Worst Directors of All Time -- NOMINATIONS Thread

List 'em all. I'll count 'em up and at some point do a regular poll. And please, no obvious challops-bait like Stanley Kubrick or Hitchcock or Ingmar Bergman (unless you have a compelling reason for listing such folks as the WOAT).

the usual suspects:

Ed Wood Jr.
Coleman Francis
Uwe Boll

Michael Bay (extremely obv)

Brett Ratner

Roger Corman.

At least Ed Wood had a vision.

Mystery Science Theatre quote:

"Roger Corman? oh, this one's gonna go down hard, folks"...

Renny Harlin

^^^^^^^^ Exorcist: The Beginning was an incoherent pile of shit. I didn't think the original cut, Dominion, was amazing, but it was fucking Casablanca in comparison....

Schumacher

Schumacher

i WAS wondering when he would be mentioned. his rightly-deplored batman films notwithstanding, i still like flatliners and falling down.

Alan Rudolph

alan smithee

xxp - Flatliners I liked at the time (in eighth grade), but I caught it on cable recently & was surprised at how bad the acting was (and considering the caliber of some of the actors..). I'll rep for The Lost Boys & I didn't realize he did Falling Down (which I also remember liking, but haven't seen since back in the day), but the man has got a ton of cheesy schmaltzy crap on his resume. Not just the Batman films.

Tom DiCillo

Tommy Wiseau, surely. Tho with him and Ed Wood on the list this might be more like Most Fun Worst Director of All Time

McG

kevin smith

Richard Kelly

James Wan

batman forever was rad. i love how two face looked like the acid he got splashed with had some kool aid in it.

m. night shalamayan

batman forever was anal leakage on a plate. zzzzzzzzzzzzz inducing.

did you color all your coloring books in school wif black black black. cuz i did. then i discovered reading rainbow and rainbows in general. colors are good for the world, and b. forever brought some into the gothic world o' batman. ps adam west 4-ever

ahh hell even Burton's batman movies had lighthearted moments. but Batman Forever was cornball in a bad way. Val Kilmer was way miscast too. and the 'wink at the camera' jokes were more annoying than sly. boo.

Howard Deutch

whenever you need a horrible sequel, he's ready to jump on board

batman and robin was pretty dire tho, i'll give ya that.

worst director ever: some nobody no one's ever never heard of, surely. ok, maybe Paul Haggis. c'mon, if a movie is directed by a guy w/ sheep guts in his name, for-get it.

Harold P. Warren (but as in above, this is in a 'so bad it's good' category, thanks to Manos: Hands of Fate)

Brian Levant (but now i'm starting to get into "they chose reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally bad material" territory)

Rob Zombie (seriously, for all his hype, dude has made maybe one watchable movie)?

but that is one more than a terrible director should have.

Gaspar Noe

eh even a bad director can strike gold once. and for the record, the one film was Devil's Rejects, which I would have given 3 stars at best. Zombie has a penchant for awful dialogue and really caricaturic characters typical of a b-movie, except he seems to take the movies too seriously at times (read Halloween remakes).

Sidney Lumet

dammit when does enter the void come out in, like, a cinema i can go to xxp

WHAT? the mere existence of Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead means you crazy. unless you're just challopsing

The number of bad films in his filmography outnumbers the good ones.

*outnumber

Love a lot of Lumet's movies but even the best are kinda good bad movies.

I'd almost place Clint Eastwood on the list. The modest quality of his good movies, his productivity, and his beloved old codger status with the Academy helps him.

While I didn't fully agree with what Morbius said, it's pretty difficult to put a director who had 5-6 films that are considered classics on the "worst directors of all time list" alongside people who at best came up with one or two watchable but not really "good" movies.

that was about Lumet, not Eastwood btw

Howards End aside (where the actors and material are so strong), I'd put James Ivory there too.

This thread can only be fun if we avoid obvious abominations like Brett Ratner, Schumacher, and Roland Emmerich.

I really think if he made more movies, Robert DeNiro could join this list. I didn't see a Bronx Tale, but Good Sheperd struck me as being made by someone who didn't understand the craft. Overlong, poorly paced (I fell asleep), and relied way too much on mood music (which played almost continuously throughout the movie!)

The number of bad films in his filmography outnumbers the good ones.

So, Mel Brooks and Brian De Palma, in?

Arthur Hiller.

I agree, but we had to get them out of the way first lest we forget to nominate them. Obvious or not, they still deserve to be there!

Plus we shouldn't be NOMINATING PEOPLE LIKE SIDNEY LUMET...FDAFLDAJ;FKLDAJDK;ALJ.

why on earth not?

We should be. Rather than just argue about who's the most technically inept, which wd give you the usual suspects list and almost certainly be a straight win for Ed Wood, it seems fair to factor in stuff like resources available, critical rep, ambition etc. Worst director shouldn't only be about basic technique I don't think.

kudos to everyone for avoiding the obvious thread-bait of Guy Ritchie. most therads woulda had him in by post #2.

Oh god Ritchie totally deserves a nom tho.

gonna throw the name Tom Putnam out there

I ain't saying "big names" are off limits but the idea of Sidney Lumet being attached to a list of "worst director of all time" would have a lot of film circles guffawing.

for the record, many of my nominees came off of mostly final product, not merely the 'technique' going in. a b-movie director who achieves his desired results to me is functional and not worthy of the list. likewise, I would penalize someone who was gifted and takes the "easy way out".

*waits for someone to nominate Spielberg*. (for the record I'd totally disagree with it but it happens in these threads a lot).

