain shots. It's like the filmmakers knew people were going to think the speakers were crackpots, and instead of going to the trouble of disabusing viewers of that notion they decided to run with it and see how far they could take it.
posted by koeselitz at 9:49 AM on June 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
And what's more, the theory that The Shining seems to really ride on the blood spilled in the native genocide is hard to argue against, I think. Sure, the Calumet Baking Powder thing is kind of silly, but the manager of the hotel actually says in the movie that it's built on "an Indian burial ground" and that its building involved fighting off native attacks.
Honestly, that is one of the funny things to me – if Room 237 had led off with that relatively straightforward conversation, then the connection of The Shining to native genocide wouldn't seem so crazy. But instead they led off with this somewhat more tenuous theory about a Calumet Baking Powder canister being prominent in the background of certain shots. It's like the filmmakers knew people were going to think the speakers were crackpots, and instead of going to the trouble of disabusing viewers of that notion they decided to run with it and see how far they could take it.
posted by koeselitz at 9:49 AM on June 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
except it's not about sex it's about money and murder.
Yeah, I don't get this. Did people forget that the main character never got any? I'm not sure it was about money and murder exactly, I felt those played the same role as the sex, but it certainly wasn't about sex. It felt like the main character was the fantasy world constructed by the wealthy, and the bizarre detachment from what was very real to others (who aren't so connected).
posted by smidgen at 9:56 AM on June 3, 2015
Yeah, I don't get this. Did people forget that the main character never got any? I'm not sure it was about money and murder exactly, I felt those played the same role as the sex, but it certainly wasn't about sex. It felt like the main character was the fantasy world constructed by the wealthy, and the bizarre detachment from what was very real to others (who aren't so connected).
posted by smidgen at 9:56 AM on June 3, 2015
Hoopo: “All the theories seem to follow this weird logic where we must start with Kubrick as a super genius. We know he paid great attention to detail, and because he's a super genius, anything and everything in all of his films is of great significance or a riddle (super geniuses obviously love riddles you see). There can be no minor errors, no coincidences, no internal inconsistencies, and nothing can ever be done for effect, because it is all necessarily the very deliberate ‘code’ of a super genius. Which is also testament to his super genius. It's kind of circular and doesn't leave much room for a response beyond ‘yeah but what if no?’”
For my part, I really do think that generally most of these things weren't mistakes, and that Kubrick had a great deal of intentionality behind many of the apparent errors in the film. Some just clearly aren't errors at all. The fact that the carpet is completely backwards from one shot to the next in the scene when the ball rolls along the carpet to Danny – you have to actually get up and re-shoot to have that happen. And the fact that the layout of the hotel is completely bonkers – there's no way that's accidental. Even the fact that Kubrick is constantly showing exteriors of the hotel without the hedge maze is, I think, intentional.
The thing is that I just don't think Kubrick did all this to hide some secret message in the film. I don't think he was making this movie for conspiracy theorists, anyway. What he was doing was more subtle but more effective: he was generating pathos through subtle and subconscious twisting of the landscape of the film. The average person doesn't notice the carpet shifting under Danny, but they're dimly aware that the scene is unnerving in some undefined way. The hotel really is supposed to be a malevolent entity that turns on in itself and changes in uncanny ways; the physically impossible layout, the technically wrong pathway that Danny takes with his trike, are made explicit when Wendy notes that "this whole place is such an enormous maze, I feel I'll have to leave a trail of breadcrumbs every time I come in." And even if you don't consciously follow through all the things that don't make sense – even if you don't, for example, consciously realize that it doesn't make sense that Danny is riding his trike through the kitchen on the main floor and then turns a corner and is on the third floor confronted with the murdered twins – you are unnerved, spooked out, by what you sense is just wrong even if you haven't yet articulated why. So ultimately I think a lot of this was done (as you say, Hoopo) for effect, to create this sensation in the viewer. And the eventual purpose is to talk about the nameless, faceless horror of the things people do to each other.
Which is why the conspiracy theories are silly, in the end – not because they ascribe too much significance to small details, but because they ascribe too little significance. The nutso dude in Room 237 whose whole deal is that The Shining is Kubrick's confession that he faked the moon landings? He's missing the point entirely, and making the movie relatively irrelevant in the process. Sure, I care about the moon landings, whatever, but that's one event in history, and even he admits they actually happened (as he says over and over again, 'I'm only claiming that the footage was faked') – so we're talking about unimportant technicalities here. It pales in comparison to the thematic significance of nameless, faceless horror. Similarly, the guy who's hung up on how The Shining must be about the Holocaust is making a category error; of course it is about the Holocaust, just not specifically – the Holocaust is in the category of things The Shining is about.
So I tend to think it's ironic when people focus on conspiracy theories, because they're often missing the forest for the trees – they're often missing the much larger significance of things because they're bogged down in details.
posted by koeselitz at 10:11 AM on June 3, 2015 [9 favorites]
For my part, I really do think that generally most of these things weren't mistakes, and that Kubrick had a great deal of intentionality behind many of the apparent errors in the film. Some just clearly aren't errors at all. The fact that the carpet is completely backwards from one shot to the next in the scene when the ball rolls along the carpet to Danny – you have to actually get up and re-shoot to have that happen. And the fact that the layout of the hotel is completely bonkers – there's no way that's accidental. Even the fact that Kubrick is constantly showing exteriors of the hotel without the hedge maze is, I think, intentional.
