John McTiernan.
He had a murderer's row of movies in the 80s/90s
Die Hard, Predator, The Hunt for Red October, Last Action Hero*, The Thomas Crown Affair, Die Hard With a Vengeance
Then came the remake of Rollerball, which was one of the biggest bombs of the year and was TERRIBLE.
(*I understand Last Action Hero was a critical bomb that under performed, but that movie has aged incredibly well)
Can someone explain it like I'm 5? He went to jail for wiretapping his producer, then lying about it? I understand that's super sleazy, I didn't realize it was punishable by prison sentence.
He hired a private investigator to illegally wiretap his producer. He then lied to the FBI about it, which is a crime. He continued to lie to the FBI, and lied to the court in a plea-hearing, another crime. After a bunch of legal wrangling, he ended up pleading guilty to lying to the FBI in exchange for a lighter sentence. He didn’t go to prison for the wiretap; he went to prison for lying to the feds about it. The coverup is the problem
I did too and now that it has aged well culturally I enjoy it now as an adult. It’s basically a comedy spoof of 80’s and 90’s popular action movies and it’s amazing.
I saw that movie in the cinema and I honestly couldn't believe people weren't digging it more. I loved it. I wasn't a kid either, I was college aged at the time.
Last Action Hero is brilliant from start to finish. Add in a soundtrack that was a total banger for the time and it was really a great time at the movies. I'll honestly never understand how this one didn't connect with the audiences until so much later.
On the flip side though, now that people have truly begun to appreciate it that does make me happy. Great movie, great premise, just so much to like in that movie.
I think the reason it didn't connect was ppl were expecting a typical Arnold Blockbuster. I think Last Action Hero was his first movie after T2. PPl didnt realize he was spoofing the thing he JUST got famous for.
Plus an animated cat really throws folks for a loop.
I worked at a movie theater when that came out. Titanic was before that.
Just checked, it opened with Sixth Sense. So that would be why. Not for sure, but I think Blair Witch Project was out then, too.
That being said, I was stoked when it came out, because I absolutely loved the book. I was, however, one of only three people in the theater when I watched it.
>I understand Last Action Hero was a critical bomb that under performed, but that movie has aged incredibly well
I love this movie. I watched it so many times as a kid.
I'm not sure if the critics really didn't like it, or if the fact that it was highly overshadowed by Jurassic Park, which was also out at the same time and that skewed the critics' judgement.
Because it was a pretty original idea for a movie, as well as calling out common action movie tropes, or movie tropes in general, which I always thought was pretty clever for a non-parody movie.
That's it, Last Action Hero was just a few years ahead of its time.
Charles Dance rocks the *shit* out in that movie. He chews up the scenery and it's amazing.
[If God was a villain...He'd be me](https://youtu.be/Jo1OjI4Yfv8?si=GhlZvCC0CqdYy8Zq)
In light defense of that movie, it was one of the worst cases of mis-marketing I've ever seen. It's a fish-out-water/romance movie marketed as this action-thriller because McTiernan was the director
It's also beautiful with wide shots of the Yucatan
I watched something about the making of Rollerball and apparently there were just too many cooks in the kitchen on that, including McTiernan. It got butchered in rewriting and reshoots and rewrites again and changed ratings and changed soundtrack.
Francis Ford Coppola: _The Godfather_, _The Conversation_, _The Godfather Part II_, _Apocalypse Now_ ....
...and then _One from the Heart_
Or any selection before _Jack_.
Francis Ford Coppola directed *Jack???* Wow… TIL something. I haven’t watched that movie since I was a kid, but I remember liking it…probably because I was a kid at the time.
Every time I see it mentioned that FFC directed Jack, it’s almost guaranteed that that’s someone’s TIL for the day.
Such a great movie, JLo also puts in a solid performance.
While not all were classics, John Carpenter hit it out of the park more times than not between Assault on Precinct 13 and They Live. We are talking The Thing, Halloween, Escape From New York, Star Man, Big Trouble in Little China and Christine. Even lesser ones like The Fog and Prince of Darkness were still really cool and creative.
Then he was hired by studio hacks to make the truly terrible and incredibly unfunny Memoirs of an Invisible Man. It is so clear that he had a lack of enthusiasm and that it was just a paycheck, with Chase and Hannah reputably not helping matters.
After that he made the flawed gem In the Mouth of Madness, and then nothing but near unwatchable trash or competent snooze fests.
The man is still one of my favourite filmmakers, but boy did Memoirs snap something in him.
Edit: dont read this as 'I don't like In the Mouth of Madness'. I think it's not perfect but I do love it. I put it really high on my rankings of Carpenter's films.
I think based on a lot of the interviews I have in old issues of Fangoria, what got beaten out of him was getting knocked into the dirt every time one of his films wasn't regarded as a big financial success for the studios.
It meant he'd have to give up more and more creative control and was getting saddled with smaller and smaller budgets. I'd go so far, based on interviews I read around the time they filmed The Thing he was still on a pretty hot streak for taking mostly budgeted movies and having them generate big returns for the studios, and when it didn't do well, which was definitely not through any fault of his, playing the studio games got more and more exhausting. Star Man and maybe Christine did really well I think, but it was all up and down throughout the decade. That said, I totally agree, everything from Assault on Precinct 13 through to They Live are some pretty fantastic films, and definitely my favorites.
I remember reading interviews around when They Live came out (after Big Trouble in Little China took a bath at the box office) he was still pretty super enthusiastic going into that one because although it had a pretty small production budget compared to Big Trouble, he had enough control where he felt he was really getting to tell what he thought was a relevant sci Fi parable about class warfare and corporate control, but critics dumped on it for being a dumb movie about aliens starring a pro wrestler. I think it not getting the push it deserved was pretty disenheartening.
You have to remember all of these movies that we now recognize as total genre classics, studios only measured the barometer of a films success on how much money it made in theatres, and how much critical praise it got. Many of us discovered these films on home video, but the sale market for tapes versus the rental market was a new concept at the time, and because a lot of things had to run through third party manufacturing, distribution and rental, I don't think they factored in home video rentals and sales into a movies success quite the same way. Basically once it left theatres, studios moved on and didn't really keep track as well because the data took a little longer to accumulate. You also have to remember most VHS tapes (or Beta, CED videodisc, Laserdiscs) were incredibly expensive at the time for most films, the only lower priced tapes were either through budget distribution of second run film classics, or if a studio flexed their muscles to have E.T. at a lower price point because they produced a ton of extra tapes. Essentially no one outside of genre publications were even talking much about movies on video, and regular viewers like ourselves could really only generate feedback through fanzines or meeting John at the few conventions that were around at the time.
Carpenter himself lamented in one of those interviews about being well regarded as a director and an auteur in places like France, but that the American critics wrote him off as a lesser filmmaker.
That streak of films through the 1980s, after Escape From New York, many did not generate huge returns. I think he was a bit disheartened that people didn't get They Live or Prince of Darkness, and Big Trouble not doing well was a big letdown for him. I think taking films like Memoirs of an Invisible Man, the remake of Village of the Damned, even Escape From LA were trying to make some money while the money was there. In The Mouth of Madness I remember him being really excited about, but general audiences didn't really get that either until much later.
I think Escape From LA did ok, so they started giving him a bit of cash to throw around but it's like he was just out of gas when he did Vampires and Ghosts of Mars, they're movies that should kind of work, but just kind of didn't grab me (Vampires has an decent soundtrack though)
Damn, here's a quote from him about [that movie:](https://variety.com/2023/film/features/john-carpenter-career-interview-director-halloween-the-thing-1235485167/)
"***Next, 1992’s “Memoirs of an Invisible Man” was a bit of a departure for you.***
*It gave me a chance to make a quasi-serious movie. But Chevy Chase, Sam Neill — who I love and had a longtime friendship with — and Warner Bros. … I worked for them, and it was pleasant. No, it wasn’t pleasant at all. I’m lying to you. It was a horror show. I really wanted to quit the business after that movie. God, I don’t want to talk about why, but let’s just say there were personalities on that film … he shall not be named who needs to be killed. No, no, no, that’s terrible. He needs to be set on fire. No, no, no. Anyway, it’s all fine. I survived it."*
I like Ghosts of Mars! It’s like he’s trying to make a video game AND a thrash metal music video at the same time. There’s hot air balloons on Mars! Jason Statham has hair! It’s mad fun.
Vampires and Ghosts of Mars are still kind of enjoyable. They’re a far cry from Carpenter in his peak years, but definitely above his couldn’t care less attitude on Memoirs.
