Thread: Empires Top 20 Director's list and critique.

^ Yep Ken Loach, David Lean....good Brit directors!!! Shane Meadows is pretty good as well for a newer director.

Mike Nichols (who I thought was English, but it seems is German/American) is another good one!!!

well as long as we're just listing everyone! I gotta send a shout out to John Hughes

Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
Weird Science (1985)
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Sixteen Candles (1984)

a few others too but of course those are the classics (not really including PT&A as a classic..)

^ I assume you mean John Hughes mate? Would agree actually!!!

Originally Posted by Nick

In no particular order:

Hitchcock
Kubrick
Coens
Speilberg
John Hughes
Harold Ramis
Ted Kotcheff

Originally Posted by MisterModo

Spielberg is a fucking hack with no subtetly, no sophistication, and for every decent movie he's made (I'll give him Saving Private Ryan as the best battle directing ever made up to that point in time) he's made a piece of shite to match it like AI or Catch Me If You Can....

Yes SS has made a few clunkers (you forgot to mention "The Terminal", a horrible piece of crap) but by no stretch of the imagination can he be called a hack. Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Munich - the man who made those films cannot be a hack.

I actually think Quentin Tarantino totally deserves to be up there with the best, even though I think he, himself, is a tool.

He made two great movies ("Pulp Fiction" & "Reservior Dogs") but the rest of his films are average at best.

Some more great directors that I haven't seen listed yet: William Wyler, Vincent Minelli, Martin Ritt, James Ivory, William Wellman, George Cukor, Victor Fleming, Roman Polanski, George Stevens, Ernst Lubitsch, Milos Foreman, Elia Kazan, Bernardo Bertolucci, Mel Brooks, Leo McCarey, Otto Preminger, Barry Levinson.

Originally Posted by The Dude

Yes SS has made a few clunkers (you forgot to mention "The Terminal", a horrible piece of crap) but by no stretch of the imagination can he be called a hack. Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Munich - the man who made those films cannot be a hack.

Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders, ET... sure, this is good, entertaining stuff, but all popcorn movies and they hardly rank him with Kubrick... and really, Close Encounters is a boring movie and ET is just okay... have you tried to watch either of them again recently??

Color Purple is a good film, but also quite boring... every time it comes on I try to watch it but it never keeps me interested.. Empire of the Sun is a good film and one of the few of Spielberg's serious efforts that actually pushes me through the story

Schindler's List may be the most overrated movie of all time. that movie elicits no emotion at all. the movie itself didn't make me feel a thing. I had to remind myself, while watching it, that the events it was depicting actually happened and that it was all very horrible.. THAT'S where the emotion comes from.. and then at the end Spielberg relies on his sad, cheap little trick of showing actual "holocaust" survivors visiting graves... blah blah what a pathetic way to get emotion from your audience.. again and again Spielberg feels the need to hit people over the head with a sledgehammer..


**all that really matters in any movie is One Single Thing: Do I want to know what happens next?
that's it. that's all a script really HAS to achieve. and many of Spielberg's movies just don't.

for the same reason I think the Godfather movies are boring and hugely overrated... again and again they come on TV and I try again and again to watch them and see why people rate them so high... but again and again I get bored and change the channel because I just don't care what happens next.

One could argue that a movie's principal purpose is to entertain, Modo, my ranty little friend.


Shooting Schindler's List was a deeply emotional time for Spielberg, as the subject matter forced him to confront elements of his childhood, such as the anti-semitism he faced. He was furious with himself when he did not "cry buckets" while visiting Auschwitz, and was one of many crew members who did not look on during shooting of the scene where aging Jews are forced to run naked being selected by Nazi doctors to go to Auschwitz. Several actresses broke down when filming the shower scene, including one who was born in a concentration camp. Kate Capshaw and Spielberg's five children accompanied Spielberg on set, and he later thanked his wife "for rescuing me ninety-two days in a row...when things just got too unbearable." Spielberg's parents and his rabbi also visited him on set. Robin Williams called Spielberg every two weeks to cheer him up with various jokes, because there was very little humour on set.
Spielberg forwent a salary, calling it "blood money"

From Wiki.

The Jews get a lot of shit, but this fucked up stuff happened to them, and I for one find it fascinating and think Spielberg did a great job.

Originally Posted by MisterModo

Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders, ET... sure, this is good, entertaining stuff, but all popcorn movies and they hardly rank him with Kubrick... and really, Close Encounters is a boring movie and ET is just okay... have you tried to watch either of them again recently??

I own both Jaws and Raiders and IMHO they are as good today as they were the first time I saw them in the theater. I don't agree with the tendency to downgrade "popcorn" movies, ie., movies without deep messages. Either a movie is well made, regardless of its goal, or it isn't. I think they are both almost perfect movies. Perfect popcorn movies? So be it.

Close Encounters, yeah, it's a little slow at times, but still a great movie.

Color Purple is a good film, but also quite boring... every time it comes on I try to watch it but it never keeps me interested..