The thing is that I just don't think Kubrick did all this to hide some secret message in the film. I don't think he was making this movie for conspiracy theorists, anyway. What he was doing was more subtle but more effective: he was generating pathos through subtle and subconscious twisting of the landscape of the film. The average person doesn't notice the carpet shifting under Danny, but they're dimly aware that the scene is unnerving in some undefined way. The hotel really is supposed to be a malevolent entity that turns on in itself and changes in uncanny ways; the physically impossible layout, the technically wrong pathway that Danny takes with his trike, are made explicit when Wendy notes that "this whole place is such an enormous maze, I feel I'll have to leave a trail of breadcrumbs every time I come in." And even if you don't consciously follow through all the things that don't make sense – even if you don't, for example, consciously realize that it doesn't make sense that Danny is riding his trike through the kitchen on the main floor and then turns a corner and is on the third floor confronted with the murdered twins – you are unnerved, spooked out, by what you sense is just wrong even if you haven't yet articulated why. So ultimately I think a lot of this was done (as you say, Hoopo) for effect, to create this sensation in the viewer. And the eventual purpose is to talk about the nameless, faceless horror of the things people do to each other.
Which is why the conspiracy theories are silly, in the end – not because they ascribe too much significance to small details, but because they ascribe too little significance. The nutso dude in Room 237 whose whole deal is that The Shining is Kubrick's confession that he faked the moon landings? He's missing the point entirely, and making the movie relatively irrelevant in the process. Sure, I care about the moon landings, whatever, but that's one event in history, and even he admits they actually happened (as he says over and over again, 'I'm only claiming that the footage was faked') – so we're talking about unimportant technicalities here. It pales in comparison to the thematic significance of nameless, faceless horror. Similarly, the guy who's hung up on how The Shining must be about the Holocaust is making a category error; of course it is about the Holocaust, just not specifically – the Holocaust is in the category of things The Shining is about.
So I tend to think it's ironic when people focus on conspiracy theories, because they're often missing the forest for the trees – they're often missing the much larger significance of things because they're bogged down in details.
posted by koeselitz at 10:11 AM on June 3, 2015 [9 favorites]
And on the flip side of the coin, Stephen King went to shit as soon as he stopped drinking (and doing coke, and taking Valium, and Xanax, and smoking weed, and and and).
I may be alone on this, but I actually enjoy his later work more than the early stuff. I tried to reread the long version of The Stand and a few other books, and it just doesn't work for me any more, but I really enjoyed the last few of his books. I was stay-up-all-night obsessed with him in college, too.
posted by Huck500 at 10:19 AM on June 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
I may be alone on this, but I actually enjoy his later work more than the early stuff. I tried to reread the long version of The Stand and a few other books, and it just doesn't work for me any more, but I really enjoyed the last few of his books. I was stay-up-all-night obsessed with him in college, too.
posted by Huck500 at 10:19 AM on June 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Regarding Lou Reed, and particularly The Blue Mask as sort of (for me at least) the archetype of the work of art produced by an aging artist who's coming to realize they don't have the force of an angry young person anymore – I actually really appreciate when that happens to people. It sounds like it happened to Stephen King, for some people at least, and I think it certainly happened to David Byrne, who has to field a lot of interview questions about how he's not an angry young man like he was in the Talking Heads, and why doesn't he do that angry young man thing anymore? He's a grownup. As far as I can tell, he's a happy grownup. He makes pretty great pop music, makes a living at it, and that's okay by me. Probably he's a lot more honest now, anyway.
posted by koeselitz at 10:26 AM on June 3, 2015
posted by koeselitz at 10:26 AM on June 3, 2015
This is a pretty easy game to play. But I'd argue that every artist, musician, director or whoever has a period, has a work that can be lousy, seen as cashing a paycheck or even out right hated (so much loathing for poor ol' dumb Signs & M. Night). Even someone like Kubrick (sorry but Barry Lyndon is tedious and while I like Eyes Wide Shut I don't think it works) or Bob Dylan (sorry the 80's were not kind to Bob) have moments where they are not fully on their game. I don't think anyone escapes from it.
But that being said there will always be someone who likes a "deficient" work. For instance, it cracked me up when saw the tribute album (and its song choices LOL) to Dylan's 80's period featuring contemporary indie acts. Boggles my mind that anyone who want to listen to, let alone cover, some of that junk but people half my age are connecting with it. I love Hitchcock's post Birds career more than his more well-regarded films (seriously if you are an Argento fan, check them out - they are definitely proto-giallo). And there are numerous examples of this even in this thread. I believe that to be a good thing even if I don't always agree with it.
I think we fossilize or fetishize a work or an artist more than we should. Heaping the baggage of being in the canon or a cultural touchstone can obfuscate the understanding of that work.
Our appreciation is subjective. Our taste can change. Generations shift. When it comes to creative productions I don't think anything is truly in amber.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:39 AM on June 3, 2015
But that being said there will always be someone who likes a "deficient" work. For instance, it cracked me up when saw the tribute album (and its song choices LOL) to Dylan's 80's period featuring contemporary indie acts. Boggles my mind that anyone who want to listen to, let alone cover, some of that junk but people half my age are connecting with it. I love Hitchcock's post Birds career more than his more well-regarded films (seriously if you are an Argento fan, check them out - they are definitely proto-giallo). And there are numerous examples of this even in this thread. I believe that to be a good thing even if I don't always agree with it.
