The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I want to have a pretentious-ass film geek talk. Who are your favorite filmmakers? Do you like Ingmar Bergman? I don't. Someone once responded to that by saying, "Do you like Godard?" and when I said yes he said, "That explains it then." I had no idea what he meant, but it made me realize you can't talk about directors without being a twat. So anyway, my favorites are probably Jim Jarmusch and Martin Scorcese. Jarmusch basically has done the near-impossible several times: tell a story. Plain and simple, just pure storytelling with nothing to "get." You might look for a message, but it's simply not there. And that is amazing to me. And Scorcese just makes the tightest, most gorgeously-constructed movies. And granted that has to do with his DP and editor and everyone else, but he can make a fucking movie like no one's business.

STEVEN SPLELBEG LOLS@!!!

I can't totally knock the man who directed Indiana Jones, no matter how much Munich annoyed the piss out of me.

I'm quite fond of Quentin Tarantino.

Not because he does bloody nerd fests. Well, not just because he does those. I like that he writes and directs a lot of the time. I also love his dialogue. Sometimes its almost like poetry, what comes from the mouths of his foul miscreant characters.

wes anderson is #1.
terry gilliam
i'm just getting into woody allen.
what i've seen of bergman is totally awesome. the seventh seal is one of my favorites.
kubrick is always good. eyes wide shut was pretty stupid though.
i like m. knight shyamalan a lot. (yes, i even liked signs and the village and whatever other movie of his it isn't cool to like.)
i'm not too fond of tarantino. his movies just irk me a bit. don't know why. maybe it's just because i don't like gratuitous violence.

David Lynch, Werner Herzog, Michael Haneke and Takashi Miike are a few that spring immediately to mind. I love Stan Brakhage if that kind of film counts in this discussion.

Hayao Miyazaki is my fave my a mile; I feel strange admitting it. Kids these days don't know what they're missing if they've not seen his films. If I could only see the work of one director for the rest of my life, I'd choose his.

Wes Anderson sneaks in at number 2.

Jarmusch is pretty cool, I'd never say he was one of my favourites but I have enjoyed what I've seen by him and it's not the kind of film-making I see a lot of so it's nice to get another angle on life. Plus I like seeing Tom Waits in films cos he's schmoove.

When I finally got round to sitting through a couple of Ingmar Bergman's I found them to be way more watchable than I'd expected; I dunno why I expected nothing but doom-laden imagery but there's always a light-hearted element to balance it out. Wild Strawberries in particular was revolutionary in my personal development of film appreciation in the way it focused on, and largely succeeded in portraying, finer emotions and sentiments. I think it gave me a more optimistic outlook, if only subtley so. Won Kar-Wai's similar in that respect - I actually felt the need to own his films cos there's still a lot in them that I forget about after only one viewing.

Also, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, he's not infallible but I love his style and he's done a couple of my favourites, and I've really liked everything I've seen by Wolfgang Becker.

[Edit] oh yeah, Terry Gilliam's the man.

Robert Rodriguez makes pretty fun movies.

I don't know what it is, but I loathe Bergman. And every movie I see is worse than the last. I saw Seventh Seal and was sort of like "ok." Then I saw Wild Strawberries and then Persona. I just thought it was all dreadful. Maybe it's because I'm more interested in writing and the writing just isn't the focus, but jesus. It's just relentlessly slow and heavy. Persona particularly just pissed me off when it wasn't putting me to sleep. Showing a monologue over one character's shoulder and then showing it over the other's so you can see the way both of their faces are showing their emotions ends up being less interesting in execution, especially when both characters could be shown at the same time through some fucking editing, you know? I didn't need a 5 minute boring monologue turned into a 10 minute one. I dunno, I always feel like I'm missing something, but maybe it boils down to the fact that my favorite movie of all time is Repo Man and I'm just not high-brow enough. Which reminds me, Alex Cox is awesome. Straight to Hell is another great movie.

luke, i agree with you about persona. that was one of those movies were you're just like "what the fuck just happened?" and he doesn't give you any clue as to what it's all about.

i've yet to see wild strawberries.

M. Night Shyamalan is a good director, but he always tries to make his movies look scarier than they are. Usually they are fairly good movies, but not scary at all.

jolly roger wrote:M. Night Shyamalan is a good director, but he always tries to make his movies look scarier than they are. Usually they are fairly good movies, but not scary at all.

i think that has more to do with the advertising agencies or whoever is in charge of that.

His movies look gorgeous, but for chrissakes. It's like he writes the twist first and then builds a movie around it for justification.

M. Night Shyamalan once came into the store where I work. We chatted. Seemed like a nice guy.

Hitchcock.....Old School!!!!!

Scorsese would get my vote purely for goodfellas (i'm a jersey girl. . .it's in my heart lol) but i'd have to say as far as consistent good work goes, I'd have to say my favorite directors of all time fall between M. Night Shamylan (sp?) and Tim Burton. Normally I'd be hesitant to list shamylan but there's something about his worth that flat out makes the grade . There are so many good ones though that I'm sure I'll be kicking myself for the rest of the day for leaving them out lol

I think some people here like Shyamalan's writing more than his direction. His direction, imo, leaves a lot to be desired.

Kubrick, from Spartacus on up the line through A.I., is my favorite director. Eyes Wide Shut and A.I. are both very good movies (acknowledging that Spielberg directed the latter, but I just wanted to preempt everybody saying it sucks--though everybody I think hates it for the writing, not the direction and special effects and acting and so forth). Full Metal Jacket and The Shining are both terrifying and well-made, Barry Lyndon is good but it's not my cup of meat, A Clockwork Orange is a great film, Dr. Strangelove is maybe the apex of dark comedy and 2001 is maybe a peak for science fiction. Am I leaving anything out? Hmm... Oh, Lolita: didn't really grab me. I think that censorship may have played a role in that.

Hayao Miyazaki is superior and I haven't seen anything of his that I disliked, to date. His films are very engaging. Also Asian and favorites of mine: Akira Kurosawa, Ang Lee, Yimou Zhang.

Ah... who else? I thought I was a QT guy, but Pulp Fiction's really the only one I love. Reservoir Dogs I might love but I haven't seen it in a while, but Jackie Brown, True Romance, and the Kill Bill movies, they're not imo great. Kill Bill might be. He's uneven in his output, but that doesn't make him a bad director... I think he needs to moderate himself a little more than he does. Same with Shyamalan. Needs an editor who's less timid.

Paul Thomas Anderson ruuuules. So does David O. Russell. So do Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze. Wes Anderson is not that great; same with QT and Shyamalan, his foibles really bug me when they're so prominent and incessant. Get your characters and scenes dirty, for crying out loud... he's no Rembrandt, whatever his pretentions. More later, maybe, I have a bbq to go to.

David O. Russell is awesome. A-fuckin-greed.

Richard Linklater. Dazed and Confused might just be my favorite film ever. Not to mention the extraordinary energy he brings into potential throwaways like School of Rock.

The first two hours of AI are good. It's those last three hours that are just interminable.

My favorite director: Wim Wenders

JB

coen brothers, david lynch, john ford, kubrick, hitchcock, john huston, francis ford coppolla, old ridley scott, scorcese, terry gilliam, and yes.....spielberg.

Spielberg has done some fantastic work, there's no denying it in my book. Also I need to see Paris, Texas, speaking of Wim Wenders (but more importantly Sam Shepard).