Most Over Rated Directors

[IronWaffle]

I'm curious: over-rated by whom? Seems to me that critics "over-rate" different director than the general movie-going public.

Of course, the average filmgoer has never historically been very interested in the director and more by the stars. The exception seems to be a select few populist directors with repeated box office success (say the Spielbergs and Ron Howards) and, lately, modern high-concept films (whether its the Bays, Nolans or -- more recently -- Whedons).

When you start breaking it down, people tend to over-rate what they enjoy and, perhaps defensively, under-rate what they don't. If I'm a "snob" I may over-rate Fincher, Scorsese and -- to prove my bona fides -- Kurosawa and Bergman. If I'm a "Joe Six-Pack" I may instead over-rate Michael Bay and Zach Snyder -- tossing in Scorsese and Hitchcock to similarly demonstrate that my tastes are more well-rounded than it may seem to those who disagree with me.

For my part, my favorite songwriter and performer overall is Bob Dylan. What I perhaps love most about him is that for those with enough wax in our ears to actually enjoy his work you must acknowledge that he is both over-rated and under-rated, often by the same fan. It has certainly helped me temper my views. My favorite contemporary film makers are the Coen Brothers. I think A Serious Man is under-rated and No Country for Old Men is over-rated. Luckily for me, I love/like both equally.

tl;dr?

[IronWaffle]

Originally Posted by octagon

I do a double-take when I see Nolan or Fincher called one of the best directors of all time and it's tiresome seeing the same names (particularly Nolan) pop up in every single 'who should direct fill-in-the-blank' conversation but I wouldn't say either of them are overrated. They're both above average and pretty much deserve their popularity.

I think what's interesting about these two and especially Nolan, is that they exist in a crossroad where they each have enough work that hits that sweet spot of critical and popular approval. And even if each has a mixture of financial success/failure and artistic merit/shortcomings, neither panders much or settles for lowest common denominator films. Even their worst films have something to recommend them.

It makes it reasonable to build a consensus that they're acceptable to elitists and folks who just want to be entertained.

[Fighter]

Originally Posted by Femmeslover

Christopher Nolan

B-I-N-G-O-!-!
(we have a winner)

[JavaJulien]

Originally Posted by jupiter123

How the hell is Christopher Nolan overrated. The guy does not know how to make a bad movie. He gave us one of the best trilogies of all time and taught the world how do a super hero movie.

People were sending reviewers death threats for giving Dark Knight Rises negative reviews. I don't think he's really overrated, just that his cultish fans put him too high on a pedestal.

[GaragePoet]

Originally Posted by IronWaffle

I'm curious: over-rated by whom? Seems to me that critics "over-rate" different director than the general movie-going public.

Of course, the average filmgoer has never historically been very interested in the director and more by the stars. The exception seems to be a select few populist directors with repeated box office success (say the Spielbergs and Ron Howards) and, lately, modern high-concept films (whether its the Bays, Nolans or -- more recently -- Whedons).

When you start breaking it down, people tend to over-rate what they enjoy and, perhaps defensively, under-rate what they don't. If I'm a "snob" I may over-rate Fincher, Scorsese and -- to prove my bona fides -- Kurosawa and Bergman. If I'm a "Joe Six-Pack" I may instead over-rate Michael Bay and Zach Snyder -- tossing in Scorsese and Hitchcock to similarly demonstrate that my tastes are more well-rounded than it may seem to those who disagree with me.

For my part, my favorite songwriter and performer overall is Bob Dylan. What I perhaps love most about him is that for those with enough wax in our ears to actually enjoy his work you must acknowledge that he is both over-rated and under-rated, often by the same fan. It has certainly helped me temper my views. My favorite contemporary film makers are the Coen Brothers. I think A Serious Man is under-rated and No Country for Old Men is over-rated. Luckily for me, I love/like both equally.

tl;dr?

i agree w/ almost this entire post... any popular filmmaker is bound to be over-rated by some, and others that make the "over-rated" argument are often lacking in artistic vision...

but i've said in another post that if i could only take a single director's body of work to a desert island where i could never watch anything else, it would be the work of the Coen Bros...

[Scholer]

Originally Posted by sperezmore

Agree

Terrence Malick is a very over rated director by film critics at the festivals (By the way, his last film "To the Wonder" was a fiasco at the 2012 Venice film festival)

In my opinion, he has only one good film from a grand total of 6: The Thin Red Line

The thing is, I applaud art cinema, and I love it when a filmmaker pays attention to cinematography (like he does). He is an experimental filmmaker way over rated by movie buff and film critics that always trying to imply that you are not intelligent enough to get his meaning and ideas. Really!!!

Terrence Malick is "NOT" Akira Kurosawa, Orson Welles, Charles Chaplin, Luis Buñuel, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Melville, Stanley Kubrick, Elia Kazan, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Nikita Mikhalkov, Ridley Scott, Wes Anderson, David Lynch, Hayao Miyazaki, Wong Kar-wai, David Lean or even Steven Spielberg to name a few film directors.

If anybody wants, later watch: Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, Naqoyqatsi, Chronos, Baraka and finally Samsara for the sheer enjoy of the senses.

Of course, this is just my opinion.

Regards,

I hate to break it up, but if you consider no similarity in status between the directors you listed and Malick then you don't understand Cinema. In a sense a single Malick film can end up being as important, as all the films directed by all the directors you listed, combined!

Malick is merely puzzling, and gets viewers often impatient and frustated, beyond that he is one of the greats invariably. See his films a few times over, you'll get the things you missed, as if you have the capacity to get through the directors you listed than surely one day you'll get through Malick.

Originally Posted by 42041

I doubt he cares. He makes the films he likes to make, some people love them, some people can't stop whining about them, nothing new to arthouse directors I'm sure.

Great point to be noted in this thread, same thing in the case of Nolan in my book.

[Kevin Holly]

[QUOTE=Scholer;6720468]I hate to break it up, but if you consider no similarity in status between the directors you listed and Malick then you don't understand Cinema. In a sense a single Malick film can end up being as important, as all the films directed by all the directors you listed, combined!/QUOTE]
Wow.

[Pounder]

Joss Wedon
Soderbergh
Malick

[Debbie Downer]

David Fincher
Quentin Tarantino
Christopher Nolan
Alfred Hitchcock
Sam Mendes
Sergio Leone
Francis Ford Coppolla
Woody Allen
Steven Spielberg
Stanley Kubrick
Martin Scorcese
Orson Welles
David Lynch
Ridley Scott
James Cameron
Billy Wilder
Fritz Lang
Howard Hawks
Terrance Malick
William Wyler
David Lean
Tim Burton
Roman Polanski
Peter Jackson
Ben Affleck
Guy Ritchie
Coen Brothers
Danny Boyle
Michael Haneke
Clint Eastwood
PT Anderson

and Len Wiseman

[Duffy12]

.

^^^ 100% agree.

.

[blurayisnice]

Originally Posted by Debbie Downer

[Show spoiler]David Fincher
Quentin Tarantino
Christopher Nolan
Alfred Hitchcock
Sam Mendes
Sergio Leone
Francis Ford Coppolla
Woody Allen
Steven Spielberg
Stanley Kubrick
Martin Scorcese
Orson Welles
David Lynch
Ridley Scott
James Cameron
Billy Wilder
Fritz Lang
Howard Hawks
Terrance Malick
William Wyler
David Lean
Tim Burton
Roman Polanski
Peter Jackson
Ben Affleck
Guy Ritchie
Coen Brothers
Danny Boyle
Michael Haneke
Clint Eastwood
PT Anderson

and Len Wiseman

''Look at me, I am so funny''

trolololo - YouTube

[legendarymatt92]

Originally Posted by sperezmore

Agree

Terrence Malick is a very over rated director by film critics at the festivals (By the way, his last film "To the Wonder" was a fiasco at the 2012 Venice film festival)

In my opinion, he has only one good film from a grand total of 6: The Thin Red Line

The thing is, I applaud art cinema, and I love it when a filmmaker pays attention to cinematography (like he does). He is an experimental filmmaker way over rated by movie buff and film critics that always trying to imply that you are not intelligent enough to get his meaning and ideas. Really!!!

Terrence Malick is "NOT" Akira Kurosawa, Orson Welles, Charles Chaplin, Luis Buñuel, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Melville, Stanley Kubrick, Elia Kazan, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Nikita Mikhalkov, Ridley Scott, Wes Anderson, David Lynch, Hayao Miyazaki, Wong Kar-wai, David Lean or even Steven Spielberg to name a few film directors.

If anybody wants, later watch: Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, Naqoyqatsi, Chronos, Baraka and finally Samsara for the sheer enjoy of the senses.

Of course, this is just my opinion.

Regards,

Was that simply an excuse for you to name as many directors and films that others may not have heard of as possible? Because that's what it felt like.

I don't understand what you meant, anyway - no, Malick isn't any of those directors, but he has never tried to be; the wonderful thing about Malick is that he creates his own incomprehensible style that, although influenced by the great directors, never imitates them. His narratives are ambiguous on purpose - he wants the audiences to think about cinema, not to just sit there passively watching lots of explosions and gunfights without any thought. Is that a bad thing? Sure, sometimes his films come very close to the pretentious mark, but that doesn't make him a bad director. I, personally, don't love -- or even understand -- all his films, but I think the praise he gets is something he deserves because he really does craft some intelligent and thought-provoking films.

Originally Posted by Debbie Downer

David Fincher

[Show spoiler]Quentin Tarantino
Christopher Nolan
Alfred Hitchcock
Sam Mendes
Sergio Leone
Francis Ford Coppolla
Woody Allen
Steven Spielberg
Stanley Kubrick
Martin Scorcese
Orson Welles
David Lynch
Ridley Scott
James Cameron
Billy Wilder
Fritz Lang
Howard Hawks
Terrance Malick
William Wyler
David Lean
Tim Burton
Roman Polanski
Peter Jackson
Ben Affleck
Guy Ritchie
Coen Brothers
Danny Boyle
Michael Haneke
Clint Eastwood
PT Anderson

and Len Wiseman

I think you're confusing over-rated with directors you don't personally like here. You're entitled to your own opinion but no one can argue that Orson Welles is an over-rated director. Ever.

And Len Wiseman? Seriously? Has he even been rated?

[s2mikey]

Originally Posted by JavaJulien

People were sending reviewers death threats for giving Dark Knight Rises negative reviews. I don't think he's really overrated, just that his cultish fans put him too high on a pedestal.

Agreed - its is his fanboy-base thats "over rated". His films are good but I wouldnt call him one of the best ever. I also wouldnt say hes over rated.

[42041]

Originally Posted by legendarymatt92

I think you're confusing over-rated with directors you don't personally like here.

There's a difference?

[Kevin Holly]

Originally Posted by legendarymatt92

I think you're confusing over-rated with directors you don't personally like here.

There's no difference between those two things.

Originally Posted by legendarymatt92

You're entitled to your own opinion but no one can argue that Orson Welles is an over-rated director. Ever.

Why not?

[octagon]

Originally Posted by 42041

There's a difference?

Originally Posted by Kevin Holly

There's no difference between those two things.

By saying something is overrated one is essentially arguing that the judgment of others is wrong...that others have rated this, that or whatever too highly.

This is tricky enough to begin with but doing this on the basis of tastes and preferences alone borders on silly. To base the conclusion that a director is overrated simply and solely because you don't like his or her films is no different than claiming chocolate is overrated because it gives you hives.

[Foggy]

The dude is called Debbie Downer, why are you guys taking him seriously?

[Duffy12]

Originally Posted by Foggy

The dude is called Debbie Downer, why are you guys taking him seriously?

Yea, I was wondering that also.

.

[Kevin Holly]

Originally Posted by octagon

By saying something is overrated one is essentially arguing that the judgment of others is wrong...that others have rated this, that or whatever too highly.

That's correct. In other words, you disagree with the popular opinion, the general critics opinion, or whatever.

Originally Posted by octagon

This is tricky enough to begin with but doing this on the basis of tastes and preferences alone borders on silly.

How else would you do it? There's no other way.

Originally Posted by octagon

To base the conclusion that a director is overrated simply and solely because you don't like his or her films is no different than claiming chocolate is overrated because it gives you hives.

No it wouldn't. That's a false analogy.

It would be no different than claiming chocolate is overrated because you don't like it.

Which is a good reason to call chocolate overrated.

Originally Posted by Foggy

The dude is called Debbie Downer, why are you guys taking him seriously?

That's a good point.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Kevin Holly

How else would you do it? There's no other way.

Sure there is. I can begin by recognizing that my personal tastes and preferences are not the One True Measure by which all movies or music or food or what have you are to be judged. I can try to be more objective (and in this context I'm using objective in its 'free from passion or prejudice' sense, not in its 'a foot is twelve inches no matter who's doing the measuring' sense) than that.

For instance, contrast the following conversations...

People shouldn't eat hot dogs.
Why not?
They're high in sodium which has been linked to hypertension and heart disease and processed meats have also been linked to increased risk of various cancers.

People shouldn't eat hot dogs.
Why not?
I don't like them, they're gross.

I don't particularly care for slasher movies. Does that in and of itself mean any and all slasher movies are overrated?

Of course not. That would be a ridiculously self-absorbed standard.

If I want to say you're wrong to like a movie or a director or a song or a restaurant it really is imcumbent upon me to come up with something a little more compelling than 'I don't like it'.