I think we fossilize or fetishize a work or an artist more than we should. Heaping the baggage of being in the canon or a cultural touchstone can obfuscate the understanding of that work.
Our appreciation is subjective. Our taste can change. Generations shift. When it comes to creative productions I don't think anything is truly in amber.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:39 AM on June 3, 2015
Smith claims he didn't start smoking weed until the filming of Zack and Miri Make a Porno in 2008.
Huh.
/seriously suspects this actually means "didn't start smoking MORE."
(also let's fave it, it's all bad from Dogma onwards)
posted by Artw at 11:15 AM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Huh.
/seriously suspects this actually means "didn't start smoking MORE."
(also let's fave it, it's all bad from Dogma onwards)
posted by Artw at 11:15 AM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
So I tend to think it's ironic when people focus on conspiracy theories, because they're often missing the forest for the trees – they're often missing the much larger significance of things because they're bogged down in details.
This exactly.
Once you realize the wider forest of the movie's themes - I think it's about the atrocities of the powerful perpetrated on the less powerful on a variety of scales - in family dynamics (father to son, father to wife), in global tragedies (imperialism, colonization) - everything opens up really nicely. No wackpot theories necessary, just a very deep film with a fascinating constellation of concerns.
posted by naju at 11:31 AM on June 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
This exactly.
Once you realize the wider forest of the movie's themes - I think it's about the atrocities of the powerful perpetrated on the less powerful on a variety of scales - in family dynamics (father to son, father to wife), in global tragedies (imperialism, colonization) - everything opens up really nicely. No wackpot theories necessary, just a very deep film with a fascinating constellation of concerns.
posted by naju at 11:31 AM on June 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
And what's more, the theory that The Shining seems to really ride on the blood spilled in the native genocide is hard to argue against, I think. Sure, the Calumet Baking Powder thing is kind of silly, but the manager of the hotel actually says in the movie that it's built on "an Indian burial ground" and that its building involved fighting off native attacks.
I think turning it into some kind of meditation on the genocide of Native Americans is maybe running with it a bit too far. I mean, the concept behind the haunting of the hotel is that events can leave an impression on the places they took place, so obviously bringing up that it was built on an Indian burial ground and that a bunch of subsequent attacks were fended off is meant to feed into that to explain why the building is so malevolent. That said, the whole "Indian burial ground haunting" is a bit of a horror trope, and while I'm not sure where it started, it seems to have been a bit of a meme in that general time frame with the Amityville Horror in 1979 and the Shining in 1980 and in principle certainly isn't too far removed from lazy old "mummy curse" and "gypsy curse" cliches. So yeah, I throw that theory in there with the wackjob stuff, too, because it relies on things like a painting in the background and a box of baking powder to move it out of tired-old-horror-cliche territory.
posted by Hoopo at 11:40 AM on June 3, 2015
I think turning it into some kind of meditation on the genocide of Native Americans is maybe running with it a bit too far. I mean, the concept behind the haunting of the hotel is that events can leave an impression on the places they took place, so obviously bringing up that it was built on an Indian burial ground and that a bunch of subsequent attacks were fended off is meant to feed into that to explain why the building is so malevolent. That said, the whole "Indian burial ground haunting" is a bit of a horror trope, and while I'm not sure where it started, it seems to have been a bit of a meme in that general time frame with the Amityville Horror in 1979 and the Shining in 1980 and in principle certainly isn't too far removed from lazy old "mummy curse" and "gypsy curse" cliches. So yeah, I throw that theory in there with the wackjob stuff, too, because it relies on things like a painting in the background and a box of baking powder to move it out of tired-old-horror-cliche territory.
posted by Hoopo at 11:40 AM on June 3, 2015
let's fave it, it's all bad from Dogma onwards
By your command.
posted by bonehead at 11:49 AM on June 3, 2015
By your command.
posted by bonehead at 11:49 AM on June 3, 2015
I'd agree with Hoopo that I think it is a bit of a stretch to say that the Shining is some kind of discourse on colonial genocide. Kubrick is completely using that "Indian Burial Ground" / haunted house thing as a trope to look at something that concerns him more and is more tangible. I think part of your comment is on the right track - the Shining is about family dynamics. I think that is a theme that runs through a lot of Kubrick's work - whether it is a family by blood or a family manufactured.
posted by Ashwagandha at 11:51 AM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Ashwagandha at 11:51 AM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
This is a pretty easy game to play.
I think people have lost sight of the game. It's not which directors' output most precipitously declined in quality, it's which directors have made a movie or series of movies that you dislike so much that it has retrospectively made you dislike works that you previously loved. There's a big difference there.
A lot of people loved Jerry Maguire - which miraculously has 85% on Rotten Tomatoes - but after seeing Cameron Crowe's recent films and having been exposed to his style and worldview for a long period of time, it can now seem nauseating or trite, and it is no longer generally beloved. It is nearly impossible to watch Woody Allen's '70s work and not be informed by the ruts and patterns of his more recent films as well as the scandals in his personal life. The sexual politics of David Mamet's Oleanna - which seemed so carefully and deliberately balanced when I first saw it, and even upon repeat viewings - seem hopelessly askew when informed by Mamet's later works and ventures into conservative politics. In cases like these, you see the previously unnoticed seeds of the negative qualities of the directors' later works or private lives while you watch these previously-loved earlier works, and they taint the movie.