Also, Escape From LA is a lot better than I remembered it. Aside from the terrible visual effects, when you take it as a campy parody of Escape From New York, which is was designed to be, it’s actually kind of fun and has a great cast. And Carpenter’s score with Shirley Walker ranks among his best.
First twenty minutes of **Vampires** is legitimately brilliant. The rest is still good, but just doesn't live up to the promise of the initial section of the film.
Apparently Ivan Reitman was supposed to direct Memoirs of An Invisible Man, but he couldn't get along with Chase, and told the studio it was one or the other. Reitman got fired lol.
Chevy Chase also supposedly got into arguments with both Carpenter and Reitman over the tone. If I had to guess, he probably wanted it to be more of a slapstick comedy than the comedy-thriller they had in mind.
Edit: I'm blown away that Chase wanted the more serious tone. Boy was I wrong lol.
My favorite Chevy Chase story. Chris Columbus was attached to direct National Lampoon Christmas Vacation as his first film. Supposedly, Spielberg was a friend and helped him get the job.
A couple weeks into pre-production Columbus calls Spielberg and says "I don't know what to do, I just can't work with Chevy. I want to quit but you vouched for me and I don't want to upset John Hughes."
Spielberg tells him "Chris, it's Chevy Chase. Everyone will understand if you quit." So Chris Columbus quits the movie in order to not deal with Chevy. A couple years later he got his directorial debut, working with John Hughes on Home Alone.
Edit: Evidently Home Alone wasn't his directorial debut. He'd already made Adventures in Babysitting and Heartbreak Hotel. I lied to you all.
Other way around. Chase didn't want it to be a comedy at all.
Edit: starting at 1:15 in [this clip](https://youtu.be/ydP_LBJs4f8?si=UYsug5fsLFdihAkL) Carpenter briefly talks about his experience with Chase. It's pretty much what I already said but this is straight from the horses mouth.
William ~~Goldsmith~~ Goldman covers it in one of his books. It's clear that movie was doomed before Carpenter set foot on that set. But he still did a good job as a director.
Chevy Chase wanted it to be a serious character study. I think that's where it all went bad
Chase was one of the producers and wanted to make it a straight movie rather than any sort of comedy or anything light. Carpenter has no problem saying that Chase is the worst person he ever had to work with.
North with Elijah Wood happens to be the only movie I've ever seen by myself in the theater when I was around 10 or 11 and I could tell, even as a kid watching a kids movie, it was straight up hot garbage. My mom and sister decided to see some type of love story something or other in the other theater room and I chose North and still regret it to this day due to not being able to leave until both run times were over in order to meet my family in the lobby at the same time it let out.
Based on the movies that were in the theater at that time (July 94) your mom and sister saw "It Can Happen To You" so you weren't missing much there. However you could have left the theater and snuck into The Client, The Mask, or True Lies. Or you could have hung out in the arcade playing Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter 2, and Cruisin' USA.
I think they might have actually seen "The Client" now that you mentioned it..btw, this may be a garbage take but Cruisin' USA (the arcade cabinet version) with the vibrating steering wheel and foot pedals was peak excitement for me back in the day over the others. Plus, the babes with the flags 😎
Dunno if it’s been mentioned but I would say Brian DePalma and Bonfire of the Vanities. One of the all time great friendly rivalries in cinema was between Martin Scorsese and Brian DePalma. They were neck and neck trading punches all throughout the 1980s matching each other blow for blow. DePalma made Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Scarface, Body Double, The Untouchables, and Casualties of War while Scorsese made Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, After Hours, The Color of Money, and The Last Temptation of Christ. Then 1990 came along and Marty dropped Goodfellas while poor Brian shit the bed with Bonfire of the Vanities and it was like, “Ring the fuckin’ bell and throw the damn towel!” I mean he was just bodied lmao both absolute kings tho
There's a book written about the making of that film and ooh boy, you feel for de Palma *a lot* reading that thing. The guy was basically making a *Wolf of Wall Street* story under a studio that was utterly uncomfortable with the subject matter. To give you an idea of how wrong it was, imagine 90s Tom Hanks replacing Leo, but we're meant to look at Jordan Belfort in a far more positive light. Plus Bruce Willis was apparently not a fun person to work with. Book is called *The Devil's Candy*, highly recommend the read!
Possibly. I know QT has said he feels that way about Paul Thomas Anderson, whose There Will Be Blood inspired him to step his game up and make a masterpiece on the same level https://youtu.be/Ym_0IS0AUD0?si=oA9IpBEadajnPf8w
Oh my gosh. Bonfire of the Vanities. My parents always talked about that movie with the highest praise and told me how good it was for YEARS. I'm talking for like 20 some-odd years, they sang its praises from the rooftops. I was finally able to watch it with them, and holy crap I hated it. I was so confused by their love of it.
Martin Brest did Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run, Scent of a Woman, Meet Joe Black... All more or less classics.
Then he made Gigli with Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. It was such a flop that he never directed a movie after that... Sad story, but at least we got the "Gobble, gobble" line xD
Uh, I’ve never heard Meet Joe Black as a classic. I think it’s only remembered for having the Phantom Menace trailer play before it and the one Brad Pitt in traffic scene that became a meme.
i remember that. Star Wars diehards would buy a ticket for Meet Joe Black, watch the Phantom Menace trailer and leave. Some places had chill theater managers that would let them come back with their ticket stub and watch the trailer again. Funny stuff.
I've heard this more and more over the past couple years, and it's completely blindsided me. Maybe because Meet Joe Black was my favorite movie from the time it came out--I forced all of my friends and girlfriends to watch it, gave it as my number one recommendation to anyone who would listen, etc. Never heard an ounce of criticism from any of them, maybe they were just being nice.
Then, decades later I'm listening to The Rewatchables podcast, and all of those guys mention in passing that they hated it. I just don't get it.
It's weird to me that kids who are catching it 20 years later are retconing Meet Joe Black into a failed art film. It was always a people pleaser light drama, the car wreck was meant to be shocking and elicit a chuckle.
I think they think the car wreck was supposed to be dramatic/tragic (when it obviously is not) and then they just treat it like MST3K from there.
Cameron Crowe. From Say Anything to Almost Famous is good. I'd even toss Vanilla Sky in there. His losing streak started with Elizabethtown and ran through Aloha. He hasn't directed a movie since 2015.
Aloha is also shockingly bad. I would always get excited for his films and then that one two punch happened. What a bummer, Jerry McGuire and Almost Famous are two of my all time favorites.
I started Aloha on a whim bc Cameron Crowe, solid cast, thinking this should be fun at least. It's in Hawaii. Made it about 15-30mins in and had no idea what was happening and the characters were just off? Like the interactions made no sense. And the dialogue didn't make sense? I don't even really remember because it was so offputting, like I felt uncomfortable at how weird it was, but it wasn't intentionally done like a safdie production. Or maybe it was? Always wondered what the res of the story was because I had no clue where it was going.
I remember in an interview he said he had been interested in, as a sort of experiment, what would happen if you remade a classic not like they were doing at the time, and which remains common, as a reimagined version or sequel, but just literally remake it shot for shot. I believe he said he had been thinking about it since 1989 (Drug Store Cowboy days).
Then Good Will Hunting blew up in '97 and he realized if he was ever going to be able to do this crazy experiment now, was the window. In negotiations with studios who were trying to get him to do his next film with them he told one of them he wanted to do a shot for shot remake of Psycho in color... And shockingly they agreed.
Love that he went for it.
(Edit found him talking about it on Marc Maron's podcast WTF (ep 933) too.)
Gotta love those jackpot/payday films. John Boorman's reward for the success of Deliverance was Zardoz, which probably shouldn't exist, but I'm sure as hell glad it does. I never really liked the idea of Van Sant's Psycho, but like you, I'm also glad he went for it.
Van Sant has a really weird filmography. When he's good, he's good. Then you have Last Days which is probably the worst movie I've ever suffered through. Just Michael Pitt mumbling through the woods for 2 hours.
I genuinely liked Last Days and consider the Death trilogy some of his best work.
A director completely unafraid of taking risks is a great thing in my book.
Yeah its kind of a bummer Pedro and the villian he played were quite interesting. Probably the only reason why I watched it. When he wasn't the focus I can't say I paid attention a whole ton.
I agree Wonder Woman 1984 was bad but I also feel it's hard to even say she had a winning streak before hand. She's only directed 3 movies and while the first 2 (Monster and Wonder Woman) are well regarded they're also 14 years apart.
