CAMERON CROWE

I never understood why many people rate him quite highly. Sure he wrote FAST TIMES IN RIDGEMONT HIGH, but as a director, he is easily among the most overrated.

I mean JERRY MAGUIRE to this day I don't get why people really really like it. Why? Is it because its a melodramatic tear-jerker about some asshole of a sports agent that bounces back, and back to his girl, or because it seems exceptional if one has been in a cave his whole life.

Then there is ALMOST FAMOUS, a movie I sorta enjoyed, and its a nice picture(***/5), but nothing special...though I still don't comprehend why women think Kate Hudson's character is an idol, I mean shes a pretty damn dumb groupie who got traded to another group for a case of beer.
But hey, Jason Lee!

As for VANILLA SKY, Crowe's remake of Spain's ABRE LOS OJOS, the movie is.........it misses the mark. If anything, remakes of already good movies should either surpass it, or at least equate the impact on a different take of the material.

But Crowe's latest failure is one that got its ass kicked at Sundance and financially in theaters. ELIZABETHTOWN really felt like Crowe somehow watched Braff's own GARDEN STATE on bootleg DVD, then figured he could do it, but BETTER! However, like SKY, he fails. Not that I'm ass kissing Braff's flick, which was a decent debut picture, but Crowe's movie was pathetic and worse, pointless.

Alright folks, name some directors that YOU think are pretty damn overrated, and explain why.

I have to agree on Crowe. I've only ever seen part of Vanilly Sky but I thought it was so mind-numbingly dumb at times that I didn't even bother finishing it.

As for directors who I think are overrated . . .

Steven Spielberg
Barry Levinson
James Cameron
Clint Eastwood
Peter Jackson
Kevin Costner

Among others.

I agree with all of your list apart from Stevan Spilberg in my point of view he's a legend and made some great film's over the years

Tim Burton
Clint Eastwood

Steven Spielberg

What about that Scorsese guy? What the hell is his deal?

He has fucking caterpillar's on his forehead!

Anyways, the only director posted that does not belong in here is Tim Burton. I love that man... I LOVE him.

I don't think I would call Costner over-rated, because I don't think there are really that many people who think his work is any good in the first place.

If you want to talk about "directors who aren't any good", that's different than "over-rated".

To me, Eastwood is.

Couldn't tell you why, except that I've never seen a film by him that I really liked a lot.

I agree. Costner was basically a one-hit-wonder with his 'Dances With Wolves'...which I felt was a wonderful picture but there were many who didn't even like THAT.

I have to add a name to the Overrated Directors list: Barbra Streisand.

Ever since 'Yentl' in 1982, Streisand has pretty much served as director, producer or BOTH on every film she's starred in. While I appreciate her talents in all other areas and don't feel that she's really a bad director, I don't happen to like her 'in-your-face' style of symbolism that she tends to bring to every movie.

She also tends to indulge herself with what I call the 'Streisand Moment' in all her films. This is where the camera pulls back to a full shot of her character, she poses, tilts her head in just the right way and gives us that come hither smile...as if to say, "Here I am fans...LOVE me!"

Apple

Anybody who considers Steven Speilberg an 'overrated director' needs to have his head examined. Either that or should head to Blockbuster for a few DVD's.

With a list of classics under his belt that includes:

Jaws
The Color Purple
E.T.
Schindler's List
Saving Private Ryan

...Speilberg is not only NOT overrated but pretty much a legend, as DE NIRO said.

Apple

ps - in case anybody wants to start an Underrated Directors thread, I'll begin with two of my favorites:

Ron Howard (Cocoon/Apollo 13/A Beautiful Mind)
Rob Reiner (A Few Good Men/Misery)

Eh... Speilberg is OK, and has some great films, but they've always been a bit too Blockbuster-like/"to make a good movie you have to follow THIS formula" for my tastes. The only film of his that I really, really liked, that I can think of, off of the top of my head, is Schindler's List. The man has made a number of great films in his life, they just don't... I don't know.

I can't really explain it. Maybe it's that the man has become synonymous with the phrase "best director", when really I think someone like Martin Scorsese, or Sergio Leone, or Stanly Kubrick (etc.) deserve that title.

I think Ron Howard is ridiculously overrated. He makes cliche dramas with good actors, but they often leave a sour taste left in your mouth. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if The Da Vinci Code was nothing more then an exploitation of a Best-Seller. I'll post more on overrated directors later.

As for Spielberg, I think he's a great director.

Schindler's List
Saving Private Ryan
Jaws
Jurassic Park
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
War of the Worlds
Catch Me If You Can
The Terminal
Hook
The Lost World

Sorry, but that wouldn't really apply to Steven Speilberg.

Not only do his films NOT follow a blockbuster 'formula', but several of them became 'blockbusters' due in wide in part to his talent behind the camera.

JAWS was pretty much a low budget disaster until Speilberg turned it into the classic that it is, and that put him on the map.