On the other hand, it's not just about the quality of the director's later output or changes in the director's worldview. I've found some of Lars Von Trier's films absolutely galling, but they haven't dampened my enthusiasm for the films of his that I love, in part because he is clearly experimenting and provoking the audience with different styles, tones and worldviews in a deliberate and artistically-minded manner. Similarly, while it seems to surprise everyone every time that Jean-Luc Godard releases a new film, and that film is generally considered alienating and academic (as his later films are often found to be by both critics and audiences), it doesn't really inform the earlier films, which just seem like they're from a different time and place. Even a filmmaker who is unable to recapture the magic of their earlier works and has a pretty dramatic slide in quality over a period won't necessarily put a taint on their former works: even though I think most would agree that things weren't the same for Francis Ford Coppola after Captain EO, watching Jack or The Godfather Part III doesn't nullify in any way the majesty of The Godfather or The Conversation or Apocalypse Now. You just don't see the problems or the elements of the later films you dislike when you revisit these directors' earlier films, and the earlier films remain magic.
(I never went to a Disney park while Captain EO was around during the 80s, but I had the opportunity to see it as part of the "Captain EO Tribute" when it briefly came back to the Disney parks while my daughter was younger. By far the most fascinating thing about the "ride" was the documentary footage they played to the waiting audience that documented the production of the film; one sees the young, maverick Francis Ford Coppola morph into the later-period Francis Force Coppola, seemingly aging 15 years and gaining 50 pounds over the course of the production. I suspect Captain EO broke him, and he had to keep that all inside.)
Ultimately, very few directors (or artists) are going to be able to both maintain a high level of competence and innovation as they age. That's not news. We also grow out of various films and genres as they become dated or less related to one's own worldview. Again, not news. But it's really fascinating when a director or artist manages to taint something previously beloved.
posted by eschatfische at 12:12 PM on June 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
I think people have lost sight of the game. It's not which directors' output most precipitously declined in quality, it's which directors have made a movie or series of movies that you dislike so much that it has retrospectively made you dislike works that you previously loved. There's a big difference there.
A lot of people loved Jerry Maguire - which miraculously has 85% on Rotten Tomatoes - but after seeing Cameron Crowe's recent films and having been exposed to his style and worldview for a long period of time, it can now seem nauseating or trite, and it is no longer generally beloved. It is nearly impossible to watch Woody Allen's '70s work and not be informed by the ruts and patterns of his more recent films as well as the scandals in his personal life. The sexual politics of David Mamet's Oleanna - which seemed so carefully and deliberately balanced when I first saw it, and even upon repeat viewings - seem hopelessly askew when informed by Mamet's later works and ventures into conservative politics. In cases like these, you see the previously unnoticed seeds of the negative qualities of the directors' later works or private lives while you watch these previously-loved earlier works, and they taint the movie.
On the other hand, it's not just about the quality of the director's later output or changes in the director's worldview. I've found some of Lars Von Trier's films absolutely galling, but they haven't dampened my enthusiasm for the films of his that I love, in part because he is clearly experimenting and provoking the audience with different styles, tones and worldviews in a deliberate and artistically-minded manner. Similarly, while it seems to surprise everyone every time that Jean-Luc Godard releases a new film, and that film is generally considered alienating and academic (as his later films are often found to be by both critics and audiences), it doesn't really inform the earlier films, which just seem like they're from a different time and place. Even a filmmaker who is unable to recapture the magic of their earlier works and has a pretty dramatic slide in quality over a period won't necessarily put a taint on their former works: even though I think most would agree that things weren't the same for Francis Ford Coppola after Captain EO, watching Jack or The Godfather Part III doesn't nullify in any way the majesty of The Godfather or The Conversation or Apocalypse Now. You just don't see the problems or the elements of the later films you dislike when you revisit these directors' earlier films, and the earlier films remain magic.
(I never went to a Disney park while Captain EO was around during the 80s, but I had the opportunity to see it as part of the "Captain EO Tribute" when it briefly came back to the Disney parks while my daughter was younger. By far the most fascinating thing about the "ride" was the documentary footage they played to the waiting audience that documented the production of the film; one sees the young, maverick Francis Ford Coppola morph into the later-period Francis Force Coppola, seemingly aging 15 years and gaining 50 pounds over the course of the production. I suspect Captain EO broke him, and he had to keep that all inside.)
Ultimately, very few directors (or artists) are going to be able to both maintain a high level of competence and innovation as they age. That's not news. We also grow out of various films and genres as they become dated or less related to one's own worldview. Again, not news. But it's really fascinating when a director or artist manages to taint something previously beloved.
posted by eschatfische at 12:12 PM on June 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
It's easier once you realize that all of Kubrick's films are comedies.
Well, all but Dr. Strangelove of course.
posted by Drinky Die at 12:14 PM on June 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Well, all but Dr. Strangelove of course.
posted by Drinky Die at 12:14 PM on June 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Re: King, I tend to be a short fiction snob and his last book of those is good so I think of him doing well, regardless of current doorstop or the awful Shining sequel.
Neil Gaiman just released his first short story collection to be pretty much all misses, aside from some pretty old pieces, which I consider a bad sign.
posted by Artw at 12:17 PM on June 3, 2015
Neil Gaiman just released his first short story collection to be pretty much all misses, aside from some pretty old pieces, which I consider a bad sign.
posted by Artw at 12:17 PM on June 3, 2015
It's easier once you realize that all of Kubrick's films are comedies.