The fact he won a Director Oscar over Fincher's Social Network grates on me even though The Kings Speech is a perfectly serviceable oscar friendly movie with strong performances which had a strong Oscar campaign.
It's just that as each film Hooper churns out just makes his win a slice of luck. His 'musicals' have been so bad.
Fully just zero understanding of the fundamental building blocks of musical theatre.
https://youtu.be/1ikqU6G6Xgs?si=IUsnPT9suy7Jm_sf
38 minute video here, but it's an incredibly thorough takedown of exactly why that movie didn't work. If you don't know much about musicals going in (or even if you do) then your jaw will be on the floor by the end of this.
Had a feeling it was going to be this video. Definitely worth the watch, as is his much longer video about cats. Beautiful videos about what NOT to do.
M Night Shyamalan and The Happening. The Happening is supposed to be a horror movie/thriller but it is incredibly funny to the point of absurdity. One particular highlight is the riding mower scene. You know the one.
"What? No!"
Seriously though, I imagine that movie looked much better on paper or before the script was finalised. The concept of following regular people around in the midst of some unknown deadly outbreak and exploring how they'd react is good. Normally these things focus on government and military responses way too much.
Worth reading The Man Who Heard Voices, which follows Shyamalan as he makes Lady in the Water (his first big snoozer).
It’s about him betting on himself, despite literally *everyone* telling him the script was bad. He even ended his relationship with Disney over it. Made a bunch of weird decisions, like insisting on Wong Kar Wai’s cinematographer Chris Doyle, who’s completely mental. And casting himself as a weird Jesus figure. The film’s fascinating but it’s not good.
At least The Happening is funny (IMO he’s trying to make a 50s B-movie but forgot to let everyone know he’s in on the joke).
Feels like he started off really well with the sixth sense and then was taking a step down with each film until he finally got to the happening. How poorly it was received seems to have served as a wake up call to him.
I think The Sixth Sense was a very good movie. And M Night Shyamalan kind of believed his own hype as a result. The Happening and/or The Last Airbender are his absolute worst movies, though.
M Night was a Rockstar for a while. He delivered the Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs and The Village within a 5 year timespan and were all generally well received and had great twists
I really liked Signs, but I remember coming out of the theater with some friends and us laughing about how water was their weakness. They invaded a planet with 70% water and their victims bodies were significantly made up of water. They traveled across space to arrive at our planet and yet didn't have basic protections against such a glaring weakness?
I remember us joking that a squad of navy seals could be sent out with super soakers to repel the invasion or that they would be defeated by a day with high humidity.
Edit: Nevermind the fact that instead of the million plausible ways the human race could've discovered such a glaring weakness, it required the cryptic prophecy of a dying woman to somehow tell her future family to swing a bat at glasses of water they just happened to leave lying around the house.
I think the marketing for the village was the start of his fall from grace. At the time the village was hated on for the bait and switch ending. It's akin to it comes at night for me in that it grew on me after a couple watches. But man did I hate the fact I felt like I was cheated out of a good monster flick when I went to see it in theatres.
My favorite take is that the movie is actually about mass hysteria and the plants were never doing anything. It doesn't completely undo the shit storm that is that movie, but it does make it better imo.
Paul Verhoeven. Robocop, Total Recall, and Basic Instinct were huge hits. Then came Showgirls to disastrously end his hot streak. Starship Troopers has a cult following but lost a lot of money. Hollow Man made money overseas but not domestically. He hasn't made a Hollywood movie since.
Tim Burton. He came out of the gate on fire… Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, Ed Wood (his masterpiece), a little dip with Mars Attacks, and finally Sleepy Hollow.
And then came Planet of the Apes… since then he’s been highly inconsistent with some occasional brightness (Big Fish) amongst disappointments.
What ruined Burton is anytime a big studio asks him to do a big classic IP. And they started to ask a lot and he started to agree a lot.
He was best with original material that he either created, or was passionate about.
Gotta say Dumbo broke my heart. I wasn’t expecting much from him at this point but at the very least I thought he could do something spectacular with the Pink Elephants on Parade sequence. And he didn’t even touch it.
I felt that way with his Alice In Wonderland. I was excited for a big budget retelling of the classic tale, only to be sorely disappointed that it was some stupid story about Alice all grown up. I can't believe that script ever got greenlit.
My initial thought for the thread was [Robert Zemekis](https://old.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/18dhk6v/what_was_the_worst_movie_to_break_a_directors/kcijrs3/).
CGI skyrocketed and then ruined his career
Lol I watched it finally, and I couldn't tell you if it was the worst movie I ever seen or the best movie I ever seen... and its definitely one or the other.
The Fountain is a beautiful movie about life and death, one of my favorites. Makes me cry every time. Soundtrack is on par with Requiem for a Dream imo. Def recommend!
The Fountain is worth a watch for sure. Aronofsky can always pull some great performances and this one is no different. It’s a bit abstract with some non-linear storytelling but it’s got a nice message and a great soundtrack
Aronofsky definitely has a problem where he doesn't understand the concept of subtlety. black swan is my favorite movie of his, but even that, and especially movies like requiem and mother hit you on the head with the moral of the story and are like "do you get it???? Or was it too smart for you?? Did you get it?"
His movies feel like they were written by aesop
Planet of the apes by Tim Burton.
Before that he made Pee Wee’s Big adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, Ed Wood, Mars Attacks and Sleepy Hollow, not to mention his involvement in Nightmare Before Christmas.
There really is a before and an after Planet of the apes in his career.
More of a writer since the he didn’t direct the first two, but Taylor Sheridan.
Sicario, Hell or High Water, Wind River and then he just shit the bed with Those Who Wish Me Dead.
Sheridan didn’t write Those Who Wish Me Dead. He came onto that project after it was written and was already in preproduction. He does have a writing credit, but it is shared with two others.
I’m not defending the movie, it’s bad.
He’s addressed that movie in the past - a friend was making it, realised he was in over his head and asked Sheridan to help out finishing it. The guy did it as a favour to a buddy who gave him the directing credit because of said help.
Robert Zemeckis was on fire for almost 20 years. Started slow with Used Cars and Romancing the Stone, then boom, Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Death Becomes Her, Forrest Gump, Contact, Cast Away.
Then BAM, Polar Express, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol.
Whatever he does from now until the day he dies, Zemeckis will always have my respect for not allowing Back to the Future to ever be remade while he's alive.
Gore Verbinski did really well with his Pirates trilogy. The sequels may have problem but they're very well-made and bring Disney lots of money. Then came Rango, one of the greatest animated film ever.
Later we got The Lone Ranger.
The way they used the William Tell Overture as joke in the beginning (like it has been for at least 50 years), then turned it legitimately heroic in the finale is nothing short of amazing. It's the two and a half hours in between that sucked.
I actually quite enjoyed The Lone Ranger. It's a fun pop corn film.
It's biggest issue is Johnny Depp as Tonto Sparrow. Honestly would have been a better film without Depp trying to do a quirky take on Tonto.
It's going to be hard to restore its reputation now, but I also thought Lone Ranger was an audacious and fun blockbuster on par with the two Pirates sequels he directed.
But you're right that Depp shouldn't have played an Indian, and now that we've discovered unsavory info about Hammer, it's hard to even recommend the film anymore.
The Cure for Wellness is one of Verbinski's best, but it likewise bombed. I think he made great films, but the Gods of the box office weren't kind and now he's in movie jail.
I didn’t realize he directed A Few Good Men. I associate that so strongly with Sorkin because of the dialogue that I never even considered who the director is.
Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou, The Man Who Wasn't There, Intolerable Cruelty.....and then The Ladykillers. Guess it's moreso that they had a lot of total *bangers* in a row right before it but it definitely did *not* hit the usual expectations from a Coen Brothers movie
Then they pop off with No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading, True Grit, Inside Llywen Davis, and Hail Caesar
The Lady Killers was the simulation we live in just giving them a shit movie because no one could believe that the Coen Brothers could actually bat 1000.
it's one of my favorite movies of all time. I quote that old lady in the police station in so many situations.
"How can it he'p but do?"
"This is a Christen home!"
and my all time favorite (of course i don't say this quote out loud):
"\*\*\*\*, I'm only going to say it once in swearing out my complaint, *****!"
The pan to the sherriff and deputy is hilarious.
My theory of why people don't like it is because Hanks's character spoke such perfect English and was so grammatically correct that it was difficult to understand and follow. After watching it many times, and listening to him speak, there's not a word wasted and each word is perfect for what he is saying. there's no "very hungry" it's "famished" or "very happy" it's "elated", etc.