Even the previous 'Sugarland Express' starring Goldie Hawn got young director Speilberg rave reviews despite the films depressing theme and ending.

Didn't he direct 'Jurassic Park' as well? Or was he the producer of that one???

Apple

He directed Jurassic Park.

I suppose I can accept that opinion from you...but Howard directed 'Apollo 13' which is one of my all time favorites.

FWIW, I never really cared for his 'The Grinch' which some seem to now consider a holiday 'favorite'. I think it was way, WAAAAYYY too drawn out and dramaticized...and will take the Boris Karloff narrated half hour cartoon over it any day in December.

Apple

I never saw his Apollo 13. To an extent A Beautiful Mind is a guilty pleasure mostly due to Crowe's performance. Cinderella Man was a mediocre drama that nearly got to me with the great score.

OVERRATED DIRECTORS #2

RON HOWARD

The most celebrated average director in Hollywood, Opie has I guess a decent if over-exaggerated career. I did enjoy GRAND THEFT AUTO and NIGHT SHIFT as garbage flicks, and for that sort of thing, they do work.

However, its amazing that people forget his one early dud, FAR & AWAY, with a pre-insane Cruise and Kidman as Irish lovers...or something. A melodramatic doozy that should be avoided, unless you've got a fetish for Irish shit.

His other 80's fare like COCOON, GUNG-HO, SPLASH and WILLOW were OK, but again nothing extraordinary.

The only film of Howard's that I can safely call good without having to lie is APOLLO 13. Truely not great, nor even very good, but its a good picture, with maybe the best moments being Ed Harris, in an Oscar-nominated role, being the hardass savior of a crew chief.

However since then, he hasn't impressed me. RANSOM was like a safe Hollywood pop thriller remake of a superb Kurosawa movie, and ED TV was like the Idiot Bait garbage alternative to the same premise in the same year of Peter Weir's brilliant THE TRUMAN SHOW.

However, even then I still didn't hate or really call him overrated. He was just a director that was going up the ladder, which is fine. Besides, his brother Clint needs the work.

But once he did A BEAUTIFUL MIND, Howard has been on my Shit List. A prodding melodramatic dishonest movie that somehow beat superior pictures in 2001 like IN THE BEDROOM, the first LOTR(yes I said it, deal with it), David Lynch's MULHOLLAND DR., Sir Ridley Scott's flawed but still ambitious at times BLACK HAWK DOWN, Terry Zwigoff's GHOST WORLD, PIXAR's MONSTER'S, INC., Spielberg's underated ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE....oh ya and that one Chris Nolan movie, fucking MEMENTO.

Since Opie won his Oscar, he was on a path of trying to win another Naked Gold Man Statue. THE MISSING though was a misfire of a pretentious "western" that rightly disapeared in theaters, and well, CINDERELLA MAN fucking insulted me. An Oscar-bait melodrama(sense a pattern?) that felt like a $100 million movie that should have been called SEABISCUIT WITH BOXING GLOVES. This film tries to "inspire" one not with organic substance, but with artificial emotional manipulation that I could fucking live without. Again, no surprise that it was a dud in theaters.

Now THE DA VINCI CODE......hell, even Howard's serious fans that I know of really think its mediocre. Obviously Howard made it as a guaranteed hit(which it is), but really, when one has to be faithful to a super popular generic-ass book, its sorta doomed to be nothing ultimately special. Still, at least we have Ian McKellen once again prove that even with terrible dialogue, he can make it sound superb. My pal, webmaster Troy Anderson of AndersonVision.com, was justfully righteous when he gave it the best fitting term I've seen in years: "Idiot Bait"

Still, despite my trashing of Opie, perhaps his best effort is his daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard. YUMMY!

Got to go along with that...after all, poor ol' Clint can't live off that 'Trania' scene with Captain Kirk!!

Glad I at least got discussion going about Howard, even if it's NOT in his favor...I hope there's no disagreement on Rob Reiner, to whose A-list I must add, 'When Harry Met Sally'.

Apple

Spielberg is a great director, but I do understand Hagen's anger. When the Beard gives a shit about his material, usually its something special. Other than that, its popcorn fare.

I mean consider in 2005, he paid the bills well with WAR OF THE WORLDS, which in his career is average. Not terrible like say HOOK or LOST WORLD, but probably not even in my top 15 of his flicks. Then in December, he did MUNICH, which I thought was a pretty well-made picture, and even more that most of it works, even if he shot, edited, mixed, had scored, etc. in literally 6 months. Again, what I saw in MUNICH was the Beard actually putting away his Franchise Title Name and instead trying to harness a throwback in style of that of Friedkin in the 70s, some Mann-esque techniques, Antollini, and of course Hithcock.

Still, to me Spielberg's "good" movies that I would consider special are the following:

DUEL (1971) - Impressive feature debut with this low budget TV-production fare.

