Author Topic: Not My Cup of Tea: Top 5 Directors That You Just Don't Like Very Much  (Read 8250 times)

1SO

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I should throw in Mitchell Leisen because he fits this category so well. Leisen worked during the Golden Age of Hollywood with many of my favorite classic stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Olivia de Havilland, Jean Arthur, Fred McMurray (9 times), Ray Milland (6 times), Claudette Colbert (4 times), Edward Arnold, Gene Terney, Carole Lombard. A dozen titles are rated above 7.0 on IMDB, but I find his comedies stiff and his dramas even stiffer. Even his good films (Remember the Night, The Mating Season) feel weighed down when the script is anxious to bounce. I actually prefer the triviality of a studio hack like Lloyd Bacon to Leisen's output which reeks of a director who thinks he's better than the material he's given.

don s.

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Re: Not My Cup of Tea: Top 5 Directors That You Just Don't Like Very Much
« Reply #51 on: July 07, 2019, 02:00:40 PM »
I should throw in Mitchell Leisen because he fits this category so well. … Even his good films (Remember the Night, The Mating Season) feel weighed down when the script is anxious to bounce.…

I love Remember the Night and Midnight, but you might have a point. His interpretation of both films famously prodded their screenwriters to start directing their own stuff, which makes me wonder what they might've looked like.
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Eric/E.T.

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Because I feel like being annihilated, I'm just going to go with the best regarded film directors that I don't particularly like. Some might have films that I like a lot, but repel me overall. Also, this is based on seeing 3-4 films from a director, not the whole body of work. Filmspotting-length marathons. Last - I don't know if there's a director where I've seen 3-4 of their pictures and didn't like at least one. Still wanted to take this challenge.

1. Billy Wilder - I'm 0 for 3 here and don't know which film I'd go to next to change my mind (so far, Sunset Blvd., Double Indemnity, and Some Like It Hot)
2. Alfred Hitchcock - This pick is partially for the hype, partially because I find the plots kind of pretentious. I do think Vertigo is super great.
3. Sam Mendes
4. Carl Theodor Dryer - 0 for 3 here as well, and pretty sure I've seen the most "important" ones (Joan of Arc, Ordet, Gertrud)
5. David O. Russel - A case of really liked him before, still like 3 Kings and I Heart Huckabees, find his work Silver Linings Playbook and beyond to be insufferable, and have no interest is seeing another one of his films

He who is without sin cast the first stone.  ;D
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oldkid

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Because I feel like being annihilated, I'm just going to go with the best regarded film directors that I don't particularly like. Some might have films that I like a lot, but repel me overall. Also, this is based on seeing 3-4 films from a director, not the whole body of work. Filmspotting-length marathons. Last - I don't know if there's a director where I've seen 3-4 of their pictures and didn't like at least one. Still wanted to take this challenge.

1. Billy Wilder - I'm 0 for 3 here and don't know which film I'd go to next to change my mind (so far, Sunset Blvd., Double Indemnity, and Some Like It Hot)
2. Alfred Hitchcock - This pick is partially for the hype, partially because I find the plots kind of pretentious. I do think Vertigo is super great.
3. Sam Mendes
4. Carl Theodor Dryer - 0 for 3 here as well, and pretty sure I've seen the most "important" ones (Joan of Arc, Ordet, Gertrud)
5. David O. Russel - A case of really liked him before, still like 3 Kings and I Heart Huckabees, find his work Silver Linings Playbook and beyond to be insufferable, and have no interest is seeing another one of his films

He who is without sin cast the first stone.  ;D

I think you might like Sunset Blvd, give it a shot.   
Pretentious or genius? PoTAYto, PoTAHto.   
If you didn't like those three Dryer, there's no need to keep exploring.
David O Russell isn't great enough to pursue him more.  Besides, you liked 3 Kings and Huckabees, so you're doing better than many.
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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I've seen a lot of Wilder and I don't see you liking him. I'm also not a fan.

Dryer and Hitchcock are personal favorites.

Mendes is whatever. O Russel I strongly dislike.

Bondo

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I mean, with Wilder I'd be thinking The Apartment and Stalag 17 probably as the good ones to watch.

Eric/E.T.

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Bondo - why those Wilders?

I think you might like Sunset Blvd, give it a shot.   
Pretentious or genius? PoTAYto, PoTAHto.   

I don't like to use the word pretentious much, I think it gets misapplied a lot. Maybe you could argue I'm misapplying it.  :)  There are just some places where I interpret Hitchcock as thinking he's done something smarter, bolder, or more interesting than what it really is (psychoanalysis at the end of Psycho; dolly zoom in Vertigo; even the "big" scene on Mt. Rushmore in North by Northwest that didn't really do it to me), which leads me to apply the label here. What I do appreciate is that he cared and tried to do some interesting things, that is a lot more than we can say for a lot of big filmmakers these days. I just haven't really clicked with him.

I've seen Sunset Blvd. I didn't like it. I'm generally averse to huge performances, and the Gloria Swanson one in that one really repels me.
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MartinTeller

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Pretentious is the laziest word in film criticism.

If you didn't like those three Dryer, there's no need to keep exploring.

Disagree. I think there’s a good chance you’d enjoy Vampyr, and maybe Day of Wrath

Bondo

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Bondo - why those Wilders?

The Apartment because it is his best film by some measure. Plus it kind of concerns the plight of two characters being trod on by the capitalist system.

Stalag 17 just is another one I liked. I don't know if I have as immediately compelling a reason you'd like it.

Junior

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Vampyr is cool as hell.
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