Directors With Filmographies That Are All Over the Place in Terms of Quality

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transformers2
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Directors With Filmographies That Are All Over the Place in Terms of Quality

Post by transformers2 »

After watching (and really enjoying) The Last Duel last weekend, I spent some time thinking about Ridley's Scott filmography. More specifically, how his films consistently run the gamut in terms of quality. Even if you were to just keep it to the stuff he's put out over the past 10 years, the range of opinions I have on them is significant (ex: The Martian ranked pretty high on my year-end best list for 2015, Prometheus is a complete mixed bag of an Alien prequel and Exodus: Gods and Kings is easily one of the most boring things I've ever watched). Naturally, this led to me spending a bit more time thinking of other directors with at least somewhat sizable filmographies whose work I have similar relationship with.
Here's what I came up with:

Michael Bay
Clint Eastwood
The Coen Brothers
Spike Lee
James Mangold
Robert Rodriguez
Martin Scorsese
Zack Snyder
Steven Soderbergh
James Wan


What directors falls into this very specific camp for you guys?
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Re: Directors With Filmographies That Are All Over the Place in Terms of Quality

Post by Buscemi2 »

Brian De Palma. Began his career as a dreadful comedic director, then found his stride as a director of thrillers but became up-and-down around the mid 80's with no consistency since.

Paul Schrader. For every First Reformed, there seems to be a Dog Eat Dog.

This is a minority opinion but Denis Villeneuve. His Canadian films are often daring and interesting but his American films to me are no different than the works of most Hollywood hacks who make big-budget works. Put someone like Doug Liman on a film like Prisoners or Sicario and you basically have the same movie.

And when he died, I pointed this out on Joel Schumacher. Sure, he was your prototypical hack but he did make some watchable movies.
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numbersix
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Re: Directors With Filmographies That Are All Over the Place in Terms of Quality

Post by numbersix »

Robert Altman. He has films I detest and films that rank amongst my favourites.

John Huston, especially as he made so many different films.

Nolan, although I think he's getting progressively worse.

Fincher, who has made some great films and some hideous ones.

I wouldn't put Scorses or the Coens in that list. Sure, they've made weaker films but they're all part of a similar aesthetic and it's just a case of them leaning the wrong way at times. Plus, their good work vastly outweighs their bad. Almost every director has made stinkers in their lifetime.

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Re: Directors With Filmographies That Are All Over the Place in Terms of Quality

Post by Screen203 »

M. Night Shyamalan is probably the best/most well-known example, IMO. He's made some of my all-time favorite films. He also made The Village (which I don't understand the reappraisal it's gotten in recent years)

Another example of someone with a very mixed track record is David Leitch. He made one of the greatest action movies ever (Atomic Blonde), and started one of the most entertaining action series ever (John Wick). But Deadpool 2 was really disappointing.
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Re: Directors With Filmographies That Are All Over the Place in Terms of Quality

Post by transformers2 »

numbersix wrote:
October 21st, 2021, 11:31 am
I wouldn't put Scorses or the Coens in that list. Sure, they've made weaker films but they're all part of a similar aesthetic and it's just a case of them leaning the wrong way at times. Plus, their good work vastly outweighs their bad. Almost every director has made stinkers in their lifetime.
Fair enough. While I agree that their peaks are higher than the other directors I listed, I chose to include them because their work still met the criteria that I set.
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Re: Directors With Filmographies That Are All Over the Place in Terms of Quality

Post by Ron Burgundy »

Agree with
Clint Eastwood
Spike Lee
James Wan
Brian De Palma
M. Night


Disagree with
Martin Scorsese
Coen Bros
David Fincher
Chris Nolan
David Leitch

It would seem some of these go through a rich vein of form, and many suffer after some initial success. So saying "All over the place" kinda matters with the filmography chronologically. Ridley Scott is a good example of swaying from good to bad, almost like a directors version of Nicholas Cage minus the B grade stuff. Clint Eastwood qualifies for this, I still haven't been able to tolerate Gran Torino or Million Dollar Baby, while Unforgiven is amazing. Boosh touched on De Palma's streak. Scorsese hasn't actually made many if any bad movies. David Leitch is not what i would call a good director in the first place. M Night has had his redeeming phase but it running out of time to keep some form going.