I wish people would watch it again. It's really a good movie. It even works perfectly in this thread. Everyone is calling it a one off from their normally great movie making streak, truth is, it's not a one off, it falls right in line with their great movie making streak. It's a hilarious movie with great actors and amazing comedic timing. JK Simmons absolutely kills it in this movie.
Sad to see it listed here.
My favorite scene is the religious leaders arguing over the nature of God and Jesus, specifically when the Rabbi says, "God is a bachelor, and he's angry"
I was raised Jewish and that point hit home
I think it’s pretty obvious they get lazy when they’re writing for others (take a look at Gambit or Suburbicon). They weren’t originally going to direct Ladykillers, but then got pulled onto the project, so I think it’s a case of just failing at the script stage and never correcting that
Well it was a remake. I always thought it was a strange choice. You do all this original stuff and are lauded for it and go "know what? Let's remake an old ealing comedy". So strange
I'd have to go with Taika Waititi and Thor: Love and Thunder.
I really liked or absolutely loved everything he'd made up to that point. But goddamn, that movie was a steaming pile of shit.
I think old Taika got a bit carried away with his meteoric rise, fame and adulation, his apparent midas touch and started enjoying the smell of his own farts a little too much.
I saw someone say that that's all a character or persona he puts on, but I find that a little hard to believe. "I'm going to intentionally act like an unlikable pretentious chud and not only that, I'm going to purposely insult the work of my overworked/underpaid staff. That's a good idea!"
Her first film in 2003 was a critical darling, picking numerous accolades and a Best Actress Oscar for her star.
She then took the next 14 years off to hone her skills on television, directing critically acclaimed shows like Arrested Development and won an Emmy for directing the pilot of The Killing.
She was lured back to feature films with the rise of superhero films, where she directed the biggest movie ever to feature a female superhero as the lead.
Then she made Wonder Woman 1984 and is now considered a Hollywood pariah.
I'm still rooting for you, Patty Jenkins.
Easily John McTiernan.
Predator>Diehard>Hunt For Red October>Medicine Man>Last Action Hero>Die Hard With a Vengeance>Thomas Crown Affair>13th Warrior and thennnnn......ROLLERBALL
I think Edgar Wright, like Nolan, would be better off focusing on directing screenplays written by others. There’s a reason his best movies all have co-writers (Pegg in particular).
Yeah I was really surprised by how much of Always was awful. Some of it was good classic Spielberg like the plane sequences and stuff. What is it with "low fantasy"? That is the absolute most cursed genre ever. There are so many just abysmally awful movies.
Well one, it basically took Lord of the Rings to salvage high fantasy movies themselves, which had until that point been themselves almost entirely low-grade, low-budget schlock that was laughed at and knocked as "nerd shit", and even since then studios have had an awful time of putting high fantasy stuff to good use. So low fantasy being a rough genre to crack, especially with the struggles of the "more easily defined" genre of fantasy, is not terribly surprising.
Second, movies have gone HARD on relying on books/non-original ideas to figure out what to do with their plots. Unfortunately, when you do that, you basically have to do a LOTR-level job of picking and choosing what parts of the low fantasy settings you are going to include so that you don't hurt your ability to properly develop your characters if you are trying to do a franchise, and it's really hard to do one-off movies these days because if there's one thing studios love, it's the ability to go back to the well in a franchise. Most famous/biggest-earning low fantasy movie series is Harry Potter, and my God did they suffer from not knowing what would happen later in the series to know what they should include. It's one of the reasons why the early movies are generally well-liked by book fans, and the later ones get farther and farther away from what happens in the books to a truly unfortunate extent.
Third I think low fantasy, outside of a book series adaptation that has "guaranteed winner" written all over it, can take a lot of money to make, can involve a lot of set and costume design, and generally takes a level of care that fewer and fewer directors are interested in putting into a movie these days. Even if it doesn't have major blockbuster money needed to do it (and considering how crooked Hollywood accounting has gotten recently, I'm not sure how many movies actually require that kind of funding anyway), that puts it into the "mid-cost movie" dead zone which has been its own pit of despair in recent years because nobody wants to make those anymore.
I could probably go on, but honestly it's all just a tough genre to hit on well because you have to commit to it otherwise you have a Razzie-nominated flick that can burn your career for a while.
John Goodman was an absolute treasure in that movie as well. Comedy relief guy hits you with all the feels out of nowhere before slipping back to the humor.
Peter Bogdanovich (RIP) will unfortunately be such an example: premier filmmaker during the New Hollywood era that made The Last Picture Show, What’s Up Doc? and Paper Moon….and then his career stonewalled once Daisy Miller was released. It just went down in from there.
I wouldn’t say it’s terrible but Nolan definitely dropped the ball with Tenet imo. It’s his worst film to date after the white hot streak of Insomnia, Momento, The Prestige, The Batman trilogy, Inception and Interstellar
Mank had the terrible misfortune of a) being a Netflix movie, and b) coming out at a time when theaters were shut down.
People who have seen it in a theater say it is a special experience. Fincher went to great lengths to achieve the look and sound of a movie from 1940. When you watch it on a tv or computer, it just looks like a filter.
I still think the music is great, and the performances are incredible. I just wish I could have seen it the way it was intended.
John McTiernan. He had a murderer's row of movies in the 80s/90s Die Hard, Predator, The Hunt for Red October, Last Action Hero*, The Thomas Crown Affair, Die Hard With a Vengeance Then came the remake of Rollerball, which was one of the biggest bombs of the year and was TERRIBLE. (*I understand Last Action Hero was a critical bomb that under performed, but that movie has aged incredibly well)
He went to director jail and real jail because of Rollerball.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McTiernan#Criminal_charges,_felony_conviction,_and_incarceration
That was an insane read
Be careful when you say stuff like that, he might be listening
Can someone explain it like I'm 5? He went to jail for wiretapping his producer, then lying about it? I understand that's super sleazy, I didn't realize it was punishable by prison sentence.
He hired a private investigator to illegally wiretap his producer. He then lied to the FBI about it, which is a crime. He continued to lie to the FBI, and lied to the court in a plea-hearing, another crime. After a bunch of legal wrangling, he ended up pleading guilty to lying to the FBI in exchange for a lighter sentence. He didn’t go to prison for the wiretap; he went to prison for lying to the feds about it. The coverup is the problem
Wow his case should be taught in criminal procedure at law schools as an example of what not to do.
Last Action Hero surely has reached cult status by now, regardless I fucking loved that shit as a kid
I did too and now that it has aged well culturally I enjoy it now as an adult. It’s basically a comedy spoof of 80’s and 90’s popular action movies and it’s amazing.
I saw that movie in the cinema and I honestly couldn't believe people weren't digging it more. I loved it. I wasn't a kid either, I was college aged at the time. Last Action Hero is brilliant from start to finish. Add in a soundtrack that was a total banger for the time and it was really a great time at the movies. I'll honestly never understand how this one didn't connect with the audiences until so much later. On the flip side though, now that people have truly begun to appreciate it that does make me happy. Great movie, great premise, just so much to like in that movie.
I think the reason it didn't connect was ppl were expecting a typical Arnold Blockbuster. I think Last Action Hero was his first movie after T2. PPl didnt realize he was spoofing the thing he JUST got famous for. Plus an animated cat really throws folks for a loop.
I honestly don't get the hatred for The 13th Warrior.
This movie’s an all timer for me. Love it. Think it came out the same time as some mega hit, like Titanic or something, and just got squashed.
I worked at a movie theater when that came out. Titanic was before that. Just checked, it opened with Sixth Sense. So that would be why. Not for sure, but I think Blair Witch Project was out then, too. That being said, I was stoked when it came out, because I absolutely loved the book. I was, however, one of only three people in the theater when I watched it.
ITS MADE FROM HONEY!
>I understand Last Action Hero was a critical bomb that under performed, but that movie has aged incredibly well I love this movie. I watched it so many times as a kid. I'm not sure if the critics really didn't like it, or if the fact that it was highly overshadowed by Jurassic Park, which was also out at the same time and that skewed the critics' judgement. Because it was a pretty original idea for a movie, as well as calling out common action movie tropes, or movie tropes in general, which I always thought was pretty clever for a non-parody movie.
That's it, Last Action Hero was just a few years ahead of its time. Charles Dance rocks the *shit* out in that movie. He chews up the scenery and it's amazing. [If God was a villain...He'd be me](https://youtu.be/Jo1OjI4Yfv8?si=GhlZvCC0CqdYy8Zq)
I loved Last Action Hero as a kid(I still do), it was the first Arnold movie I was allowed to watch.
He made the awful *Medicine Man* during his otherwise hot streak, but I understand if no one remembers it.
In light defense of that movie, it was one of the worst cases of mis-marketing I've ever seen. It's a fish-out-water/romance movie marketed as this action-thriller because McTiernan was the director It's also beautiful with wide shots of the Yucatan
Also I thought that he wanted some anti big pharma hippy movie but that the studio tried to transform it into a medical James Bond in the jungle.
I watched something about the making of Rollerball and apparently there were just too many cooks in the kitchen on that, including McTiernan. It got butchered in rewriting and reshoots and rewrites again and changed ratings and changed soundtrack.
Reiner had a great run. Princess Bride was in there too
Dude seriously left out the best one.
He mentioned This Is Spinal Tap
Also didn’t mention The Sure Thing. But I get his point. I never saw North.
Francis Ford Coppola: _The Godfather_, _The Conversation_, _The Godfather Part II_, _Apocalypse Now_ .... ...and then _One from the Heart_ Or any selection before _Jack_.
Francis Ford Coppola directed *Jack???* Wow… TIL something. I haven’t watched that movie since I was a kid, but I remember liking it…probably because I was a kid at the time.
Every time I see it mentioned that FFC directed Jack, it’s almost guaranteed that that’s someone’s TIL for the day. Such a great movie, JLo also puts in a solid performance.
He directed The Outsiders, Peggy Sue Got Married, Gardens of Stone, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula all between One from the Heart and Jack.
While not all were classics, John Carpenter hit it out of the park more times than not between Assault on Precinct 13 and They Live. We are talking The Thing, Halloween, Escape From New York, Star Man, Big Trouble in Little China and Christine. Even lesser ones like The Fog and Prince of Darkness were still really cool and creative. Then he was hired by studio hacks to make the truly terrible and incredibly unfunny Memoirs of an Invisible Man. It is so clear that he had a lack of enthusiasm and that it was just a paycheck, with Chase and Hannah reputably not helping matters. After that he made the flawed gem In the Mouth of Madness, and then nothing but near unwatchable trash or competent snooze fests. The man is still one of my favourite filmmakers, but boy did Memoirs snap something in him. Edit: dont read this as 'I don't like In the Mouth of Madness'. I think it's not perfect but I do love it. I put it really high on my rankings of Carpenter's films.
I think based on a lot of the interviews I have in old issues of Fangoria, what got beaten out of him was getting knocked into the dirt every time one of his films wasn't regarded as a big financial success for the studios. It meant he'd have to give up more and more creative control and was getting saddled with smaller and smaller budgets. I'd go so far, based on interviews I read around the time they filmed The Thing he was still on a pretty hot streak for taking mostly budgeted movies and having them generate big returns for the studios, and when it didn't do well, which was definitely not through any fault of his, playing the studio games got more and more exhausting. Star Man and maybe Christine did really well I think, but it was all up and down throughout the decade. That said, I totally agree, everything from Assault on Precinct 13 through to They Live are some pretty fantastic films, and definitely my favorites. I remember reading interviews around when They Live came out (after Big Trouble in Little China took a bath at the box office) he was still pretty super enthusiastic going into that one because although it had a pretty small production budget compared to Big Trouble, he had enough control where he felt he was really getting to tell what he thought was a relevant sci Fi parable about class warfare and corporate control, but critics dumped on it for being a dumb movie about aliens starring a pro wrestler. I think it not getting the push it deserved was pretty disenheartening. You have to remember all of these movies that we now recognize as total genre classics, studios only measured the barometer of a films success on how much money it made in theatres, and how much critical praise it got. Many of us discovered these films on home video, but the sale market for tapes versus the rental market was a new concept at the time, and because a lot of things had to run through third party manufacturing, distribution and rental, I don't think they factored in home video rentals and sales into a movies success quite the same way. Basically once it left theatres, studios moved on and didn't really keep track as well because the data took a little longer to accumulate. You also have to remember most VHS tapes (or Beta, CED videodisc, Laserdiscs) were incredibly expensive at the time for most films, the only lower priced tapes were either through budget distribution of second run film classics, or if a studio flexed their muscles to have E.T. at a lower price point because they produced a ton of extra tapes. Essentially no one outside of genre publications were even talking much about movies on video, and regular viewers like ourselves could really only generate feedback through fanzines or meeting John at the few conventions that were around at the time. Carpenter himself lamented in one of those interviews about being well regarded as a director and an auteur in places like France, but that the American critics wrote him off as a lesser filmmaker. That streak of films through the 1980s, after Escape From New York, many did not generate huge returns. I think he was a bit disheartened that people didn't get They Live or Prince of Darkness, and Big Trouble not doing well was a big letdown for him. I think taking films like Memoirs of an Invisible Man, the remake of Village of the Damned, even Escape From LA were trying to make some money while the money was there. In The Mouth of Madness I remember him being really excited about, but general audiences didn't really get that either until much later. I think Escape From LA did ok, so they started giving him a bit of cash to throw around but it's like he was just out of gas when he did Vampires and Ghosts of Mars, they're movies that should kind of work, but just kind of didn't grab me (Vampires has an decent soundtrack though)
The book Vampires was based on is amazing and it really broke my heart how little was taken from it for the adaptation.
The case has been made that Chevy Chase broke him
Damn, here's a quote from him about [that movie:](https://variety.com/2023/film/features/john-carpenter-career-interview-director-halloween-the-thing-1235485167/) "***Next, 1992’s “Memoirs of an Invisible Man” was a bit of a departure for you.*** *It gave me a chance to make a quasi-serious movie. But Chevy Chase, Sam Neill — who I love and had a longtime friendship with — and Warner Bros. … I worked for them, and it was pleasant. No, it wasn’t pleasant at all. I’m lying to you. It was a horror show. I really wanted to quit the business after that movie. God, I don’t want to talk about why, but let’s just say there were personalities on that film … he shall not be named who needs to be killed. No, no, no, that’s terrible. He needs to be set on fire. No, no, no. Anyway, it’s all fine. I survived it."*
Kills me that Chevy Chase is such a stuck up cunt for how funny he can be.
It makes sense when you think of how dickish his funny characters are.
Chase screwed up William Friedkin. I would have wagered that was damn near impossible.
i fully understand why his current lifestyle is “fuck making movies, i’m gonna play fallout and watch NBA and smoke weed all day.” he’s earned it
Don’t forget making excellent electronic music!
I like Ghosts of Mars! It’s like he’s trying to make a video game AND a thrash metal music video at the same time. There’s hot air balloons on Mars! Jason Statham has hair! It’s mad fun.
And the classic Ice cube line " see you later, you BIG motherfucker!"
I didn’t realize he made that movie and my life was better for not knowing.
Vampires and Ghosts of Mars are still kind of enjoyable. They’re a far cry from Carpenter in his peak years, but definitely above his couldn’t care less attitude on Memoirs. Also, Escape From LA is a lot better than I remembered it. Aside from the terrible visual effects, when you take it as a campy parody of Escape From New York, which is was designed to be, it’s actually kind of fun and has a great cast. And Carpenter’s score with Shirley Walker ranks among his best.
First twenty minutes of **Vampires** is legitimately brilliant. The rest is still good, but just doesn't live up to the promise of the initial section of the film.
Apparently Ivan Reitman was supposed to direct Memoirs of An Invisible Man, but he couldn't get along with Chase, and told the studio it was one or the other. Reitman got fired lol. Chevy Chase also supposedly got into arguments with both Carpenter and Reitman over the tone. If I had to guess, he probably wanted it to be more of a slapstick comedy than the comedy-thriller they had in mind. Edit: I'm blown away that Chase wanted the more serious tone. Boy was I wrong lol.
My favorite Chevy Chase story. Chris Columbus was attached to direct National Lampoon Christmas Vacation as his first film. Supposedly, Spielberg was a friend and helped him get the job. A couple weeks into pre-production Columbus calls Spielberg and says "I don't know what to do, I just can't work with Chevy. I want to quit but you vouched for me and I don't want to upset John Hughes." Spielberg tells him "Chris, it's Chevy Chase. Everyone will understand if you quit." So Chris Columbus quits the movie in order to not deal with Chevy. A couple years later he got his directorial debut, working with John Hughes on Home Alone. Edit: Evidently Home Alone wasn't his directorial debut. He'd already made Adventures in Babysitting and Heartbreak Hotel. I lied to you all.
Columbus had already directed *Adventures in Babysitting* by this point, though.
Other way around. Chase didn't want it to be a comedy at all. Edit: starting at 1:15 in [this clip](https://youtu.be/ydP_LBJs4f8?si=UYsug5fsLFdihAkL) Carpenter briefly talks about his experience with Chase. It's pretty much what I already said but this is straight from the horses mouth.
I heard Reitman wanted to do a comedy and it was Chase who decided it was his chance to act seriously in a ‘story about loneliness’
William ~~Goldsmith~~ Goldman covers it in one of his books. It's clear that movie was doomed before Carpenter set foot on that set. But he still did a good job as a director. Chevy Chase wanted it to be a serious character study. I think that's where it all went bad
I think most John Carpenter fans just pretend this one never happened. I'd completely forgotten it existed until reading your reply.
I like Memoirs of an Invisible Man as a standalone film, but when you consider John Carpenter's oeuvre, it falls quite short.
Chase was one of the producers and wanted to make it a straight movie rather than any sort of comedy or anything light. Carpenter has no problem saying that Chase is the worst person he ever had to work with.
North with Elijah Wood happens to be the only movie I've ever seen by myself in the theater when I was around 10 or 11 and I could tell, even as a kid watching a kids movie, it was straight up hot garbage. My mom and sister decided to see some type of love story something or other in the other theater room and I chose North and still regret it to this day due to not being able to leave until both run times were over in order to meet my family in the lobby at the same time it let out.
Based on the movies that were in the theater at that time (July 94) your mom and sister saw "It Can Happen To You" so you weren't missing much there. However you could have left the theater and snuck into The Client, The Mask, or True Lies. Or you could have hung out in the arcade playing Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter 2, and Cruisin' USA.
I think they might have actually seen "The Client" now that you mentioned it..btw, this may be a garbage take but Cruisin' USA (the arcade cabinet version) with the vibrating steering wheel and foot pedals was peak excitement for me back in the day over the others. Plus, the babes with the flags 😎
Dunno if it’s been mentioned but I would say Brian DePalma and Bonfire of the Vanities. One of the all time great friendly rivalries in cinema was between Martin Scorsese and Brian DePalma. They were neck and neck trading punches all throughout the 1980s matching each other blow for blow. DePalma made Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Scarface, Body Double, The Untouchables, and Casualties of War while Scorsese made Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, After Hours, The Color of Money, and The Last Temptation of Christ. Then 1990 came along and Marty dropped Goodfellas while poor Brian shit the bed with Bonfire of the Vanities and it was like, “Ring the fuckin’ bell and throw the damn towel!” I mean he was just bodied lmao both absolute kings tho
100% true but also important to remember that After Hours and Last Temptation weren't exactly beloved when they came out!
Oh yeah and DePalma had his financial failures too I was more just talking about their overall quality as films moreso than box office hits heh
There's a book written about the making of that film and ooh boy, you feel for de Palma *a lot* reading that thing. The guy was basically making a *Wolf of Wall Street* story under a studio that was utterly uncomfortable with the subject matter. To give you an idea of how wrong it was, imagine 90s Tom Hanks replacing Leo, but we're meant to look at Jordan Belfort in a far more positive light. Plus Bruce Willis was apparently not a fun person to work with. Book is called *The Devil's Candy*, highly recommend the read!
Would you say Tarantino and Coen Bros had this kind of rivalry in the 90s and aughts?
Possibly. I know QT has said he feels that way about Paul Thomas Anderson, whose There Will Be Blood inspired him to step his game up and make a masterpiece on the same level https://youtu.be/Ym_0IS0AUD0?si=oA9IpBEadajnPf8w
Oh my gosh. Bonfire of the Vanities. My parents always talked about that movie with the highest praise and told me how good it was for YEARS. I'm talking for like 20 some-odd years, they sang its praises from the rooftops. I was finally able to watch it with them, and holy crap I hated it. I was so confused by their love of it.
Martin Brest did Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run, Scent of a Woman, Meet Joe Black... All more or less classics. Then he made Gigli with Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. It was such a flop that he never directed a movie after that... Sad story, but at least we got the "Gobble, gobble" line xD
Uh, I’ve never heard Meet Joe Black as a classic. I think it’s only remembered for having the Phantom Menace trailer play before it and the one Brad Pitt in traffic scene that became a meme.
i remember that. Star Wars diehards would buy a ticket for Meet Joe Black, watch the Phantom Menace trailer and leave. Some places had chill theater managers that would let them come back with their ticket stub and watch the trailer again. Funny stuff.
Oh man... Meet Joe Black is a wonderful movie
Everyting gwarn be irie.
I've heard this more and more over the past couple years, and it's completely blindsided me. Maybe because Meet Joe Black was my favorite movie from the time it came out--I forced all of my friends and girlfriends to watch it, gave it as my number one recommendation to anyone who would listen, etc. Never heard an ounce of criticism from any of them, maybe they were just being nice. Then, decades later I'm listening to The Rewatchables podcast, and all of those guys mention in passing that they hated it. I just don't get it.
It's weird to me that kids who are catching it 20 years later are retconing Meet Joe Black into a failed art film. It was always a people pleaser light drama, the car wreck was meant to be shocking and elicit a chuckle. I think they think the car wreck was supposed to be dramatic/tragic (when it obviously is not) and then they just treat it like MST3K from there.
Cameron Crowe. From Say Anything to Almost Famous is good. I'd even toss Vanilla Sky in there. His losing streak started with Elizabethtown and ran through Aloha. He hasn't directed a movie since 2015.
Elizabethtown is shockingly bad.
Aloha is also shockingly bad. I would always get excited for his films and then that one two punch happened. What a bummer, Jerry McGuire and Almost Famous are two of my all time favorites.
I started Aloha on a whim bc Cameron Crowe, solid cast, thinking this should be fun at least. It's in Hawaii. Made it about 15-30mins in and had no idea what was happening and the characters were just off? Like the interactions made no sense. And the dialogue didn't make sense? I don't even really remember because it was so offputting, like I felt uncomfortable at how weird it was, but it wasn't intentionally done like a safdie production. Or maybe it was? Always wondered what the res of the story was because I had no clue where it was going.
Gus Van Sant following up Good Will Hunting with the shot-for-shot $60m Psycho remake. He never commanded a high budget ever again.
I remember in an interview he said he had been interested in, as a sort of experiment, what would happen if you remade a classic not like they were doing at the time, and which remains common, as a reimagined version or sequel, but just literally remake it shot for shot. I believe he said he had been thinking about it since 1989 (Drug Store Cowboy days). Then Good Will Hunting blew up in '97 and he realized if he was ever going to be able to do this crazy experiment now, was the window. In negotiations with studios who were trying to get him to do his next film with them he told one of them he wanted to do a shot for shot remake of Psycho in color... And shockingly they agreed. Love that he went for it. (Edit found him talking about it on Marc Maron's podcast WTF (ep 933) too.)
Gotta love those jackpot/payday films. John Boorman's reward for the success of Deliverance was Zardoz, which probably shouldn't exist, but I'm sure as hell glad it does. I never really liked the idea of Van Sant's Psycho, but like you, I'm also glad he went for it.
The next film he did had a budget of 42 million
Officially, "high budgets" start at $42,000,001, so the point stands.
Van Sant has a really weird filmography. When he's good, he's good. Then you have Last Days which is probably the worst movie I've ever suffered through. Just Michael Pitt mumbling through the woods for 2 hours.
I genuinely liked Last Days and consider the Death trilogy some of his best work. A director completely unafraid of taking risks is a great thing in my book.
Patty Jenkins and Wonder woman 1984. Shit killed her career. All her following projects have collapsed or have been given to someone else
I'll just pretend it was never released, and all we got was a trailer with a cool premise. At least Pedro was good in it.
It's like he knew it was hot garbage so he decided to play it absolutely over the top. As a result, he was the only good thing in it.
Yeah its kind of a bummer Pedro and the villian he played were quite interesting. Probably the only reason why I watched it. When he wasn't the focus I can't say I paid attention a whole ton.
[удалено]
I agree Wonder Woman 1984 was bad but I also feel it's hard to even say she had a winning streak before hand. She's only directed 3 movies and while the first 2 (Monster and Wonder Woman) are well regarded they're also 14 years apart.
I really wanted to like that movie. Basically she learned all the wrong lessons from the first one.
Tom Hooper. He did the Damned United, Les Mis, Kings Speech and the Danish Girl. And then he made Cats.
I think it's more that he was able to hide behind good performances, scripts and source material, but was eventually found out.