The number of bad films in his filmography outnumbers the good ones.

Which would make Francis Ford Coppola the worst director of all time.

Tom Putnam did this. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804492/ I have seen it. Nothing is worse. Not even Irreversible. Which somehow finished 5th in my 00's ballot. Don't worry Morbs, I'll grow out of it some day...

Eli Roth?

Hard Time: Hostage Hotel (1999) (TV)
... aka "Hostage Hotel" - USA (alternative title)
Street Luge (1996)
Bandit: Bandit's Silver Angel (1994) (TV)
... aka "Bandit: Bandit and the Silver Angel" - USA (alternative title)
Bandit: Beauty and the Bandit (1994) (TV)
Bandit: Bandit Bandit (1994) (TV)
Bandit: Bandit Goes Country (1994) (TV)
"B.L. Stryker" (1 episode, 1990)
- Grand Theft Hotel (1990) TV episode

Body Slam (1986)
Rad (1986)
Cannonball Run II (1984)
Stroker Ace (1983)
... aka "Stand on It" - Australia, USA (working title)
Megaforce (1982)
... aka "Mega Force" - Philippines (English title)
The Cannonball Run (1981)
Stockers (1981) (TV)
Smokey and the Bandit II (1980)
Stunts Unlimited (1980) (TV)
Death Car on the Freeway (1979) (TV)
The Villain (1979)
Hooper (1978)
Smokey and the Bandit (1977)

@Eazy: exactly. I dunno being a .500 director seems like a good won-loss record to me. especially if you're the ambitious type, given the greater risk of failing...

Eli Roth is good at suspense, visual composition...all the things that are missing from the man I'm leaning toward seconding, Kevin Smith. Other than him, I'm tempted to nominate Kevin Spacey (Albino Alligator), John Cougar Mellencamp, Dwight Yoakam, and Paul Auster, but more of them are people-who-directed-a-movie than a movie director.

Which would make Francis Ford Coppola the worst director of all time.

Coppola has a technical competence that Lumet's never shown; the poor guy doesn't yet know how to frame or edit a picture. Even the good Lumets like Network and The Verdict are writer's pictures.

On the evidence, Jason Reitman might deserve inclusion in a few years. His vision, such as it is, is pretty disgusting.

ban

Eli Roth ie Cabin Fever was good but that's because it was allowed to breathe and unfold without the constant sledgehammer to the temple of his later works. Granted he was likely just following the James Wan movement but the Hostels were just garbage.

maybe too small of a collection to add to this list, hence my question mark - guess we'll have to see what's up next.

Sam Mendes.

Lasse Hallstrom

Stephen Daldry

this is sure going to be one poll filled with tension once it gets created. soooooooo looking forward to this.

anyone gonna man up and mention Jean-Pierre Jeunet? Well I will then

I really think if he made more movies, Robert DeNiro could join this list. I didn't see a Bronx Tale, but Good Sheperd struck me as being made by someone who didn't understand the craft. Overlong, poorly paced (I fell asleep), and relied way too much on mood music (which played almost continuously throughout the movie!)

― Ballistic, Saturday, February 27, 2010 10:36 AM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

actors who've directed one or two movies are too easy a target imo

Yup.

Prince of the City is edited and framed just fine

that's why I said he could join the list IF he directed more movies.

We'll always disagree on that one. The way he treats Treat Williams in that picture puts the lie to the claim that he does wonders with actors.

xpost

I can't believe someone said Sam Mendes...Revolutionary Road was beautiful. Jarhead was bad but still!

I agree with all that's being said about Eli Roth, he is definitely terrible and I dislike Tarantino, his films are fun to watch but he is an awful director, his whole copy and past schtick is getting old.
Michael Bay should be included even though he directed Bad Boys 1 & 2.
I think I'm the only person who actually really liked 'The Village' and 'Unbreakable'...

RR had Leo's best performance in years, but like all Mendes' films it's conceived as a circus: small pictures whose histrionics have a stage quality. I always think of Gary Merrill's "the THEE-A-TAH, the THEE-A-TAH" monologue from All About Eve.

i'd forgotten all about m. night shamalamadingdong. he definitely deserves a mention here.

Errr...shamalamadingdong deserves his place but I still stan for The Village and Unbreakable.
Lol about Mendes. You may have a point there.
Has anyone included Polanski? Or is that a different topic?

hur hur that indian fella sure has a lot of syllalalallalables in his name amirite

If no-one's going to say Sofia Coppola I will.
Jennifer Lynch
Stephen King - anyone seen Maximum Overdrive? Shame he never made another film after that...can we really count one film wonders though?

Michael Bay should be included *because* he directed Bad Boys 2.

M Night Shamwow had his moments - but i have a feeling we're gonna wind up nominating every director ever.

i still like the sixth sense, but shyamalan (OK i got his last name right IS THAT OK NOW?!?) ruined the otherwise fine unbreakable w/ its unbelievably lame & retarded "twist" ending. a conventional view, i know, but it's still my view.

i can understand guy ritchie hate on any number of levels (i haven't seen his sherlock holmes thing yet), and i don't think lock, stock has aged well, but i'll stan for snatch and there's something to be said for the mess that is revolver.

m. night chamois-shirt

shy gamelan

also, re Jennifer Lynch -- she deserves mention for boxing helena but until a moment ago i thought that that was her only film. now i see via wikipedia that she's done 2 new films in the recent past -- i guess that i hadn't heard of either till now is a pretty good indication that these 2 new films are also crap?!?

anyone gonna man up and mention Jean-Pierre Jeunet? Well I will then

― congratulation mgmt (acoleuthic), Saturday, February 27, 2010 3:57 PM (54 minutes ago)

earlier work makes this wronger than wrong could be

This is really just going to turn into a list of all directors ever, isn't it?

ok i haven't seen delicatessen but my friend assures me it's not very good. persuade me otherwise?

your friend is an idiot.

persuasion over

also i will totally rep for city of lost children.

ron howard

it would be cool if this was not just a huge list of challops, but this is ilx so i guess that is hopeless.

if two more people speak out aggressively in jeunet's favour i will withdraw my nomination

i mean guys there are legitimately terrible directors out there, a rolling list of INSERT FAMOUS POPULAR DIRECTOR HERE is kind of lame

for example, as much as i love some troma stuff, Lloyd Kaufman deserves to be on here more than like 90% of the list so far.