The phrase "a good film, but also quite boring" is an oxymoron IMO. I understand if you like the film but recognize that it movies a bit slowly, but if you think the film is boring then I'd say you don't like it.

The Color Purple is a good example (along with ET) of Spielberg's major flaw as a film maker: his penchant for emotional manipulation. I think they're both a little heavy-handed at times and try to squeeze every ounce of emotion out of their audience, but I think their plots are strong and stylistically they are both brilliant. Take the scene in "Color" where Celie shaves Mister and it's intercut with her children going through an African ritual. It's a sequence that film students should break down and study for a primer on how to direct - the editing, the use of color, the music, the camera angles, it's simply brilliant. "Empire of the Sun" and "Raiders" also share this stunning visual style. The scene in "Empire" where the Japanese planes take off while Jim salutes them and serenade's them with a Welsh song is one of the most powerful film images I've ever seen. The only other director I can think of with as strong a visual style is Zhang Yimou.

As for ET, well it's a blatently manipulative film, but it's a compelling story with such heart and optimism and such keen observations into Americana circa 1980, not to mention beautifully shot and edited, that it's difficult for me to fault the film. I watched a couple months ago and it still hits me emotionally, though I also still chaff at SS's paranoia with authority figures.

Schindler's List may be the most overrated movie of all time. that movie elicits no emotion at all. the movie itself didn't make me feel a thing. I had to remind myself, while watching it, that the events it was depicting actually happened and that it was all very horrible.. THAT'S where the emotion comes from..

I agree it's a little over-rated, but I find it to be very powerful emotionally. It's not a pleasant film to sit through, but it's extremely well done, one of those films you appreciate more than enjoy. Sounds like you have definite opinions on the holocaust and that might effect your attitude going into any film dealing with the subject.

and then at the end Spielberg relies on his sad, cheap little trick of showing actual "holocaust" survivors visiting graves... blah blah what a pathetic way to get emotion from your audience.. again and again Spielberg feels the need to hit people over the head with a sledgehammer..

I totally agree. I did not like the ending. Having the cast interact with actual holocaust survivors sort of undermined the integrity of the film for me. The rest of the film is very powerful and well made, but the last half hour needed some serious editing and re-thinking. This sort of sledgehammer approach is what keeps SS from that upper tier of directors.

for the same reason I think the Godfather movies are boring and hugely overrated... again and again they come on TV and I try again and again to watch them and see why people rate them so high... but again and again I get bored and change the channel because I just don't care what happens next.

Now you're just talking crazy again, but movies are a very subjective medium and you're entitled to your opinion.

nevermind.

Are you worried that they're trying to take over the world? What if they were mostly Italians?

Just cos a lot of Jews are doing well, don't make it a conspiracy.

I always wonder....do people 'hate' the Jews 'cos they've got money, or does they got the money 'cos people hate them and that's their 'revenge'? I think even back in the day they were money lenders!!!???

Off topic to the nth degree!!! Feel free to split oh Mods (or at least don't verbally abuse me!).

forget it, this is just a headache..

this has made me wonder whether message boards should be used to discuss serious topics at all.. especially something as controversial as Jewish power in the media..

I just feel like people don't take the time to read carefully in message boards.. they skim the post, come to a quick conclusion, and respond.. not a great recipe for real dialogue.

also, not being able to see the person they are talking to, what type of person they are, what their personality is, they can come to erroneous conclusions much more easily.

anyway... whatever.

Originally Posted by MisterModo

this is exactly what I'm talking about.. you can't even talk about this without people accusing you of ridiculous stuff.

Ease up on the weed, mate. Just chewing the fat.

on Spielberg once again. I agree he has some great films. Jaws is classic and changed the movies forever. but overall I think the man just has too many flops.. and not just commercial flops, but films that are just BAD, _really_ BAD.

for me to consider someone one of the top 10 Directors of All Time they need to have a consistently good record.. and Spielberg has some films I just downright hate, like Catch Me If You Can, and A.I.

of course all the great directors probably have a movie or two that is a bit of embarassment, but Spielberg's proportion of good to bad is something like 60-40% instead of 75-25% or 90-10%

-------------------

on the Godfather films: absolutely these films have some brilliant scenes, some brilliant acting.. but, for me, they just don't have any fucking PUSH through the film as a whole. there's so much useless crap in them that doesn't have jack to do with the central story and just loses the momentum of the story for me every time I watch.. yawn inducing wedding scenes and let's watch the kids playing and show cars parking and people talking about junk that has nothing to do with the HERO and HIS GOAL. yadda yadda..

so much of what the Godfather films are comes out of the Cinema Verite movement and I'm just not into it. I want a constant pull through the story, I don't want to see what it means to be "Italian in America" just because it's an insight into "real life," not unless you can integrate these things into the Hero's story in a way that keeps the momentum..

for example, a 15 minute funeral scene to START your "greatest movie of all time"???? are you fucking kidding me?? I'm already changing the channel...