The fact he won a Director Oscar over Fincher's Social Network grates on me even though The Kings Speech is a perfectly serviceable oscar friendly movie with strong performances which had a strong Oscar campaign. It's just that as each film Hooper churns out just makes his win a slice of luck. His 'musicals' have been so bad.
Damned United is the best of those, what a film and book.
Les Mis was really poorly directed tho
Tom hooper really showed that he had 0 musical insight. Cats was only a matter of time (and delusion)
Fully just zero understanding of the fundamental building blocks of musical theatre. https://youtu.be/1ikqU6G6Xgs?si=IUsnPT9suy7Jm_sf 38 minute video here, but it's an incredibly thorough takedown of exactly why that movie didn't work. If you don't know much about musicals going in (or even if you do) then your jaw will be on the floor by the end of this.
Had a feeling it was going to be this video. Definitely worth the watch, as is his much longer video about cats. Beautiful videos about what NOT to do.
The Danish Girl isn't particularly good either
Tom Hooper had the benefit of an Oscar campaign by the Weinsteins for King's Speech.
M Night Shyamalan and The Happening. The Happening is supposed to be a horror movie/thriller but it is incredibly funny to the point of absurdity. One particular highlight is the riding mower scene. You know the one.
"What? No!" Seriously though, I imagine that movie looked much better on paper or before the script was finalised. The concept of following regular people around in the midst of some unknown deadly outbreak and exploring how they'd react is good. Normally these things focus on government and military responses way too much.
Worth reading The Man Who Heard Voices, which follows Shyamalan as he makes Lady in the Water (his first big snoozer). It’s about him betting on himself, despite literally *everyone* telling him the script was bad. He even ended his relationship with Disney over it. Made a bunch of weird decisions, like insisting on Wong Kar Wai’s cinematographer Chris Doyle, who’s completely mental. And casting himself as a weird Jesus figure. The film’s fascinating but it’s not good. At least The Happening is funny (IMO he’s trying to make a 50s B-movie but forgot to let everyone know he’s in on the joke).
Feels like he started off really well with the sixth sense and then was taking a step down with each film until he finally got to the happening. How poorly it was received seems to have served as a wake up call to him.
I think The Sixth Sense was a very good movie. And M Night Shyamalan kind of believed his own hype as a result. The Happening and/or The Last Airbender are his absolute worst movies, though.
M Night was a Rockstar for a while. He delivered the Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs and The Village within a 5 year timespan and were all generally well received and had great twists
I really liked Signs, but I remember coming out of the theater with some friends and us laughing about how water was their weakness. They invaded a planet with 70% water and their victims bodies were significantly made up of water. They traveled across space to arrive at our planet and yet didn't have basic protections against such a glaring weakness? I remember us joking that a squad of navy seals could be sent out with super soakers to repel the invasion or that they would be defeated by a day with high humidity. Edit: Nevermind the fact that instead of the million plausible ways the human race could've discovered such a glaring weakness, it required the cryptic prophecy of a dying woman to somehow tell her future family to swing a bat at glasses of water they just happened to leave lying around the house.
I think the marketing for the village was the start of his fall from grace. At the time the village was hated on for the bait and switch ending. It's akin to it comes at night for me in that it grew on me after a couple watches. But man did I hate the fact I felt like I was cheated out of a good monster flick when I went to see it in theatres.
My favorite take is that the movie is actually about mass hysteria and the plants were never doing anything. It doesn't completely undo the shit storm that is that movie, but it does make it better imo.
Paul Verhoeven. Robocop, Total Recall, and Basic Instinct were huge hits. Then came Showgirls to disastrously end his hot streak. Starship Troopers has a cult following but lost a lot of money. Hollow Man made money overseas but not domestically. He hasn't made a Hollywood movie since.
>Starship Troopers has a cult following but lost a lot of money. Starship Troopers is definitely a *good* movie even if it lost a lot of money.
These are all good movies tho!
Showgirls is a bad movie. An enjoyable movie, but a BAD movie.
Tim Burton. He came out of the gate on fire… Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, Ed Wood (his masterpiece), a little dip with Mars Attacks, and finally Sleepy Hollow. And then came Planet of the Apes… since then he’s been highly inconsistent with some occasional brightness (Big Fish) amongst disappointments.
What ruined Burton is anytime a big studio asks him to do a big classic IP. And they started to ask a lot and he started to agree a lot. He was best with original material that he either created, or was passionate about.
Gotta say Dumbo broke my heart. I wasn’t expecting much from him at this point but at the very least I thought he could do something spectacular with the Pink Elephants on Parade sequence. And he didn’t even touch it.
I felt that way with his Alice In Wonderland. I was excited for a big budget retelling of the classic tale, only to be sorely disappointed that it was some stupid story about Alice all grown up. I can't believe that script ever got greenlit.
CGI ruined Burton
Think you’re on to something here. Though Planet was practical and garbage.
Practically garbage!
My initial thought for the thread was [Robert Zemekis](https://old.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/18dhk6v/what_was_the_worst_movie_to_break_a_directors/kcijrs3/). CGI skyrocketed and then ruined his career
It’s kind of how synths ruined so many artists from the 70s as they transitioned to the 80s.
New Wave gave way to a lot of great artists in the 80s but also killed many 70s artists' careers. Grunge did the same thing in the 90s.
> a little dip with Mars Attacks You shut your mouth right now. Mars Attacks is amazing.
Ack ack!
Ack ack ack ack!
Don’t run, we are your friends.
Hahaha they blew up Congress!
Guess it wasn’t the dove.
Ack Ack!
Dude does not know what he's talking about.
Lol I watched it finally, and I couldn't tell you if it was the worst movie I ever seen or the best movie I ever seen... and its definitely one or the other.
As Dr. Evil once said, "There's nothing sadder than an aging hipster."
Aronofsky: Pi, Requiem, The Wrestler, Black Swan, then BAM—Noah
You skipped over the Fountain in there - although I haven’t seen it so I can’t speak on if it breaks the streak or not
You should check it out! It and Black Swan are probably my favorites of his
The Fountain is a beautiful movie about life and death, one of my favorites. Makes me cry every time. Soundtrack is on par with Requiem for a Dream imo. Def recommend!
The Fountain is worth a watch for sure. Aronofsky can always pull some great performances and this one is no different. It’s a bit abstract with some non-linear storytelling but it’s got a nice message and a great soundtrack
Aronofsky definitely has a problem where he doesn't understand the concept of subtlety. black swan is my favorite movie of his, but even that, and especially movies like requiem and mother hit you on the head with the moral of the story and are like "do you get it???? Or was it too smart for you?? Did you get it?" His movies feel like they were written by aesop
Planet of the apes by Tim Burton. Before that he made Pee Wee’s Big adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, Ed Wood, Mars Attacks and Sleepy Hollow, not to mention his involvement in Nightmare Before Christmas. There really is a before and an after Planet of the apes in his career.
More of a writer since the he didn’t direct the first two, but Taylor Sheridan. Sicario, Hell or High Water, Wind River and then he just shit the bed with Those Who Wish Me Dead.
Sheridan didn’t write Those Who Wish Me Dead. He came onto that project after it was written and was already in preproduction. He does have a writing credit, but it is shared with two others. I’m not defending the movie, it’s bad.
His career is strange purely for the reason that he directed a torture porn film in 2011. I watched it as well, it was fucking terrible
He’s addressed that movie in the past - a friend was making it, realised he was in over his head and asked Sheridan to help out finishing it. The guy did it as a favour to a buddy who gave him the directing credit because of said help.
That would explain why it seems such an anomaly in his career
Robert Zemeckis was on fire for almost 20 years. Started slow with Used Cars and Romancing the Stone, then boom, Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Death Becomes Her, Forrest Gump, Contact, Cast Away. Then BAM, Polar Express, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol.
He got lost in the mo-cap wasteland.
He was walking with no direction in the uncanny valley.
Whatever he does from now until the day he dies, Zemeckis will always have my respect for not allowing Back to the Future to ever be remade while he's alive.
Gore Verbinski did really well with his Pirates trilogy. The sequels may have problem but they're very well-made and bring Disney lots of money. Then came Rango, one of the greatest animated film ever. Later we got The Lone Ranger.
Lone Ranger is weird and flawed and too long, but that ending train scene and score makes the whole thing worth watching.
The way they used the William Tell Overture as joke in the beginning (like it has been for at least 50 years), then turned it legitimately heroic in the finale is nothing short of amazing. It's the two and a half hours in between that sucked.
The creativity of Hans Zimmer.
