Who is your favorite director?

Jan 22 03:01 UTC 1997

This item is to discuss who is your favorite director.  As we all know, the
director is the real star of any film and directors have theirown styles. 
What director's filjms doyou like the most?

response 2 of 39:

Jan 22 04:47 UTC 1997

  Just one?  Impossible to do.

 I have several.

 Barry Levinson- I like his homey style and the use of what I call the "Tin
Men" gang to flesh out his movies. Good Morning Vietnam, Avalon, and Tin Men
come to mind as 3 of his movies that life wouldn't be worth living without.
Barry also has directed a few episodes of Homicide, most notably his tour de
force called "The Gas Man" starring Bruno Kirby as a crazed killer who stalks
one of the detectives while commiting a string of murders.
  The "Tin Men" gang would include J.T. Walsh, Bruno Kirby, Ralph Timartin

 Bruce Beresford- I think his movie, Tender Mercies was one of the best movies
that I have seen in quite a while. Duvall was magnificent, as usual.

 John Landis- I know he's a little cheap and schlocky, but I like the creative
ways that he puts apes in his movies when he can.

 Stanley Kramer- I liked the Caine Mutiny, which I believe was a groundbreaker
for that kind of film.

response 4 of 39:

Jan 23 22:40 UTC 1997

I can't narrow down a list of my own favorites, but I'd like to
ask the assembled - well, both of you >8) - what you thought of
Levinson's _Toys_.  That one of the favorite flame topics of
the Tori Amos mailing list I'm on, and probably other places as
well.  People either love it or loathe it, I've never seen anyone
who was noncommital about it.

response 6 of 39:

Feb 3 17:59 UTC 1997

   my favorite director is stanley kubrick. i thought "the shining" was
substandard for him, though.

response 8 of 39:

Feb 6 14:30 UTC 1997

Orson Welles is my favorite director. He is a master at manipulating film.
Besides _Citizen Kane_, I really loved _Lady From Shanghai_ and
_F is for Fake_. All three movies show his ability to play with conventions.
He used real news film to add to the "reality" of _Citizen Kane_. The
funhouse mirror scene of _Lady From Shanghai_ is one of the most
memorable scenes in film. As for _F is for Fake_, we can`t even tell
what is "real" in this "documentary" of Elmyr, the famous art forger.
All of the movies he directs is like a magic act you can't figure out.

Of course, I have to mention that anyone who can create a mass panic as
Welles did with his famous _War of the Worlds_ radio broadcast shows genius.

It's a shame that he didn't get to direct more.

response 10 of 39:

Feb 23 06:52 UTC 1997

  I loved "Citizen Kane", although the other people in this house cannot see
that. 

response 12 of 39:

Jul 4 03:24 UTC 1997

Hmmmm.....I'm having a temp. memory block at the moment, so bare with
me. Steven Spielburg is definatley one. Alfred Hitchcock. The Hughes
bros. Ridley Scott.
    I'll tell you more later.

response 14 of 39:

Jul 5 05:27 UTC 1997

Well, remmers, The Hughes brothers have done MenaceII Society, and Dead
Presidents. I can't think of the name of the film they just recently
released. But you've probably heard of those two films.

response 16 of 39:

Oct 22 05:41 UTC 1997

There are a number of directors whom i adore and the list seems to be
constantly growing . Among the Hollywood one's clearly my favourites are 
Spielberg , Scorcese , Brian de palma  ( especially his Untouchables and 
Body Double ) .I feel spielberg's greatest films were 'Schindler's List'
and 'Color Purple ' . When it comes to film with epic dimensions none can
equal
him.The combinatiopn of Scorsese and De Niro have worked wonders on the
celluloid .
"THe  king of comedy  " and " The raging Bull " are a treat to watch .
Among the European  filmakers I am a great fan of Bernardo Bertolucci
especially in 'The Last Emperor ' and 'The last Tango in Paris ' . 
Being an Indian I have also been captivated by the images of Satyajit Ray and
his highly emotional look at Indian life 

response 18 of 39:

Sep 13 07:13 UTC 1999

  to revivve a dead item...

   Speilberg- Love/Hate. I loved Always, Schindler's List, Close Encounters,
and Duel. The other ones, like ET was cloying and sappy, Jaws, was Ok, but
I didn't/don;t like it. Maybe I've just seen it too many times. We have cable
and TNT/TBS shows it every 3 weeks or so it seems.

  Scorsese- Everything that I have seen was great. He cannot make a bad film.
I just saw Taxi Driver last week on HBO, and I was on the edge of my seat even
though I've seen it as much as I've seen Jaws. I loved his part as the man
who was going to kill his wife which proves Scorsese is a good actor as well.
I have been holding off on seeing Raging Bull, but I have no good reason for
it, because I have it on tape.

  Norman Jewison- I really like "In the Heat of the Night". It still sparkles
and crackles with tension and Jewison exploits tat by using Steiger and
Poitier to thier fullest potentials. I'd like to see it uncut one of these
days.

  (more later)

response 20 of 39:

Jun 8 00:07 UTC 2000

favorite director: federico fellini, primarily for '8 1/2', 'la strada', 
'amarcord' and 'la dolce vita'.
now, i choose fellini as my favorite over two other mise en scenesters 
whom i think are superior -- francois truffaut (the 400 blows, jules and 
jim, fahrenheit 451, shoot the piano player) and kubrick (we all know.) 
-- for reasons of personal taste. these latter two directors can, i 
think, match aesthetic body blows with any other director on the market 
and come out on top. 

hitchcock, kurosawa, bertolucci (for a long time i didn't think much of 
this cat. to assuage any doubts, see 1900, il conformista, the last 
emperor, ...and 'last tango in paris' takes the cake), scorsese, woody 
allen, ingmar bergman (doubters please see 'wild strawberries'), fritz 
lang, and the coen bros i lump into that '2nd tier' with fellini.

in all his time here on earth, spielberg is responsible for one good 
movie: empire of the sun
the rest is crap.

mention was made of the hughes bros, and i've got to reiterate it 
because menaceIIsociety was one of the best movies made in the 90s.

mike nichols, responsible for mediocrity like 'regarding henry' and 
'postcards from the edge' and 'primary colors' (and and and) at least 
got to start out his career with two big bangs: 'who's afraid of 
virginia woolf?' and 'the graduate'. stellar. then his star collapsed, i 
guess.

what can be said for directors who produce a handful of gems atop a 
mountain of detritus? take 'the godfather' I + II. what has f.f. coppola 
done with his life since those two? 'apocalypse now' is usually argued 
to be good, i s'pose.

et cetera.

response 22 of 39:

Jun 8 23:27 UTC 2000

yeah, soderbergh . . . i have such love/hate for him. i first caught his 
name when i got all jiggy 'n' excited about _gray's anatomy_, then i saw 
'kafka', which was fun and very euro, but i wouldn't want to run through 
it a second time.
'the limey' really caught my attention because of all the flash cuts 
used to pull character development and emotional reactions from 'between 
the frames' to the fore. that movie was chock full of highly nutritious 
characters.
he's remaking 'oceans eleven' with brad pitt and clooney and julia 
roberts. which is sorta bizaare.

response 24 of 39:

Jun 9 07:38 UTC 2000

         *gasp*

                    *gasp*

  *gasp*

               *gasp*

you don't dig _spaulding_gray_?? ?   ?      ??   ??  ?