"it's by/starring <name>, so you know it's going to be awesome...."

this is a thread for those sacred cows who ceased to be sacred eons ago (and in some cases were never sacred at all), and yet are for some reason treated by a portion of the population as if they are still royalty. This is not a case of the general public raving over a guy and ILX thinking he is overrated. This thread is dedicated to those people who are long-since has-beens and aren't really worshipped anymore but still appeal to a big chunk of the population who seems to have missed the memo that they suck now. can be musicians, directors, any kind of celebrity.

I think Tim Burton's the obvious one (I still have friends who are like "oh man, Tim Burton - you know this one's gonna be sweet" when they see his name on a poster, yet can't name a movie of his they've liked in years).

then there's...

Johnny Depp (most of the Depp-wagon started to fade a decade ago yet there's still a rabid audience for him somewhere)

to a lesser degree....

Aaron Sorkin

Jarmusch

Woody Allen

Until he died, Lou Reed.

hah yeah, my mom is even like that with Woody Allen.

I think Ozzy Osbourne fits this at various points in his career.

                                                                                                                          Kate Bush

This may be controversial, but I think Scorsese qualifies now. The most watchable thing he's done in nearly a decade was the Fran Lebowitz doc.

seems kind of like he had a one hot album every ten year average post-Goodfellas, granted there are a bunch I haven't seen so going by rep

Scorsese by a mile.

tarantino surely

Couldn't even begin to list music people who get a free ride.

you couldn't bring yourself to call them 'musicians', I see

Studio Prince. Live he can still be on fire.

no need in making the distinction really. lots of acts remain great live decades after they write their last good album.

Mamet.

Tarantino a very good call

I'll defer to the general feeling out there and not nominate Wes Anderson.

Ridley Scott.

And his younger generation counterpart, David Fincher.

the whole of GAPDY

The what now?

it's like, Animal Collective and related bands, idk

Ok, but what does "GAPDY" mean then?

Grosby, PAstills, Dash & Young?

deerhoof? deerhunter? no, dirty projectors

Ridley Scott is a great answer. Made two classics early on, been more or less crap ever since, still revered in certain circles

GAPDY poll

fuck me did we get this poll wrong

their collective identity will persist long after their individual names are forgotten

YLT

YLT crossed my mind but I'm not ready to accept it yet. On occasion I will dutifully bring a newer one out for a listen and for certain cuts I think "Yeah, this is pretty good" but I'm never at the point where I really want to hear them. And Then Nothing... may be the last one that connected. Haven't even bought the new one yet, though I like the Cure cut.

Tarantino is still delivering the goods - you may not want Thomas much as you did a few decades ago, though.

Ducking autocorrect.

Charlie Brooker

david attenborough

he'll die tomorrow and you'll be sorry

:'( i kno

↓ ashamed

it's ok mordy

btw i recently discovered mutual of omaha's wild kingdom on youtube. instantly my favourite nature documentary presentation style ever

Richard E Grant

Bruce Robinson too come to think of it.

Ridley Scott for sure

Spielberg obv

I don't think Burton counts as everybody knows he's shite and has been for a long, long time.

Christopher Nolan.

Deerhoof is a bad choice for this thread. I'd say they're underrated at this point if anything, but they've been consistently solid for a decade+.

Nolan is perfect, though. I don't get how people still see his movies as Events.

Robert DeNiro, even more than Scorsese.

Stephen King

Christopher Nolan might be heading this way, judging by his last two movies and his Man of Steel involvement.

Clint Eastwood as a director after 2006.

Stephen King is a good one!

Surely nobody still makes this claim about De Niro?

I suspect Bill Murray could easily end up here - not there yet but if he ever does start consistently sucking there will absolutely be a reliable faction that still greets his every move with excitement, a la Depp/Burton.

Nolan has made one or two good movies, never getting worth following in the first place; his rep will be seen as fleeting in hindsight.

Haven't read a new Stephen King in decades, but aside from instalments of bloated sagas written in collabo and alone, his one-off novels seem to still be reviewed well on their own merits? At any rate, I don't think v many people keep habitually checking for him once they're out of their teens.

(I read Joe Hill's NOS4R2 last week, having enjoyed his short story collection and first novel in the '00s* - it was really charming how this one feels like a tribute album to his dad, giving a similar vibe in tone and escalation and mild formal play that I got reading King when I was 12, 13.)

*and found his comics on a few brief attempts in the 'teens utterly unreadable, a feast of computer assistance on lettering and colouring getting entirely between the author and reader to such a degree I couldn't even tell if the line art was base-level competent

I don't automatically pick up Stephen King's books, but I've read a bunch of his recent ones (Cell, Under the Dome, Duma Key, 11/22/63, Mr. Mercedes and Revival, which is more of his work than I've read since his '70s and early '80s stuff—I completely ignored everything he wrote from the late '80s to the early '00s) and they've all been at least solid. I've liked Joe Hill's novels, too - started with Horns, then read NOS4A2 and finally went backward for Heart Shaped Box. Horns is the best of them (had the most original core idea at its center) but they're all good.

A bit niche and UK-centric, but: Martha Lane Fox

...And she's just joined the board of Twitter, tweeting "Watch out Silicon Valley". She 'freshens' the Twitter board

I bear her no ill-feeling, but she seems to have spent most of the time since the high-profile LastMinutedotcom fiasco on worthy initiatives, but nothing at the cutting edge of business, and belongs to an almost prehistoric internet age.

Other candidates are available.

pynchon?

Olivia Colman obv