I agree.This list is really going to just be about issues we have with certain films e.g 'Yeah that fight scene was beautifully shot but the backing music was not to my taste. WORST DIRECTOR EVER'

People who I am sure of as terrible directors are:
Michael Bay (I still love Bad Boys)
M. Night Shymalan
Uwe Boll
Sofia Coppola
Eli Roth

Yeah but like I said where wd be the fun in a list of genuinely incompetent directors? These threads are never set up to be "let's all agree who is terrible".

Aggressively speaking out in favour of Delicatessen and CoLC btw.

sorry, stuck at work on a saturday, slightly hungover and irritable. didnt mean to get all aggro there for a second.

xpost

see i totally disagree w/the eli roth noms, but i completely understand why he'd make this list.

Sofia Coppola is not a TERRIBLE director. Both Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette should be enough to make up for all the hatred towards Lost in Translation.

Thing is, all of the "oh but obviously this director is not the worst ever look how many people agree how good they are" posters are then going on to list as "obviously bad" people who are in no way whatsoever obviously bad directors.

EVERYBODY ELSE's TASTE IS CAPRICIOUS EXCEPT MINE, OBV

Need to lay down some ground rules about what makes for "bad" directing - dealing with unfashionable ideas/values plus only being around for the last 10 years seems to be a big part of it?

i'm w/ ya on the challops-for-the-sake-of-challops, jjj -- in fact, i plead in the thread header for folks NOT to do that (yup this is ILXor lol @ that request being honored so quick let's all declare Martin Scorsese the absolute WOAT).

still, i can see someone nominating directors who work w/ big budgets/names and have some Hollywood cred b/c shitty filmmaking isn't just confined to B-budget land. Shyamalan, Ritchie and Sofia Coppola being three (and not the only three) examples in this realm that i can see on a poll like this one.

wr2 Sofia Coppola -- who BTW i don't think is a bad DIRECTOR -- i've always assumed that hostility towards her films is more about the subject matter of her films being really-pretentious chick flicks instead of her being an inept director.

films didn't exist before 1990, apparently

i mean, the sisterhood of the traveling pants-style girly films are content to be what they are w/t taking on more-indie-than-thou soundtracks.

xpost

Everything made before 1990 was brilliantly directed iirc

even the pre-1990 shit was brilliantly directed shit. Uwe Boll ain't a patch on Coleman Francis.

agree that provocative noms are tiresome, but trouble is genuinely worst directors irrespective of rep would be a small and pretty geeky thread. who even remembers bad directors outside of a few names hackneyed and notorious? i think ppl in the area of lumet and barry levinson are the most interesting this thread could turn up, ppl who get a career through budgets, skilled technical crews and/or shootable scripts.

chris doyle refers to m night as shamalamadingdong btw. agree that it's western-centric ignorance/vaguely racist. which is why it was striking coming from doyle, who works with a lot of ppl with names unfamiliar to westerners.

but then doyle also has it written into contracts that he's allowed drink beer on set, so perhaps there are more special rules for him.

Sam Wood

no one's direction makes me more angry than joel schumacher

Whoever said James Ivory is off their rocker. Le Divorce was abysmal, yes, but what about HOWARD'S END, REMAINS OF THE DAY, ROOM WITH A VIEW, MAURICE??? NEED I GO ON? I think he is consistently propped up with superior writing (Ruth Prawer Jhabvala writes pretty damn amazing adaptations) and superior acting (EMMA AND ANTHONY AND HELENA are always great), but still - definitely not worst. Plus Howard's End is one of the most perfect films ever made in my mind.

Also I think Quentin Tarantino gets good performances out of people.

WHAT ABOUT LARS VON TRIER?

whoa films abt women should b content 2 b jennifer aniston vehicles thanx 4 clearing that up

Also I really hate Sam Mendes' films but I don't know if I can claim him as terrible. I just think his whole exploration of the CONFINED, LIFELESS SUBURBS is getting real old.

OMG CECIL DEMILLE, SYDNEY POLLACK, AND ALFRED HITCHOCK ALL ADDED TO LIST JUST TO PREVENT LIST FROM BEING BORING111!!1!

i think we need a companion thread altho I have a sneaking suspicion it's been done before

no one's direction makes me more angry than joel schumacher

I pretty much agree with this but I think 8mm is clouding my judgement.

are these nominations strictly relegated to films? granted I know television/theatre directors doesn't make for as interesting a topic, but....

So are we just voting for inconsistency in direction? Maybe this should be a most overrated directors thread about people who aren't terrible but aren't really deserving of all the extra praise because then I know who I'm getting on that...

^^^^^^^

Nominating Ruggero Deodato, who directed Cannibal Holocaust. On one hand, the *realism* of that film puts it pretty much in a class of its own, at least in terms of horror. On the other hand, yeah, the animal cruelty. The turtle scene (if you have not seen this, I would not recommend seeking it out, srsly) alone is worth a nom for this poll imo.

Mimi Leder.

whats that guy that did meet joe black

pillbox: but by your logic wr2 cannibal holocaust, couldn't you also condemn Pier Paolo Pasolini for salo?!?

(not that salo is an easy or enjoyable film to watch.)

if two more people speak out aggressively in jeunet's favour i will withdraw my nomination

― congratulation mgmt (acoleuthic)

Aggressively speaking out in favour of Delicatessen here (and City of Lost Children is very good too (and, uh, *mumblemumbleIlikeAmeliemumblemumble*)).

fine, y'all have won. it's not like i've seen any more than amelie and the offensively abysmal posters for his new one on the Tube

i'm really stunned nobody has knee-jerked Stephen Soderbergh. there was this aussie on another board who hated him irrationally

heh, ive seen the one with jodie foster in it and delicatessen as well as that alien movie and amelie is the only one i actually like but i mean

Garry Marshall

I was going to nominate Cameron because I have actually seen Titanic and it was EVEN WORSE than I thought it was going to be. And I thought it was going to be very very bad indeed. But even though I'm not a huge fan of Terminator et al I think they're enough to put him out of the running.

George Lucas

couldn't you also condemn Pier Paolo Pasolini for salo?!? - No, unless the young men in that film were revealed to have been either involuntarily involved in the films making or too young to have made such a choice. If the subject matter of a film has been agreed upon by consenting adults, pile on the depravity for all I care (& I might just want to watch that, depending on what u r doing..). But the simple fact is that Deodato had animals killed, with the camera rolling, for "effect" - & that is not OK imo.

OK: I'm going to stick with Hal Needham as my nominee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_MwgN-KRqU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEMJk39km6c&feature=related

Once this master list is compiled, compare it against RT or IMDB or something. Any director who has a film to his or her credit that scores above 70%/7.0 is disqualified. Pesky votes eliminated, problem solved.

I don't know about that. The Sixth Sense has an 85%, so even M. Night will be eliminated that way.

In that Hooper scene, there are people dancing in the background in one shot, no one in the next, and after the fight starts you can see above the top of the walls of the set.

xpost Fine, make it two films.

Whoever said James Ivory is off their rocker. Le Divorce was abysmal, yes, but what about HOWARD'S END, REMAINS OF THE DAY, ROOM WITH A VIEW, MAURICE??? NEED I GO ON?

No, cuz Maurice is a terrible film made from a terrible novel. That guy just points and shoots.

oh yay a duel is about to start

at last

Look, I think Stephen Daldry is a spectacular artistic failure, but I'm not going to go and say he's worse than Coleman Francis. Even though most days I'd honestly rather watch a film by the latter even without MST3K's help.

And I say that as maybe the least middlebrow-tolerant person I know.

'cept when we discuss Quiz Show.

I guess I thought that movie was about radical Communists' plot to take over the U.S. through game shows.

I'm glad someone else said George Lucas and James Cameron. Still, they are hardly terrible maybe just overrated at times.
I am also going to nominate everyone who decided to take on the Twilight films, by default that makes you a bad director (and a bad person).

Oh and R Kelly.

i have by no means seen all of oliver north's movies, and i guess i'll give him salvador, but for the most part i really do think he's awful: shallow, noisy, self-important.

would love to see a movie directed by ollie north tbh

yea, but Henry Kissinger was a far worse director

is this a bad film = bad director thread?

Yeah, but Nixon provided great scripts.

haha. that's about the 10th time i've said oliver north when i meant oliver stone. i think in my mind they're sort of the same person.

http://www.foxnews.com/images/226459/0_61_north_oliver.jpghttp://www.wildaboutmovies.com/images_2/OliverStone_001.jpg

well, the both of them are forever linked to 1980s latin american atrocities.

For your consideration: Tom Shadyac

* Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)
* The Nutty Professor (1996)
* Liar Liar (1997)
* Patch Adams (1998)
* Dragonfly (2002)
* Bruce Almighty (2003)
* Evan Almighty (2007)

I count three really funny (albeit stupid) movies in there.

adrian lyne

John Landis
John Hughes

Larry Clark
Gregg Araki

ken kwapis

Tom Laughlin

Keenen Ivory Wayans
Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer

ooooooooo yeah, how could i forget Gregg Araki? even if everything else he did was a masterpiece (it isn't), he belongs on this list for the doom generation alone.

Jason Reitman, Paul Verhoeven (surprised no one's mentioned him yet)

verhoeven is awesome is why

no one's mentioned him b/c he rules!

The ones I've watched:

Basic Instinct (1992)
Showgirls (1995)
Hollow Man (2000)

Definitely far from awesome.

watch black book, repent

(also i need to see starship troopers)

not talking to anyone who hasnt seen robocop tbh

uh ever heard of a little known obscure movie called ROBOCOP?

lol exactly plax

Well, OK maybe he has some good ones but come on, he deserves a nomination for Showgirls alone.

yah stop pretending u dont like tittays imo

Roland Emmerich in a heartbeat.

real talk

also: total recall and starship troopers as classics. but YMMV.

showgirls completely classic

Yeah, I overridingly veto Paul Verhoeven's presence on any list of this type. I have the authority and I have used it. Better luck next time.

Renny Harlin

― Man or Austro-Hungarian? (Pillbox), Saturday, February 27, 2010 1:37 AM (20 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hes made bad movies but he is not a bad director

lots of challops in here and no cronenberg

let's keep this cronenberg-free, plz

Roland Emmerich in a heartbeat.

nah. he can at least direct a coherent action scene.

let's just agree that everybody can direct except Zach Braff k thx

Michael Moore

puts the lie to the claim that he does wonders with actors.

perhaps you or someone else can remind me of kael's comments on the prep & shooting of The Group, after she returned from her unsuccessful stint in Hollywood. IIRC her account has Lumet feeding the actors with psychobabble and incoherent bunkum seemingly off the top of his head, different on any given day, confusing the actors and making a mess of things generally.

Thirding Kevin Smith here

Gaspar Noe

― Fusty Moralizer (Dr Morbius), Saturday, February 27, 2010 7:24 AM (13 hours ago)

might be walking into a trap here but i think you hate on this guy out of a perceived moral repugnance? he's so much more technically proficient and even visionary than about 90% of the names being tossed around here (haha not saying alot there) that it comes across like you think he's a menace or something. I Stand Alone felt like a waste of effort but Irreversible at least found a novel and memorable approach to its theme and was nauseating in all the places it was intended to be. The happy beginning (at the end) was a neat, if cruel trick. Also, best soundscapes outside of a Lynch film. His talent for making you sick just can't compete when guys like Kevin Smith and McG churn out dreck that gets 100x the audience of a Noe film.

^^^you and me seul contre tous

This is one of those threads where I'll end up breaking my SB button and on that basis alone, I'm out.

(haven't actually seen I Stand Alone but am guessing Morbs' antipathy is 90-95% based upon perceived homophobia...certainly there are aspects of Irreversible, notably the fact that the gay club attendees are taking active enjoyment in a brutal murder, that are problematic, but I still think it's more a portrayal of something that isn't homosexuality rather than a sort of visceral fascination with human wastage...sexuality has been eradicated by the time you enter the Rectum; you're entering a world of men and bodies that completely avoids the idea of love or physical attraction between two male humans. thus it isn't a comment on homosexuality. plus, his cruelty and barbarism is deployed artfully, elegantly and movingly, making the movie more of a symphony in elemental human corruption than a showcase for video nasties. it gripped, stunned and reached through to me, especially in the second half where we fell further out of (and thus into) the abyss. however there are crazed notes of optimism? the repressed friend, the murderer, will be punished, the woman will somehow live, and they will reunite? ambiguity is perhaps a crueller card to play than outright destruction.)

I watched Irreversible on my birthday. A fun time was not had by all. GREAT film though and I agree with the above comment. Aw John Landis AND John Hughes?! Well, if we're just saying nitpicking for no good reason then I am still upset with Scorcese for remaking Infernal Affairs and Micheal Mann for Public Enemies.

Excuse my niavety but what may I ask are challops? Some kind of meat?

challops=opinions that seem to exist for the sake of provoking people with little to no merit in reality.

"people with little to no merit in reality": another ILE board description

there are some nites where i truly believe nobody on ILE is real and that it is random Skynet generated messages

amazed that Ed Burns hasn't been mentioned yet

he has now.

haven't read much of it but this is a p gd dumm thread

lock thread start poll

But it seems like every director who ever directed will be on this list, I think this really should be about most overrated directors, not many people are aware of the more technical side of filmmaking generally so it seems we're just going by films we disliked and that equates to panning someone's entire career.
Also Tyler Perry include him please.

Oscar Micheaux, yes or no? as w/ Ed Wood, I say no.

director is pretty much interchangeable with auteur by this point, right? xp

A list worthy of your consideration: http://www.pajiba.com/guides/the-ten-worst-directors-in-hollywood.php

wtf that list was just a bunch of easy targets of people who made "poo poo pee pee" comedies and stupid family comedies. oh wow what a hard hitting list!

Oh, okay. Sorry. See, I didn't notice before that the thread title is Worst Directors of All Time Who Didn't Make "Poo Poo Pee Pee" Comedies and Stupid Family Comedies. Thank you for setting me straight, though. Thank you.

lol my point though is that in terms of the movie they're making, they might be capable directors. like I'm sure the Billy Madison guy made exactly the movie he thought he was gonna make.

The question is aren't folks who can pass judgment on all that shit The World's Least Selective Moviegoers? Unless you're paid to who the fuck would know those oeuvres inside-out?

that's what I was thinking. not to mention I know much more deserving people that should have been on that list.

who?

(oh god why am i getting sucked into this farrago?)

morbs otm ne way

challops=opinions that seem to exist for the sake of provoking people with little to no merit in reality.

Boy did I get that one wrong! Therefore, I propose changing 'challops' to the more accurate 'Poo Poo Pee Pee Opinions.'

a good acronym: ppppoptism

yep, shark jumped and then set on fire. pls start poll now.

From the standpoint of whether the presentation of a given script is improved by a director's presence, I'll stan for Jeunet and Noe: their films would almost be unthinkable in the hands of others, though Aliens IV and A Very Long Engagement were pretty dire.

If I had to pick one revered director whose style ruins his films for me, it would be Sam Peckinpah. The slow motion action sequences completely take me out of the moment, and are the root of a lot of terrible ideas ("bullet time", anyone) in his wake. I don't have a lot of love for the genre to begin with, so YMMV.

Re: Jeunet, he really seemed to lose something significant when he stopped working with Marc Caro- I'll go to bat for City of Lost Children or Delicatessen gladly but everything since has been middling to outright awful.

The eternal paradox of this topic, interesting directors don't belong on the list and the directors that do belong on the list aren't interesting.

I was thinking the same about Jeunet myself, actually. Although I like Amelie and am willing to give this new one the benefit of the doubt, there is definitely some sort of 'edge' missing from Jeunet these days. Delicatessen certainly had whimsy in places, but it was also rather dark.

The eternal paradox of this topic, interesting directors don't belong on the list and the directors that do belong on the list aren't interesting.

as with most "worsts," i think the only people who really deserve the title are the ones who fail at a relatively high level -- people with serious resources (in this case, studio money), some degree of actual skill and especially an ambition to make "important" or otherwise serious work. e.g., who cares if a teen-comedy hack makes hack teen comedies? he's just doing what he's paid to do. that's why oliver stone is a good candidate imo, because he thinks he has important things to say but a.) he doesn't, and b.) his style tends toward such bombast and overkill that he's one of the few filmmakers i've seriously considered walking out on.

Yup, which is why Sidney Lumet is a prime candidate.

Mamet's down there, A-grade writing aside.

But no, Hal Needham it still is.

I haven't been following this, but Lumet's made at least four good-to-great films: 12 Angry Men, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Verdict. I'm not especially a fan of Network, but surely those four alone rule him out. I've seen very little Ken Russell and no Henry Jaglom at all, but wouldn't they be candidates?

Ulli Lommel

Ken Russell's a good choice!

wait a second are people suggesting the guy who directed Network is a candidate for worst movie director ever

is that what is happening, here, on ILX

Paddy Chayevsky's Network, you mean.

Network's strengths are not, by any reasonable measure, in its direction.

xpost, yeah

well that is true, not forgetting quite how much the actors possess the movie

The worst parts of Network happen when Lumet lets the actors scream too loud and too long.

yeah, I can see an argument for Lumet's bad direction based around the fact that he doesn't really have any sort of control over proceedings whatsoever - but the titanic battle of egos and ideas all flung headlong at each other even while a miraculously great script plays out is pretty much the reason I love it

of my favourite movies, it's certainly the one where direction has been most incidental

The worst parts of Network happen when Lumet lets the actors scream too loud and too long

I thought "scream too loud and too long" was written into the stage directions by P.C.

Network is fine -- it's a hoot -- but you can't take the bullshit about TV and women seriously. If you accept the movie as a humorless middle-aged man's confession instead of a satire, it makes more sense.

I regard it as a faintly satirical but overwhelmingly theatrical piece of entertainment with all manner of superb character interactions and rhetoric - it's hilarious and yet somehow genuinely staggering in its conceptual sturm und drang

(and as I said at the time, I love it utterly despite its flaws, which are manifest, and its occasionally muddled morals)

none of you have a clue

about you?

"I can see an argument for Lumet's bad direction based around the fact that he doesn't really have any sort of control over proceedings whatsoever"

wtf is this even based on? im not a big lumet stan or anything. but this is plainly not true of 'network'.

generally: the emphasis on individual directorial authorship -- ok, it's a handy way of talking about films. directors are more powerful industry figures than writers, and their work is properly credited. (writers' credits are notoriously a fiction.) but this whole thread is based on a weird idea of who does what, of how films get made.

Well, if I had my way we'd stop discussing directors, period, but we're not getting universal health care either.

it's based on eric and soto's arguments! i was saying that that position is one i can see being argued, it being a movie whose scenes are often allowed to spiral into a realm where the writer and actors are showboating a little. i'm not saying that the direction is *bad* or non-existent, although eric and soto might well be.

personally i think there are quite a few very good directorial touches, and the corpocalyptic visual tone works superbly, but ymmv

It's pretty bad when it's not non-existent. Maybe Lumet genuinely thinks that Ned Beatty's scenes are necessary.

id say that of directors who wielded a certain amount of power, tony richardson was technically incompetent. this is true of godard, too, but he kind of made it work. i said that director's credits are pretty solid, but i think it's fairly well acknowledged that theatrical noobs like sam mendes relied (at least initially) quite heavily on their DoPs.

GARRY MARSHALL

SBs all around.

tony richardson was technically incompetent.

wtf? how?

what do you mean when you say godard was technically incompetent? directing is not a technical job.

only flaw in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is the jazz montage, which is like something from another movie.

lol xpost

(haven't actually seen I Stand Alone but am guessing Morbs' antipathy is 90-95% based upon perceived homophobia...certainly there are aspects of Irreversible, notably the fact that the gay club attendees are taking active enjoyment in a brutal murder, that are problematic, but I still think it's more a portrayal of something that isn't homosexuality rather than a sort of visceral fascination with human wastage...sexuality has been eradicated by the time you enter the Rectum; you're entering a world of men and bodies that completely avoids the idea of love or physical attraction between two male humans. thus it isn't a comment on homosexuality. plus, his cruelty and barbarism is deployed artfully, elegantly and movingly, making the movie more of a symphony in elemental human corruption than a showcase for video nasties. it gripped, stunned and reached through to me, especially in the second half where we fell further out of (and thus into) the abyss. however there are crazed notes of optimism? the repressed friend, the murderer, will be punished, the woman will somehow live, and they will reunite? ambiguity is perhaps a crueller card to play than outright destruction.)

― stoke for the shawcross (acoleuthic), Sunday, February 28, 2010 10:57 AM (11 hours ago)

i havent actually seen this movie but

directing is not a technical job

well, it is a bit.

calling certain films theatrical is a decades-old thing, as richardson knew, and i think he overcompensated. his first films are just ok, but from 'loneliness' he incorporated all these new wave-y gimmicks that didn't work. john schlesinger probably has a worse reputation -- not an auteur, lacked the cultural capital -- but he was a much more impressive director.

godard -- didn't understand continuity editing. as i say, he made it work, ish. im willing to acknowledge it wouldbe ridiculous to include him in this poll because he's one of the most important directors of all time and everyone should watch his films. it's just that in certain "conventional" respects he was a very bad director.

it's the name of the nightclub plax

i thought he was specifically "into" bad continuity

"making the best of it"

he genuinely didn't get it. fritz lang tried to explain it to him. it's a mistake to take everything in his films as intentional.

well, it is a bit.

i guess you can overrule technical ppl abt certain decisions, or not employ them. is this what u mean?

godard -- didn't understand continuity editing

what parts of movies are you basing this off? jumpcuts in a bout de souffle? surely not? and other films...?

the only new-wavy wrong note in loneliness of the long distance runner is that brief montage iirc.

sorry for the form of this, but yr a bit inscrutable to me!

always filed it in with jump cut

tom jones is a very poorly directed film

did he even use jumpcuts after the obv. deliberate ones in a bout de souffle? rarely if ever i think

tom jones sucks imo

i'd certainly rate at least a couple of richardsons ('loneliness,' 'a taste of honey') as high or higher than any of the FNW films i've seen. i don't see any great difference in quality of technique between those films and, say, truffaut's best. plus, richardson seems far more interested in actors than the new wave crowd -- rita tushingham's performance in 'taste of honey' is certainly better and more convincing than any performance in a godard film i can think of.

i think this line of argument is flawed. antonioni probably couldn't have convincingly directed an action thriller, but that doesn't mean don siegel is the better director of the two.

was wondering if michael mann left the camera running so long after scenes in Heat were over were bc he thought he was antonioni directing an action thriller

what parts of movies are you basing this off? jumpcuts in a bout de souffle? surely not? and other films...?

all of his early films have just really oviously technically inept bits in them. dead time, awkward rhythms, poor performances. completely unconvincing violence. inept cuts where he shows the same action twice "on purpose". in short, the inability to create a convincing fictional universe. i rescreened 'le petit soldat' the other day. pretty much the whole thing backs this up.

xpost

'the passenger' is sort of an espionage film.

richard lester says 'tome jones' is, professionally speaking, one of the worst shot films of all time. which may not be richardson's fault. but the whole thing to me seems like a terrible mess.

sat in a lobby once while Irreversible was starting, and saw about a dozen walk out of it past me almost as one in the first few minutes, followed by five or six at diff times afterwards. never saw anything like it. must have been playing to empty seats by an hour in.

never saw le petit soldat. :( "dead time, awkward rhythms, poor performances" ah ok i see what you mean by technical as the director's province here.

i was a godard nut once so could argue it the other way

the only movie ive ever seen that ppl walked out of was a great silence

uh into great silence

i walked out of 'the wolfman' recently. it felt like a much dicked-with film. benicio del toro didn't really work for me as an englishman. it was certainly badly put together, but who knows how much input the director had into post-production. plus i have no idea who directed it. this kind of thing only works for big-name directors who have a lot of control over their films. otherwise you're blaming the director for the whole production.

he's just doing what he's paid to do. that's why oliver stone is a good candidate imo, because he thinks he has important things to say but a.) he doesn't, and b.) his style tends toward such bombast and overkill that he's one of the few filmmakers i've seriously considered walking out on.

― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Sunday, February 28, 2010 8:11 PM (3 hours ago)

But Stone has made some great, interesting films. And he is an actual artist; you may not like what he's doing, but he's at least trying to make his audiences feel something.

Someone like Roger Corman is just a hack of the worst kind-- his films are devoid of passion and artistic intent.

John Singleton

i'm disappointed more people aren't hating alan rudoph and tom decillo

John Singleton

Boyz n the Hood is actually good.

Someone like Roger Corman is just a hack of the worst kind-- his films are devoid of passion and artistic intent.

I always thought he was the trash movie director that actually made an effort once in a while, I guess the Poe adaptations are a bit hokey but no more than any Hammer film. Also, The Trip!

wolf-man was such a howler

But Stone has made some great, interesting films.

obviously if i believed this i would not have nominated him.

i'm disappointed more people aren't hating alan rudoph and tom decillo

???

i really love at least a couple of rudolph films and can't think of any that i really hate. (although, ok, i saw a little of investigating sex and it seemed pretty lousy.) and dicillo, i've only seen living in oblivion and box of moonlight and liked them both to varying degrees. plus, he shot stranger than paradise.

if you are going to bring up daughters of notable directors, please skip Sofia Coppola* and go directly to Jennifer Lynch (Boxing Helena, Surveillance).

*Coming from someone who hated LiT but thought tVS was beautifully shot.

I'm a little drunk at this point but honestly this list haas become about personal grievances hasn't it?
Is there any way to be objective about cinema? One persons masterpiece is another person's showgirls (i love showgurls), I think that it should be about conisistency, aside from cronenberg few directors are consistent. e.g. i was hoping for wolfman to be good especially because i stan for del toro (hardcore) but it failed so badly that I was actually upset. I don't think there's a way of summing this list up to be quite honest unless it's on technicalities and very, very few are aware of those.
can't believe people walked out of irreversible...like they didn't know what was coming....

Jesus that took me ten minutes to write correctly.

this is an even dumber thread than the "actual worst writers" thread we had last year

go directly to DAVID LYNCH

sorry but I had to say it at some point!

also, guy ritchie, steven soderbergh (he does have a style.. a terrible one)

^^ was thinking about doing this w/ lynch tbh

and no, there's no way to be objective about cinema. showgirls is hilarious and I have no idea how anyone could NOT realize it's trying to be that way, I mean he is not trying at all to make a good movie acted in a competent manner that just happened to come out exaggerated and camp.

max, i hear you. a number of years removed from college/grad world where a lot of people took art seriously, sometimes the most you can hope for is finding people who at least know who directors are, even if collectively we are saying dumb things about them

spot on daria.
what's wrong with sodebergh?! I know lynch can grate but he's hardly the worst of all time

p.s john singleton IS technically good imo but he is a bad director. still I liked boyz in the hood and four brothers.

soderbergh i find grating, it feels like he cuts back and forth at awkward points and has people talk over each other and.. it seems like he has an idiosyncratic style but the effect of it is to make his films flat and boring

any director should be proud of Erin Brockovich and The Girlfriend Experience.

oh i think smart stuff is being said in this thread! i dunno something about this kind of exercise just smacks of dickwaving as opposed to the opposite--when ppl argue about the "best" director everyone wants to make a passionate case for art they care about; arguing about the "worst" leads ime to challops and condescension of the worst kind.

and thats even before u take into acct how difficult it is to compare directors across diff't movies let alone across eras, industries, genres, whatever else. writers all do the same thing; two different directors might get the same credit but have utterly different levels of involvement or creative control over a movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgkvfke4h_w&NR=1&feature=fvwp

eh i went and looked back at the worst writers thread and it was pretty fun and smart

and this thread has some good discussion

so im just being a crank

I don't think there's any way to make a conclusive list tbh. I focus more on actors anyway because very few directors have a distinctive personal style (e.g. lynch, mann, cronenberg etc) that is noticeable to the general public.
I'm officially asking for this to be a most overrated directors thread.
(i wanna read that worst writers thread, i'm pretty sure it will feature stephen king, dan brown, zadie smith & ian mcewan heavily)

personally, i prefer crank to challops, kiu.

if you are going to bring up daughters of notable directors, please skip Sofia Coppola* and go directly to Jennifer Lynch (Boxing Helena, Surveillance).

*Coming from someone who hated LiT but thought tVS was beautifully shot.

― ✌.✰|ʘ‿ʘ|✰.✌ (Steve Shasta), Monday, March 1, 2010 2:17 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

fuck yes jennifer lynch.

IS THER EVAR GONNA BE A POLL?

at this point i fucking hope not.

a lot of the debate seems to have already been had in here too

you know whos a chump? Akira Kurosawa, doesnt even do his own subtitles and i dont speak japanese WHAT AN ASS

Fritz Lang - look jerk if you cant take the time to record dialog, im not taking the time to watch your movie

Francis Ford Coppola? More like Francis Ford CRAPOLA, amirite?

i heard martin scorcese forces women to jerk him off on the toilet. while David Lynch watches....

A new contender: Bob Misiorowski

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtOGgcBbgBU

Heh, "No fucking way" was exactly what I said when he made the first sideways jump. Shades of Cool as Ice.

George Lucas and Kevin Smith seconded

ffs when is the poll coming out

Sidney Lumet

― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, February 27, 2010 10:27 AM (6 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what the fucking fuck

there are a lot of challops in this thread (reading further).

lumet was spotty but he had some great movies

Missed this thread the first time 'round, but these need reiterating:

Hal Needham
Mimi Leder
Garry Marshall

robert greenwald
gus van sant

Tim Burton, 21st C edition.

terry malick, 21st C ed

Had to look up Greenwald, only to realize that I'd seen three (!) of his films. OTM, though--he's a bore. Say what you will about Michael Moore, but at least he knows a thing or two about filmmaking.

Alan Parker
Danny Boyle
Luc Besson

I know some will beg to differ but I hate everything by these fuckers.

Neil Breen

at least he knows a thing or two about filmmaking.

well, he might know /one/ thing. or did know it, and since forgot.

gus van sant is obviously a talented guy and his films don't lack for polish but his /ideas/ have long seemed totally bankrupt (or worse) to me, and in the last five or six years he's just completely run out of steam.

i'm not even sure if his most recent film got a proper theatrical release.

The Sea of Trees was panned by critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 0%, based on 12 reviews, with an average rating of 2.4/10. At its May 2015 debut at the Cannes Film Festival, the film was met with harsh critical reception; it was loudly booed and laughed at by an audience of critics, with critic Scott Foundas calling it a film "for nobody."

to be sure, lots of good movies are booed at cannes. but this one sounds genuinely worthless.

Jason Reitman.
Innaritu.

i was wondering when inarritu would come up!

he's like cuaron's evil twin-- everything cuaron touches turns to gold (or nearly), and inarritu seems incapable of turning out anything but shit.

Garry Marshall

had to look him up and i can't help but find something grotesquely compelling about the fact that someone would choose to make the kinds of films he makes into their 80s

We always need anonymous hack work when it's good, and I'll defend bits of Pretty Woman and The Flamingo Kid.

There are many movies that are far, far less watchable than Pretty Woman and The Flamingo Kid, but as a filmmaker, he's such a shameless hack that he'll even recycle things that worked in one movie for another one. I'm pretty sure the "which fork should I use" bit is not only in both of those films, but also one of The Princess Diaries movies (which are basically the G-rated version of PW anyway, no?).

Guys I just watched half of Domino so Tony Scott comes to mind. Even if top gun is canon

Oh yeah Tony Scott made some shockers, particularly his string of bizarrely awful collabs with Denzel.