For my additions at the top of my head

John McTiernan - dude made Die Hard and Predator, then fell off a cliff. Sizable filmography? Not really compared to the others mentioned here.

Ken Russell - Director of The Devils but went and made TV movies maybe too Independent?

Walter Hill - The Warriors and 48 hours, but also Bullet to the Head and Geronimo: An American Legend

Oliver Stone - Platoon, JFK....Alexander, W

Roman Polanski
Nicolas Winding Refn
Kevin Smith
Akira Kurosawa

I dunno, after mentioning Akira Kurosawa, I feel like we can mention ANY half-prolific director, not many haven't had a dud or 3. Which bigtime director's haven't had a miss yet? Maybe a dozen or less...
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Re: Directors With Filmographies That Are All Over the Place in Terms of Quality

Post by Buscemi2 »

David Leitch is a hack. He got lucky with producing and directing some of John Wick but otherwise, it's basically been for-hire work as he can work quickly and knows how to handle actors. No personal thumbprint with him.
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Re: Directors With Filmographies That Are All Over the Place in Terms of Quality

Post by transformers2 »

For my money, David Leitch has been just as instrumental as Chad Stahelski in the whole post-John Wick clean fight choreography revolution. He directs action with a greater sense of precision, scale and energy than pretty much everyone outside of Stahelski that's working today and has backed movies like Nobody and Kate that have featured similarly terrific action. I'm not going to pretend like he's some kind of virtuoso filmmaker that's worthy of widespread acclaim, but he's terrific at his niche and has elevated every single project he's directed thus far.
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Re: Directors With Filmographies That Are All Over the Place in Terms of Quality

Post by Buscemi2 »

Anyone could have made Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, and Hobbs & Shaw. These are disposable action movies that you could stick any easy to control director on and you'd get the same result. A decade earlier, you would have any other stuntman-turned-director on these and the product is no different.

Meanwhile, you might be the first person that I know to admit that Kate was a good movie.
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Re: Directors With Filmographies That Are All Over the Place in Terms of Quality

Post by Screen203 »

I would say that he has his own unique style; my issues with Deadpool 2 were more related to pretty much everything else about the movie - I didn't care at all about Josh Brolin's Terminator-esque character, the once-novel "fourth-wall breaking" was expanded to an aggravating degree, and the most interesting character is dead for the majority of the film.

On the other hand, I actually thought Nobody was decent, despite going into it thinking I would hate it.
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Re: Directors With Filmographies That Are All Over the Place in Terms of Quality

Post by transformers2 »

Buscemi2 wrote:
October 21st, 2021, 5:07 pm
Anyone could have made Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, and Hobbs & Shaw. These are disposable action movies that you could stick any easy to control director on and you'd get the same result. A decade earlier, you would have any other stuntman-turned-director on these and the product is no different.

Meanwhile, you might be the first person that I know to admit that Kate was a good movie.
Sure plenty of directors could've competently made those films, but Leitch brought an elite level of craftsmanship to the action that wouldn't have been there if they had hired someone like Doug Liman, Antoine Fuqua or Shawn Levy instead. To me, the most important part of an action movie is the quality of the action itself and Leitch has yet to fail to deliver in a big way on that front-especially on Atomic Blonde which features multiple damn near perfect fight scenes- which is precisely why I hold him in such high regard.

And anytime you're looking for somebody to praise an action movie that got a mixed-to-negative critical reception, you know where to find me :lol:
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Re: Directors With Filmographies That Are All Over the Place in Terms of Quality

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Haha, Tranny the diplomat!

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Re: Directors With Filmographies That Are All Over the Place in Terms of Quality

Post by JohnErle »

I'm always struck by how brilliant Rob Reiner was in the 80s versus how depressingly mediocre he's been ever since.

How could the man who gave us The Princess Bride, This Is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, and Stand By Me be the same guy who's spent the last thirty years delivering so many forgettable comedies and middling dramas.

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Re: Directors With Filmographies That Are All Over the Place in Terms of Quality

Post by Ron Burgundy »

....which brings us to our next hot topic: which directors had the most magical streaks?
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Re: Directors With Filmographies That Are All Over the Place in Terms of Quality

Post by Buscemi2 »

Tarantino, easily.
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