Ha! I think there is something to that. I felt very alone being the only person laughing hysterically at Eyes Wide Shut in the theatre.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:23 PM on June 3, 2015
Ha! I think there is something to that. I felt very alone being the only person laughing hysterically at Eyes Wide Shut in the theatre.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:23 PM on June 3, 2015
John Huston is a director who defied the odds and made good movies over an almost fifty year career. He had some clunkers in there but I just saw his last film, The Dead, a few months ago and while it's not at the level of The Maltese Falcon, it's a pretty amazing film. And his penultimate work, Prizzi's Honor is pretty great too
posted by octothorpe at 12:36 PM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 12:36 PM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think with Kevin Smith he (and more importantly his backers) soon realized he didn't have to try... his films cost buttons to make and his hard-core audience would always turn out and the'd make money. Then more recently some-how he decided he wanted to be a proper film-maker... and oh dead god. I've not seen Cop Out but by all accounts it's not good, Red State was just bizarre and Tusk is, hands down, one of the worst films I've ever seen. I revisited Clerks a while back and it's not aged that well... a couple of gags that have been quoted to death but that's about it.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:06 PM on June 3, 2015
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:06 PM on June 3, 2015
Hoopo: “I think turning it into some kind of meditation on the genocide of Native Americans is maybe running with it a bit too far. I mean, the concept behind the haunting of the hotel is that events can leave an impression on the places they took place, so obviously bringing up that it was built on an Indian burial ground and that a bunch of subsequent attacks were fended off is meant to feed into that to explain why the building is so malevolent. That said, the whole ‘Indian burial ground haunting’ is a bit of a horror trope, and while I'm not sure where it started, it seems to have been a bit of a meme in that general time frame with the Amityville Horror in 1979 and the Shining in 1980 and in principle certainly isn't too far removed from lazy old ‘mummy curse’ and ‘gypsy curse’ cliches. So yeah, I throw that theory in there with the wackjob stuff, too, because it relies on things like a painting in the background and a box of baking powder to move it out of tired-old-horror-cliche territory.”
Well – for one thing, Kubrick wasn't a horror-movie maker, and the "Indian burial ground" stuff was not in the novel – he added it. For another thing, yeah, I thought the Calumet Baking Powder thing was silly, but if you watch the actual movie it's hard to feel like it isn't intentional because it's so blatantly obvious and direct (the Indian head as big as Scatman Crothers' face and positioned right next to it, staring at the viewer). But ultimately I don't know what Kubrick intended; I only know what I see, and as the sane member of the Room 237 commentators says, what's interesting about art is separating the artist's intentions from your own gleanings. What I do know is that the film is about unspoken horror and historical atrocities perpetrated by authorities.
posted by koeselitz at 1:21 PM on June 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
Well – for one thing, Kubrick wasn't a horror-movie maker, and the "Indian burial ground" stuff was not in the novel – he added it. For another thing, yeah, I thought the Calumet Baking Powder thing was silly, but if you watch the actual movie it's hard to feel like it isn't intentional because it's so blatantly obvious and direct (the Indian head as big as Scatman Crothers' face and positioned right next to it, staring at the viewer). But ultimately I don't know what Kubrick intended; I only know what I see, and as the sane member of the Room 237 commentators says, what's interesting about art is separating the artist's intentions from your own gleanings. What I do know is that the film is about unspoken horror and historical atrocities perpetrated by authorities.
posted by koeselitz at 1:21 PM on June 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
So yeah, I throw that theory in there with the wackjob stuff, too, because it relies on things like a painting in the background and a box of baking powder to move it out of tired-old-horror-cliche territory.
It's more than that. This probably isn't the time or thread to get into The Shining, but I just want to write this up somewhere, as I haven't seen this theory advanced elsewhere.
When my wife and I saw Willard Huyck's film Messiah of Evil this year - a rare 35mm presentation, on the big screen - we both gasped when the camera lingered on the lead actress knocking on the red door of a motel room. It's not so obvious on video, but on the big screen, it really jumped out at us. It was room 237.
Now, my wife's a big Shining fan, and we'd both seen the documentary Room 237, and we both had our theories about The Shining and, well, thought some of the conspiracies presented were rather silly. But we both agreed that the Native American influence was undeniably, as you agreed, present textually both in the script and production design of the film. While we may have have doubted it was pushed as far as the documentary presented, it's certainly there. We were also disappointed that the documentary did not advance any rational explanation for Kubrick's change of room 217 in the novel to 237.
Here's the thing. Kubrick largely didn't use the interiors from his location shoots in The Shining. It's not just that a Native American-inspired mural was created, as you indicated. The interiors were built on a sound stage, modeled on the interiors of the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite in California. If you take a look at the link, it's undeniable that the inside of the Overlook is clearly the Ahwahnee, not the Stanley Hotel, not the Timberline Lodge, and not something that sprung wholly from Kubrick's imagination.
The tribes that lived in what we now know as the Yosemite called themselves the "dwellers of the Ahwahnee," their word for the Yosemite valley. The Ahwahnee Hotel knowingly and deliberately evokes Native American art as part of its design, so deliberately recreated on Kubrick's sound stage in England. This isn't a new idea, but I want to point out that it was deliberate appropriation from a real-world hotel.
Early in the film - and in the novel - there is a discussion of the Donner Party. "Wasn't it around here that the Donner Party got snowbound?" However, it is not. The Rockies are much further east than the Sierra Nevada range where the Donner tragedy occurred.
