Top 5 Filmmakers/Stars Who Are DEAD To Me
This one is a ranter, but I think has some clean-out-the-Hollywood-stables merit. One thing I really appreciate about Filmspotting is the viewer-centered tone it takes. The good and bad reasons to love/hate a film, the weird reasoning we sometimes use to justify our loves, and the general fun it is to strip the hype from the films.
But sometimes Sam and Adam and most on this board are just too damn polite. Usually, that's a virtue. There are enough flame thrower testing ranges on boards across the net. And as a former critic, I understand the impluse: you don't want to just be negetive about film when so much good can be done simply by pointing out good films and praising them.
That said, DAMN IT man, there are some working in the industry who need to be banished. Truly foul practitioners of the art whose work is inflicted on the audience rather than unvieled. They need to be judged, found guilty, and thrown on that buring pyre that destroyed all the movies of the 1980s.
The rules here are you can't just take a whack at tiny, awful creators. The modern Ed Woods aren't fair game. People who have big careers, or have studios constantly telling us we should care are the offenders here. Essentially, people who can take their lumps.
Here's my list, and maybe this is just rant therapy. If so, I apologize.
1. Rob Schneider (THE ANIMAL, DUCE BIGALOW, HOT CHICK) He's like the anti-Tom Hanks. Everything he chooses is cancer on a filmgoers time. I cannot express the resevoir of hatred I have for this man.
2. Brian DePalma (SCAREFACE, BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES, MISSION TO MARS, THE UNTOUCHABLES). This man is not a filmmaker. He's a thief crawling over the estate of Hitchcock. Yes, he did some passable films, but on reflection his highs weren't that high, and his truckload of trainwrecks (mixed metaphores anyone?) is amazing.
3. Richard Gere (AN OFFICER AND A GENTELMAN, RED CORNER, PRETTY WOMAN). The Paul Walker of the 1970s and 1980s. How anyone can bag on Keanu Reeves while Gere goes relatively unscathed is unfair. The man can pose, but he cannot act.
4. Sandra Bullock (CRASH, HOPE FLOATS, MISS CONGENIALITY). I've waited long enough. She's mediocre, and that's all she'll ever be.
5. Michael Bay (ARMAGEDDON, THE ISLAND, BAD BOYS) Must I state the obvious. This might need to be the Michael Bay Memorial List (We can hope).
That's enough. I may revise as past offenders emerge from my repressed memories.