I was just having fun.
I actually like a few Michael Bay movies even the worst Transformers Revenge Of The Fallen! I am actually surprised no one mentioned M. Night Shyamalan, he has been off his game for a while.
Worst Director EVER! (Nominations)
- Thread starter Taylirious
- Start date
I was just having fun.
I actually like a few Michael Bay movies even the worst Transformers Revenge Of The Fallen! I am actually surprised no one mentioned M. Night Shyamalan, he has been off his game for a while.
A director whose films are fun to watch can't be called the worst ever.
Whoever did that first Hunger Games movie. I lasted about three minutes before my eyes exploded.
EDIT: It was Gary Ross.
I might also nominate Ridley Scott or Steven Spielberg, who for the last two decades have made nothing but dreck.
Lars Von Trier, to name one.
I thought Melancholia was tough to watch but visually impressive. I've only seen part one of Nymphomaniac but the genius there is pretty self-evident.
What Dogme 95 films have you seen to make you dislike it so much?
Curious, considering that for all that film's flaws, the actual direction and camera placement is near-flawless.
Some of the names put forth already are interesting. Brett Ratner, for example, is really very talented, technically speaking, in that while he lacks vision, he's very good at mimicking other directors -- he watched X-Men and X2, and basically shot The Last Stand the exact same way. He studied Silence of the Lambs, and then completely aped Demme on Red Dragon. The Family Man is so obviously Ratner doing Capra that it hurts. After the Sunset draws heavily from both McTiernan's Thomas Crown Affair and Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Anyway, I don't know if I can really accurately say who the worst director ever is, but one guy whose work I've never been able to tolerate is Stephen Sommers. I've seen everything he's ever directed, and every single one of his films has left me completely cold afterwards. Just empty, soulless work.
I think Lars Von Trier is a very talented director. He just happens to have a world view that makes some of his films very difficult to watch.
Nobody watches his movies because they're good. They're fun to watch because theyre so bad.
Furthermore the implication that a person is a bad director if their films arent fun to watch means that Steve McQueen is a horrible director because '12 years a slave' was not a fun movie.
Paul W.S. Anderson
2014 Pompeii
2012 Resident Evil: Retribution
2011 The Three Musketeers
2010 Resident Evil: Afterlife
2008 Death Race
2004 AVP: Alien vs. Predator
2002 Resident Evil
1998 Soldier
1997 Event Horizon
1995 Mortal Kombat
A few of those are mildly enjoyable fluff, most are horrendously awful hack-jobs, and none are good films.
2014 Pompeii
2012 Resident Evil: Retribution
2011 The Three Musketeers
2010 Resident Evil: Afterlife
2008 Death Race
2004 AVP: Alien vs. Predator
2002 Resident Evil
1998 Soldier
1997 Event Horizon
1995 Mortal Kombat
A few of those are mildly enjoyable fluff, most are horrendously awful hack-jobs, and none are good films.
David Lynch is a problem for me, simply because I never understand anything he does.
Except for Dune (which I liked very much) and The Straight Story, his films are way too weird and inaccessible for my tastes.
I can't label him as a 'worst director', simply because I never know what's going ON in most of his works!
Anderson frustrates me so much because he really has a great visual eye ... but he needs to be forcibly barred from ever writing anything, ever. (It's no coincidence that his one good film, Event Horizon, wasn't written by him.)
Oh god. I've never been able to finish Helsing, even with the commentary on to provide technical interest. And when I saw The Mummy Returns, I felt insulted. When whatsername was killed I was yelling "Die!!!" at the screen (audio in the theatre was so loud no-one could hear me anyway), as I knew she was just going to walk back on screen 5 minutes later.
*Sigh* That book the Golden Raspberries has spread so many erroneous notions....
There are obvious problems with Ed Wood's movies, to do with low budgets, mediocre acting, and lack of attention to detail, but if you watch other poverty row sci-fi and horror movies from the same period you'll find the same problems there.
Wood's big problem was an inability to concentrate and refine his work (he probably had ADHD), but he did have two important virtues: he had a talent for spotting people who would look interesting on screen (regardless of their acting ability), and he was able to inspire great enthusiasm and commitment from his cast, unlike other boring one-take wonders of the time. Perhaps the most notable example of this is Lugosi, who put in really powerful performances for Glen or Glenda, and Bride of the Monster. This is undeniable if you compare them with some of Lugosi's other work from the 40s onward.
Speaking of Glen or Glenda, that's actually an important film, being a very open, emotional, personal statement about an issue regarded as too extreme for the mainstream even today. It's also quite experimental in structure.
I'll also take this opportunity to say that Paul WS Anderson has gotten a bad rap. Death Race and the Resident Evil films are interesting action films (not counting RE 2 and 3, the worst of the series, which he didn't direct), and I really like his Musketeers movie. But there's no point expecting fanboys to view these things objectively.
BTW, Timby, Soldier and Pompeii were also written by others.
Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer:
Movie (Metacritic score)
Date Movie (11)
Epic Movie (17)
Meet The Spartans (9)
Disaster Movie (15)
Vampires Suck (18)
The Starving Games (No metascore, but 3 scores average a 3)
And coming in 2015: Who The F**k Took My Daughter?
These guys have made a career out of unwatchable parody movies that just take recognizable scenes from recent movies of the same genre and make poop jokes and gay jokes out of them with lookalike actors.
Vampires Suck is the most critically acclaimed movie they've ever made.
Movie (Metacritic score)
Date Movie (11)
Epic Movie (17)
Meet The Spartans (9)
Disaster Movie (15)
Vampires Suck (18)
The Starving Games (No metascore, but 3 scores average a 3)
And coming in 2015: Who The F**k Took My Daughter?
These guys have made a career out of unwatchable parody movies that just take recognizable scenes from recent movies of the same genre and make poop jokes and gay jokes out of them with lookalike actors.
Vampires Suck is the most critically acclaimed movie they've ever made.
I'll also take this opportunity to say that Paul WS Anderson has gotten a bad rap. Death Race and the Resident Evil films are interesting action films (not counting RE 2 and 3, the worst of the series, which he didn't direct), and I really like his Musketeers movie. But there's no point expecting fanboys to view these things objectively.
Sort of like there's no point expecting you to know what "objectively" means.
I grew up watching "monster movie matinee" on Saturdays with my dad. I saw all the terrible B horror and science fiction movies of the 30s 40s 50s and 60s. Not just the stuff in the golden turkey awards book but the stuff that later was memorialized on mystery science theater. And I have to say none of those movies where as ineptly directed as the stuff that Ed Wood did.
Actually I agree with you Timby, I just wanted to nominate Shatner.
^ And FWIW, the cast have all said that working with Shatner as a director was great - they praised his professionalism and said that there was never any of the baggage that came from being fellow actors with him on the show.
"I agree that he's a good director but I wanted to nominate him for the worst director ever."
I...
What...
Huh...
Well, I'm (unsurprisingly) a huge fan of everything he's done except for Inland Empire, but even if I wasn't I can't see how he could be nominated for Worst Director Ever. True, Dune is not well-loved (though it does have it's fans) and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is certainly not everyone's cup of coffee, but his films are technically flawless (watch Dune someday with the sound off and just look at what a gorgeous movie it is) and he routinely gets powerful and unforgettable performances out of his actors. Hardly a contender for "worst", I'd say.
I see what you did there.