While the Ahwahnee Hotel is not on Donner Lake and is a ways south, both are in the heart of the Sierra Nevada. While not exactly close at hand, if someone asked "wasn't it around here that the Donner Party got snowbound?" at the Ahwahnee, it wouldn't be unreasonable to say yes - the hotel's in the same mountain range, due south. While textually the Overlook is not supposed to be near the Donner Party site in either the novel or the film, Kubrick deliberately created the interior of the Overlook hotel to look almost exactly like someplace that was near the Donner Party site.
Here's where it gets interesting, and a spoiler warning for Messiah of Evil.
When the protagonist of Messiah of Evil enters room 237 in that film, she finds a group listening to and recording the stories being told by Charlie, a local drunk. This is almost played for humor, a bizarre, nonsensical, creepy rant, and of course, Charlie's warnings of danger in the town are not heeded by anyone involved. Eventually, all of the outsiders who gathered in room 237 are attacked by the inhabitants of the city, who appear to be under a malevolent, cannibalistic spell.
Near the end of the film, the stories Charlie was telling in room 237 are used as voiceover as the film explains the origins of this supernatural force affecting the town. During a blood moon, it is told, a literal messiah of evil - a minister - visits the town and puts the townsfolk under a spell. This spirit is a Donner Party survivor, a vampiric cannibal, who has come to lead the townsfolk from the California coast back to the Sierra Nevadas.
Messiah of Evil was released in May of 1973, seven years before The Shining. While it remains relatively unknown, it had a reputation as being worthwhile amongst cinephiles of its day due to its singularly eerie tone and the wild, modern production design by famed production designer Jack Fisk.
Maybe I'll get to be in the Room 237 sequel.
posted by eschatfische at 1:40 PM on June 3, 2015 [11 favorites]
It's more than that. This probably isn't the time or thread to get into The Shining, but I just want to write this up somewhere, as I haven't seen this theory advanced elsewhere.
When my wife and I saw Willard Huyck's film Messiah of Evil this year - a rare 35mm presentation, on the big screen - we both gasped when the camera lingered on the lead actress knocking on the red door of a motel room. It's not so obvious on video, but on the big screen, it really jumped out at us. It was room 237.
Now, my wife's a big Shining fan, and we'd both seen the documentary Room 237, and we both had our theories about The Shining and, well, thought some of the conspiracies presented were rather silly. But we both agreed that the Native American influence was undeniably, as you agreed, present textually both in the script and production design of the film. While we may have have doubted it was pushed as far as the documentary presented, it's certainly there. We were also disappointed that the documentary did not advance any rational explanation for Kubrick's change of room 217 in the novel to 237.
Here's the thing. Kubrick largely didn't use the interiors from his location shoots in The Shining. It's not just that a Native American-inspired mural was created, as you indicated. The interiors were built on a sound stage, modeled on the interiors of the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite in California. If you take a look at the link, it's undeniable that the inside of the Overlook is clearly the Ahwahnee, not the Stanley Hotel, not the Timberline Lodge, and not something that sprung wholly from Kubrick's imagination.
The tribes that lived in what we now know as the Yosemite called themselves the "dwellers of the Ahwahnee," their word for the Yosemite valley. The Ahwahnee Hotel knowingly and deliberately evokes Native American art as part of its design, so deliberately recreated on Kubrick's sound stage in England. This isn't a new idea, but I want to point out that it was deliberate appropriation from a real-world hotel.
Early in the film - and in the novel - there is a discussion of the Donner Party. "Wasn't it around here that the Donner Party got snowbound?" However, it is not. The Rockies are much further east than the Sierra Nevada range where the Donner tragedy occurred.
While the Ahwahnee Hotel is not on Donner Lake and is a ways south, both are in the heart of the Sierra Nevada. While not exactly close at hand, if someone asked "wasn't it around here that the Donner Party got snowbound?" at the Ahwahnee, it wouldn't be unreasonable to say yes - the hotel's in the same mountain range, due south. While textually the Overlook is not supposed to be near the Donner Party site in either the novel or the film, Kubrick deliberately created the interior of the Overlook hotel to look almost exactly like someplace that was near the Donner Party site.
Here's where it gets interesting, and a spoiler warning for Messiah of Evil.
When the protagonist of Messiah of Evil enters room 237 in that film, she finds a group listening to and recording the stories being told by Charlie, a local drunk. This is almost played for humor, a bizarre, nonsensical, creepy rant, and of course, Charlie's warnings of danger in the town are not heeded by anyone involved. Eventually, all of the outsiders who gathered in room 237 are attacked by the inhabitants of the city, who appear to be under a malevolent, cannibalistic spell.
Near the end of the film, the stories Charlie was telling in room 237 are used as voiceover as the film explains the origins of this supernatural force affecting the town. During a blood moon, it is told, a literal messiah of evil - a minister - visits the town and puts the townsfolk under a spell. This spirit is a Donner Party survivor, a vampiric cannibal, who has come to lead the townsfolk from the California coast back to the Sierra Nevadas.
Messiah of Evil was released in May of 1973, seven years before The Shining. While it remains relatively unknown, it had a reputation as being worthwhile amongst cinephiles of its day due to its singularly eerie tone and the wild, modern production design by famed production designer Jack Fisk.