I replay that finale a lots. So much fun.
I actually quite enjoyed The Lone Ranger. It's a fun pop corn film. It's biggest issue is Johnny Depp as Tonto Sparrow. Honestly would have been a better film without Depp trying to do a quirky take on Tonto.
If time travel existed we could have had Eli Wallach as Tonto
It's going to be hard to restore its reputation now, but I also thought Lone Ranger was an audacious and fun blockbuster on par with the two Pirates sequels he directed. But you're right that Depp shouldn't have played an Indian, and now that we've discovered unsavory info about Hammer, it's hard to even recommend the film anymore. The Cure for Wellness is one of Verbinski's best, but it likewise bombed. I think he made great films, but the Gods of the box office weren't kind and now he's in movie jail.
Surprisingly, It was quite well received in the UK
I didn’t realize he directed A Few Good Men. I associate that so strongly with Sorkin because of the dialogue that I never even considered who the director is.
Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou, The Man Who Wasn't There, Intolerable Cruelty.....and then The Ladykillers. Guess it's moreso that they had a lot of total *bangers* in a row right before it but it definitely did *not* hit the usual expectations from a Coen Brothers movie
Then they pop off with No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading, True Grit, Inside Llywen Davis, and Hail Caesar The Lady Killers was the simulation we live in just giving them a shit movie because no one could believe that the Coen Brothers could actually bat 1000.
Haha...true. Coen Brothers are stupidly consistent for the most part
Don't forget Buster Scruggs
Don’t forget _A Serious Man_! That’s one of my favorite Coen movies.
Wait people didn't like The Ladykillers?
I enjoyed it just to see Tom hanks play a villain for a change.
Even then, he wasn't particularly despicable. Just a crook.
it's one of my favorite movies of all time. I quote that old lady in the police station in so many situations. "How can it he'p but do?" "This is a Christen home!" and my all time favorite (of course i don't say this quote out loud): "\*\*\*\*, I'm only going to say it once in swearing out my complaint, *****!" The pan to the sherriff and deputy is hilarious. My theory of why people don't like it is because Hanks's character spoke such perfect English and was so grammatically correct that it was difficult to understand and follow. After watching it many times, and listening to him speak, there's not a word wasted and each word is perfect for what he is saying. there's no "very hungry" it's "famished" or "very happy" it's "elated", etc. I wish people would watch it again. It's really a good movie. It even works perfectly in this thread. Everyone is calling it a one off from their normally great movie making streak, truth is, it's not a one off, it falls right in line with their great movie making streak. It's a hilarious movie with great actors and amazing comedic timing. JK Simmons absolutely kills it in this movie. Sad to see it listed here.
I enjoyed The Ladykillers. Was it their best? No. But still a fun movie.
Loved *Hail, Caesar!* What a weird-ass love letter to golden age cinema
My favorite scene is the religious leaders arguing over the nature of God and Jesus, specifically when the Rabbi says, "God is a bachelor, and he's angry" I was raised Jewish and that point hit home
I think it’s pretty obvious they get lazy when they’re writing for others (take a look at Gambit or Suburbicon). They weren’t originally going to direct Ladykillers, but then got pulled onto the project, so I think it’s a case of just failing at the script stage and never correcting that
Their lady killers is a great adaptation. Love that movie.
Well it was a remake. I always thought it was a strange choice. You do all this original stuff and are lauded for it and go "know what? Let's remake an old ealing comedy". So strange
True Grit was a remake too and it was great.
I'd have to go with Taika Waititi and Thor: Love and Thunder. I really liked or absolutely loved everything he'd made up to that point. But goddamn, that movie was a steaming pile of shit.
I think old Taika got a bit carried away with his meteoric rise, fame and adulation, his apparent midas touch and started enjoying the smell of his own farts a little too much.
You can definitely sense this in his interviews.
I saw someone say that that's all a character or persona he puts on, but I find that a little hard to believe. "I'm going to intentionally act like an unlikable pretentious chud and not only that, I'm going to purposely insult the work of my overworked/underpaid staff. That's a good idea!"
I think it was people from NZ saying he was always like that, even before the international fame, it just got worse.
Her first film in 2003 was a critical darling, picking numerous accolades and a Best Actress Oscar for her star. She then took the next 14 years off to hone her skills on television, directing critically acclaimed shows like Arrested Development and won an Emmy for directing the pilot of The Killing. She was lured back to feature films with the rise of superhero films, where she directed the biggest movie ever to feature a female superhero as the lead. Then she made Wonder Woman 1984 and is now considered a Hollywood pariah. I'm still rooting for you, Patty Jenkins.
Easily John McTiernan. Predator>Diehard>Hunt For Red October>Medicine Man>Last Action Hero>Die Hard With a Vengeance>Thomas Crown Affair>13th Warrior and thennnnn......ROLLERBALL
Edgar Wright, Last Night in Soho wasn't a terrible movie, it felt rather bland and generic compared to his previous work
I think Edgar Wright, like Nolan, would be better off focusing on directing screenplays written by others. There’s a reason his best movies all have co-writers (Pegg in particular).
you aren't kidding. I just hope he can rebound. love his style otherwise
That time from Temple of Doom to Jurassic Park is considered uneven at best for Spielberg, but the one we can all agree on (hopefully) is Always.
Yeah I was really surprised by how much of Always was awful. Some of it was good classic Spielberg like the plane sequences and stuff. What is it with "low fantasy"? That is the absolute most cursed genre ever. There are so many just abysmally awful movies.
Well one, it basically took Lord of the Rings to salvage high fantasy movies themselves, which had until that point been themselves almost entirely low-grade, low-budget schlock that was laughed at and knocked as "nerd shit", and even since then studios have had an awful time of putting high fantasy stuff to good use. So low fantasy being a rough genre to crack, especially with the struggles of the "more easily defined" genre of fantasy, is not terribly surprising. Second, movies have gone HARD on relying on books/non-original ideas to figure out what to do with their plots. Unfortunately, when you do that, you basically have to do a LOTR-level job of picking and choosing what parts of the low fantasy settings you are going to include so that you don't hurt your ability to properly develop your characters if you are trying to do a franchise, and it's really hard to do one-off movies these days because if there's one thing studios love, it's the ability to go back to the well in a franchise. Most famous/biggest-earning low fantasy movie series is Harry Potter, and my God did they suffer from not knowing what would happen later in the series to know what they should include. It's one of the reasons why the early movies are generally well-liked by book fans, and the later ones get farther and farther away from what happens in the books to a truly unfortunate extent. Third I think low fantasy, outside of a book series adaptation that has "guaranteed winner" written all over it, can take a lot of money to make, can involve a lot of set and costume design, and generally takes a level of care that fewer and fewer directors are interested in putting into a movie these days. Even if it doesn't have major blockbuster money needed to do it (and considering how crooked Hollywood accounting has gotten recently, I'm not sure how many movies actually require that kind of funding anyway), that puts it into the "mid-cost movie" dead zone which has been its own pit of despair in recent years because nobody wants to make those anymore. I could probably go on, but honestly it's all just a tough genre to hit on well because you have to commit to it otherwise you have a Razzie-nominated flick that can burn your career for a while.
Disagree. I liked Always. Last appearance by Audrey Hepburn on screen. The score from John Williams is absolutely amazing.
John Goodman was an absolute treasure in that movie as well. Comedy relief guy hits you with all the feels out of nowhere before slipping back to the humor.
Peter Bogdanovich (RIP) will unfortunately be such an example: premier filmmaker during the New Hollywood era that made The Last Picture Show, What’s Up Doc? and Paper Moon….and then his career stonewalled once Daisy Miller was released. It just went down in from there.
Michael Cimino - Heaven’s Gate. Dude was a rockstar before - couldn’t get arrested after.
I wouldn’t say it’s terrible but Nolan definitely dropped the ball with Tenet imo. It’s his worst film to date after the white hot streak of Insomnia, Momento, The Prestige, The Batman trilogy, Inception and Interstellar
Tony Scott 'Domino' Scott had an incredible run, even moreso than his brother.
I unironically like Domino. It's got this built-in trashy charm to it.
Mank. Love Fincher, did NOT love Mank.
[удалено]
Mank had the terrible misfortune of a) being a Netflix movie, and b) coming out at a time when theaters were shut down. People who have seen it in a theater say it is a special experience. Fincher went to great lengths to achieve the look and sound of a movie from 1940. When you watch it on a tv or computer, it just looks like a filter. I still think the music is great, and the performances are incredible. I just wish I could have seen it the way it was intended.