JAWS (1975) - Important movie in the evolution that will result in the summer blockbuster movie. If anything, the film's first 2 acts are set up for the grand finale of the 3rd act, where this flick becomes a MAN MOVIE, with Shaw, Dreyfus, and Schneider fighting an epic war against one giant shark.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) - Very good story of man's first contact with visitors from space, though even Spielberg admits now he blew it when he added scenes featuring the interior of the space ship in his Special Edition edit.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK(1981) - Along with STAR WARS, the most influential action movie of the last 30 years. You see an editing narrative that Hollywood has basically copied in spirit, even into this summer, along with a B-movie of a story that is produced as an A-level masterpiece.

INDIANA JONES & THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984) In some moments of this prequel(no really, it is. Watch the movie again!), this film's desire to be the ultimate B-action garbage juvenile adventure tale actually prevails over RAIDERS, though in the overall narrative execution. While Spielberg and Lucas proceeded to unsurprisingly distance themselves once the movie didn't make as much cash as RAIDERS, I still take this movie to heart. Besides, it sure made me freak out as a kid when the heart is ripped out. If only Spielberg was only this ballsy these days on a consistent basis.

EMPIRE OF THE SUN (1987) - Ambitious historical drama by Spielberg, who wanted to make his own David Lean-esque epic film. While a financial failure, EMPIRE is a pretty darn good underrated picture that did introduce to the world a kid actor in Christian Bale, who is now Batman.

SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993) - For the first time in his career, Spielberg didn't storyboard the picture before shooting. He decided to fuck trying to make it mainstream by using Black & White cinematography, many historical text cards, and 200 minutes long. Not to mention a movie about the Jewish Holocaust itself. Hell, Spielberg made JURASSIC PARK to cover his ass. However, as Spielberg decided to go for broke, LIST finally won him his Best Director Oscar, and this movie is arguably perhaps among the best of the 1990s, if not debatable as #1.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (2001) - People give this movie shit, which I never understood. Sure Kubrick's version would have been great, but he died before he could. So instead, Spielberg took over and made for a dark fairy tale in an unique universe, which alone probably would have made Kubrick proud. While I still think the whole "Flesh Fair" ended up looking like a retarded WWE wrestling event, the rest of the movie rocks, with an ending that while on the surface it appears to be Spielberg being sentimental once again....there is something dark under the surface about it. Think about it.

MINORITY REPORT (2002) - This movie is flawed. In what could have been Spielberg's own BLADE RUNNER, he instead opted for an audience-friendly ending which undercuts the great potential the film set its self up for. Still, I did dig that for once, a movie taking place far in the future, most buildings are just they are now, save for the typical futuristic cars and such. Based on a good short story from the late great Philip K. Dick.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (2002) - Enjoyable cat & mouse flick, which Spielberg actually shot while trying to edit MINORITY REPORT. In fact, Spielberg only took over directing duties once Gore Verbinski dropped out before production. After Fincher, Cameron Crowe( :rolleyes: ), and others turned down The Beard, and with the fact that unless the film was shot in the spring of 2002, the star package of Leo and Hanks would have evaporated. Fortunately, Spielberg churned out a pleasing con movie.

MUNICH (2005) - God knows how many bridges the Beard burned down probably with his fellow Jews that had been mended with SCHINDLER'S LIST, but I applaud him for it. Despite the many ideologues on both sides trying to make this movie into something its not, this film really is one that asks a simple question...yet its such a complex answer that wisely its never defiantly expressed. Eric Bana pulled off a surprisingly good job, and hopefully he leaves the HULK and TROY garbage shit for better things.

Brian De Palma
Clint Eastwood

I'm tempted to say Tarantino and Burton, too, but that all depends on who I'm discussing them with.

I'd be better with an Underrated list...

Ah, right Catch Me If You Can. That was a film that I really like. But, I don't really gain much enjoyment from some of his other films. I'm not saying he is UNTALENTED, people just seem to magnify his talent, and rub it in my face.

It's still hard for me to explain. I feel his movie's have, stylistically, become outdone. And for me, style is half the movie.


An under-rated list would go on for ever, methinks.

Steven Spielberg
George Lucas
Brian De Palma

I'm actually just coming out of my Tarantino-is-God phase. I feel like I'm starting to value his films a little bit more realistically now in the scope of things.

Add the all-time classic "This Is Spinal Tap" to Reiner's list. I love that film.

"You can't really dust for vomit..."

David St. Hubbins: He died in a bizarre gardening accident...
Nigel Tufnel: Authorities said... best leave it... unsolved.

Bah servents, here is the best from thy mighty SPINAL TAP:
---------------------------------------------------------

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...

Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?

Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.

Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?

Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?

Marty DiBergi: I don't know.

Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?

Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.

Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.

Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?

[PAUSE]

Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.

Jim Jaramusch

Sorry, Vercetti.

The Doc

Michael Mann too

BOO!

I couldn't agree with you more Apple on both accounts. It looks like you and I are the few Ron Howard fans on this board

Gee I wonder why... :rolleyes: