POLL: Hal Hartley vs. Gregg Araki

Hartley's made more good films (Araki ended a prolonged losing streak with Skin), but has gone downhill after Henry Fool (I didn't even bother w/ Fay Grim).

I adore Trust and Matthew Slaughter, and I vaguely recall finding Simple Men v moving. Haf never seen the other guy, so my vote goes for the guy who makes me think of Adrienne Shelly (RIP) and Martin Donovan.

hartley in a walk - araki can suk it

hartley has actually made a few good movies

Hartley overall, but Mysterious Skin is better than almost anything he's done.

Araki soundtracks > Hartley soundtracks

of early GA I like Totally F***ed Up best. Then his stuff got incrementally worse for years.

Doom Generation which was godawful and Mysterious Skin which was rather moving

Understating the case on both ends of this otherwise OTM line.

my best friend is a huge araki fan. we don't talk about it.

have never actually seen any hartley!

Araki soundtracks > Hartley soundtracks

I would have to disagree.

Also...

Horrible. Maybe if they were dancing to Armand Van Helden.

who the fuck is Gregg Araki. Hartley had a great, no, awesome string of movies in his early career, but has done unbelievably bad things in recent years. (Book of Life!)

also Fay Grim (which was sorta ok) has to be the worst sequel ever anyway because unlike dumb/unintellectual Hollywood big-budget superheroes movies there was no reason for Hartley to do it.

I like both a lot, but would definitely give it to Hartley.

The one thing that makes me think about it for a second is Araki's Smiley Face, but I think most of the credit for that one should go to Anna Faris. Still, god bless Araki for giving her a good role.

In a poll of Gregg Araki vs. Hitler, I'd seriously consider voting for Hitler so Hartley better take this.

Wait, that needs more explanation -- I don't think Smiley Face is in danger of beating out the Hartley filmography or anything, but it does mean that Araki has done something I like more recently than Hartley's done anything I like, so . . .

these guys both artfucked beyond redemption, or can one be saved?

Not that I know a ton about modern directors, but Araki would among the heaviest with constant music references and derivations, right? A few of his movies feel like they were based on mix tapes more than anything else. Smiley Face had to go easy on it (and traded out the usual shoegazers for the Field and Ladytron), but one of the bigger laughs I got out of it was that he still managed to get Neal Halstead's voice on there, only this time with a Mojave 3 song.

You're making me want to watch another Gregg Araki film, nabisco. Why is this happening to me?

I would be scared to re-watch any of the older ones, actually; I remember feeling mildly skeptical about them even when I was young enough to think it was unreservedly cool that the climaxes were based on things like looking at This Mortal Coil covers in a record store, or just playing "Blue Skied an' Clear." But maybe there was an extra level of things being stylized that I wasn't picking up on back then? Ha, they were kind of emo -- over-the-top pulpy and stylized, but without much camp or dreaminess to it, so that he seemed to mean it too much for it to be intentionally over-the-top.

Is Martin Donovan in any Araki movies? That's what I thought.

he is also in the most underrated Hollywood film of the '90s, Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady.

I need to watch that one again (still prefer The Wings of the Dove and The Heiress for my cinematic James); it's one of those films in dire need of a director's cut.

No film of Jane Campion's could possibly be under-rated. If one person out there likes it, it's over-rated.

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