Maybe I'll get to be in the Room 237 sequel.
posted by eschatfische at 1:40 PM on June 3, 2015 [11 favorites]
I'd agree with Hoopo that I think it is a bit of a stretch to say that the Shining is some kind of discourse on colonial genocide.
I disagree so very, very strongly. A discourse on colonial genocide is exactly what The Shining is! That's what makes it such a true and fantastically terrifying horror movie! I've seen that movie at least a hundred times - it might be my all-time favorite movie ever - and if he didn't deliberately include a lot of the imagery that he did to draw out that theme, I will eat my hat. Not a whit of it is included in the book and as koeselitz puts it perfectly, "What I do know is that the film is about unspoken horror and historical atrocities perpetrated by authorities." There's just so much imagery that reinforces that theme w/r/t Native Americans (goes way beyond the Calumet powder), and it interacts way too strongly with the plot of the movie, for me to think it's some random coincidence.
Now, I would say that it's not specifically about that genocide alone - there's a lot of Nazi imagery too - but it absolutely is about genocide and domination through violence, and nobody will never convince me otherwise. What makes it such a brilliant and wonderful complex movie is that it's also about family, and specifically how this violent dynamic of domination has been recapitulated in the Torrances' modern isolated nuclear family.
posted by dialetheia at 1:50 PM on June 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
I disagree so very, very strongly. A discourse on colonial genocide is exactly what The Shining is! That's what makes it such a true and fantastically terrifying horror movie! I've seen that movie at least a hundred times - it might be my all-time favorite movie ever - and if he didn't deliberately include a lot of the imagery that he did to draw out that theme, I will eat my hat. Not a whit of it is included in the book and as koeselitz puts it perfectly, "What I do know is that the film is about unspoken horror and historical atrocities perpetrated by authorities." There's just so much imagery that reinforces that theme w/r/t Native Americans (goes way beyond the Calumet powder), and it interacts way too strongly with the plot of the movie, for me to think it's some random coincidence.
Now, I would say that it's not specifically about that genocide alone - there's a lot of Nazi imagery too - but it absolutely is about genocide and domination through violence, and nobody will never convince me otherwise. What makes it such a brilliant and wonderful complex movie is that it's also about family, and specifically how this violent dynamic of domination has been recapitulated in the Torrances' modern isolated nuclear family.
posted by dialetheia at 1:50 PM on June 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
Alexander Payne was mentioned upthread as an example of a filmmaker with a perfect record, and I'd agree if we're strictly sticking to movies he directed...But FWIW he and Jim Taylor are credited writers on Jurassic Park III.
posted by doctornecessiter at 1:51 PM on June 3, 2015
posted by doctornecessiter at 1:51 PM on June 3, 2015
OK, I might need to revisit Miami Vice based on some of the comments here. I'm a little trepidatious, though, because I saw it with two friends who are both big Michael Mann fans and we all hated it.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:17 PM on June 3, 2015
posted by kirkaracha at 2:17 PM on June 3, 2015
Doesn't this apply to all artists--musicians, novelists, etc?
I do this with everybody.
It's hard to have one great idea. It's VERY hard to have more than one.
Hal Hartley stands up. So does Jarmusch. And Rocky and Bullwinkle.
posted by mrgrimm at 3:37 PM on June 3, 2015
I do this with everybody.
It's hard to have one great idea. It's VERY hard to have more than one.
Hal Hartley stands up. So does Jarmusch. And Rocky and Bullwinkle.
posted by mrgrimm at 3:37 PM on June 3, 2015
Something about the Shining conversation reminds me of Jim Carey in Joel Schumacher's The Number 23, to bring up 2 names relevant to the topic of this thread.
posted by Hoopo at 3:38 PM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Hoopo at 3:38 PM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
I saw Miami Vice last night and... I don't really get what the deal is. It has some nice atmospheric moments, I'll give it that.
posted by naju at 3:43 PM on June 3, 2015
posted by naju at 3:43 PM on June 3, 2015
I disagree so very, very strongly.
Fair enough, but to me all of that is set dressing and the zeitgeist. There were so many movies of that time that appropriated First Nations / Native American culture & themes that it is hard to avoid having some of it percolate into your ideas. To me, Kubrick is just following suit. I think that he's trying to say something very different.
IMHO, I think he's simply using First Nations iconography as the Other in order to be oppressive and at best act as a catalyst to reveal the conflict at the heart of the movie - the ugly nature of the modern American family. Not unlike what he does in Eyes Wide Shut.
In anycase, sorry for the derail, but I guess that's the reason there's a documentary like Room 237 about this film, it really incites some deep passions.
posted by Ashwagandha at 4:04 PM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Fair enough, but to me all of that is set dressing and the zeitgeist. There were so many movies of that time that appropriated First Nations / Native American culture & themes that it is hard to avoid having some of it percolate into your ideas. To me, Kubrick is just following suit. I think that he's trying to say something very different.
IMHO, I think he's simply using First Nations iconography as the Other in order to be oppressive and at best act as a catalyst to reveal the conflict at the heart of the movie - the ugly nature of the modern American family. Not unlike what he does in Eyes Wide Shut.
In anycase, sorry for the derail, but I guess that's the reason there's a documentary like Room 237 about this film, it really incites some deep passions.
posted by Ashwagandha at 4:04 PM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's a while since I've saw Miami Vice but I remember it as not great... in particular a shoot out that's totally incomprehensible. Also Public Enemies was a bit ho-hum. And I can say that Blackhat is absolutely terrible. However I re-watched Manhunter a few months ago and it's still awesome... so Mann's recently below par performance has not stunk up his back catalog for me yet.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:32 PM on June 3, 2015
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:32 PM on June 3, 2015
Honestly, as per Deirdhre above, the most frequent reason for this is the, "Oh, yeah, I guess I didn't recognize how hella racist/rapey that movie/show was."
But I think that one place where I differ from most of these critics is that I've never been a completist. I'm entirely happy to jump off of creators that I like and not feel bad about it. I'm also content to be the guy who hated Sixth Sense and loved Until the End of the World (likely because I loved the soundtrack before I saw the movie, and I still think the idea behind it is really great). I've always struggled to understand what people like about Woody Allen — he always seemed to be the exemplar of the habit of men who write and star in movies writing implausible love interests. I also liked Life Aquatic more than the Royal Tennanbaums (Jason Schwartzman is almost always an impediment to be surmounted for me — Rushmore and Bored to Death are the only places I remember liking him). I also seem to be the only person who enjoyed Ladykillers (even to the extent of thinking that it's better than the original).
I will say that Ray Bradbury's later-day curmudgeon act seemed intended to make me like his earlier stories less (including forcefully arguing that Fahrenheit 451's villains represented television, not fascism). And I think Natalie Portman is a pretty crap actress when you get down to it — rewatching Leon recently was a disappointment mostly because there's not enough Gary Oldman.
posted by klangklangston at 7:11 PM on June 3, 2015
But I think that one place where I differ from most of these critics is that I've never been a completist. I'm entirely happy to jump off of creators that I like and not feel bad about it. I'm also content to be the guy who hated Sixth Sense and loved Until the End of the World (likely because I loved the soundtrack before I saw the movie, and I still think the idea behind it is really great). I've always struggled to understand what people like about Woody Allen — he always seemed to be the exemplar of the habit of men who write and star in movies writing implausible love interests. I also liked Life Aquatic more than the Royal Tennanbaums (Jason Schwartzman is almost always an impediment to be surmounted for me — Rushmore and Bored to Death are the only places I remember liking him). I also seem to be the only person who enjoyed Ladykillers (even to the extent of thinking that it's better than the original).
I will say that Ray Bradbury's later-day curmudgeon act seemed intended to make me like his earlier stories less (including forcefully arguing that Fahrenheit 451's villains represented television, not fascism). And I think Natalie Portman is a pretty crap actress when you get down to it — rewatching Leon recently was a disappointment mostly because there's not enough Gary Oldman.
posted by klangklangston at 7:11 PM on June 3, 2015
Rewatching that movie recently made me think that maybe they kept Gary Oldman's screen time to a relative minimum because he hadn't quite figured out his way around an American accent yet.
posted by invitapriore at 7:15 PM on June 3, 2015
posted by invitapriore at 7:15 PM on June 3, 2015
Too dated now based on no one else mentioning it, but my first experience with this was with the author Dean Koontz.
From the magnificent Watchers and Phantoms (the books, not the awful movies) to wha? to unreadable crap. Happens.
posted by lon_star at 12:10 AM on June 4, 2015
From the magnificent Watchers and Phantoms (the books, not the awful movies) to wha? to unreadable crap. Happens.
posted by lon_star at 12:10 AM on June 4, 2015
Wait, Koontz wrote good books at some point? My gramma was in a bunch of book of the month clubs and I inherited more than a few Koontz books when she died, and they were all the type of terrible that I assumed was earnestly intentional. (As opposed to Sue Grafton, by whom I was pleasantly surprised.)
posted by klangklangston at 12:15 AM on June 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by klangklangston at 12:15 AM on June 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
I can't speak to the arc of Koontz's career, but holy shit was the one I read nuts. Like (spoilers) there were these magical furry aliens and a magical hobo and a government conspiracy and a guy with magical gambling intuition and super-empathic golden retrievers and it was all because evolution is a lie.
posted by brennen at 8:49 PM on June 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by brennen at 8:49 PM on June 4, 2015 [1 favorite]
What happened to Rob Reiner?
The 80s ended. Same story for John Hughes and John Landis, they spoke for an era that came to a close.
posted by aught at 12:08 PM on June 8, 2015
The 80s ended. Same story for John Hughes and John Landis, they spoke for an era that came to a close.
posted by aught at 12:08 PM on June 8, 2015
I've never read any of Koontz's books, but I found Stephen Sommers' adaptation of Odd Thomas to be very (heh) odd and charming.
posted by brundlefly at 12:30 PM on June 8, 2015
posted by brundlefly at 12:30 PM on June 8, 2015
Only Koontz book I ever read was Winter Moon/Invasion and I absolutely loved it. I should probably check out more of his stuff.
posted by Drinky Die at 2:47 PM on June 8, 2015
posted by Drinky Die at 2:47 PM on June 8, 2015
What happened to Rob Reiner?
He's still exploring that multiple-levels-of-narrative thing he's been investigating since Spinal Tap, as least as late as Rumor Has It in 2005 (which is apparently the last of his stuff I've seen).
posted by shakespeherian at 4:17 PM on June 8, 2015
He's still exploring that multiple-levels-of-narrative thing he's been investigating since Spinal Tap, as least as late as Rumor Has It in 2005 (which is apparently the last of his stuff I've seen).
posted by shakespeherian at 4:17 PM on June 8, 2015
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posted by maryr at 9:40 AM on June 2, 2015 [22 favorites]