What happened?

Elfman was working on the score for Spider-Man 3. Raimi was using a cue from Hellraiser in his temp track. He liked it so much that he asked Elfman to basically do a rewrite of it for the film. Elfman balked, said he had better things in mind than a reworking of some other guy's score. Raimi insisted, Elfman still refused. Raimi then had Sony secure the rights for the Hellraiser cue and inserted it into the film as is. Elfman was so outraged at this that he quit, and Raimi ended up hiring the guy who actually composed the score for Hellraiser to score all of Spider-Man 3 (a score I enjoy, actually).

Edit: Actually, Raimi might have fired Elfman for not doing what he wanted. I don't remember exactly how Elfman was saying it went down, but he has vowed never to work with Raimi again.

Fixed.

+1. Breathless is extremely overrated, and I couldn't get through Band of Outsiders. Not a fan at all.

Kevin Smith

Def Oliver Stone. He spoke at UMich while I was there and told us we, the audience, are all slaves to the dollar. He then went on to say how Midnight Express' total gross back in 1978 was incredible.

Absolutely.

Wow. That's definately arrogant and pretentious. Did he include himself in that statement? How many times has he kicked the coke habit, been arrested for DUI and been in jail? I guess Stone is a slave to teh booze and substance abuse. Was this back in the mid 90's, when he was still making memorable (not just 'good') movies?

...

Directors need confidence and ego to make a good movie. You need to instill confidence in folks that hand you tens of millions of dollars. With that, I guess you inherit the 'pretentious' label.

I've seen a handful of older Godard interviews. He definately comes across as pretentious. Funny, he actually reminds me a lot of Sacha Baron Cohen in Talledega Nights.

...

Lastly, 'pretentious' is a very hard word to use. Just because you (or me) place that label on someone doesn't mean that we know shit about shit. It's kind of like being critical of a critic, eh?

No Tarantino?

Very first person I thought of too, and one of the few for whom that attitude influences my viewing of their films. Maybe because it shines through so much.

I'd say Ridley Scott also to some extent, from all the interviews I've seen. But he's earned the right I guess, still one of my favorites.

And I wouldn't call Tarantino pretentious per se, he's definitely confident to the point of being cocky, but he's such a film dork I think he's really just having fun. All the stroking over Pulp Fiction definitely went to his head, though.

I sorta agree, but I love his films and he lives up to it. I think a lot of the directors posted live up their so-called pretentiousness like Tarantino, Wes Anderson and P.T. Anderson.

The first one that came to mind was Uwe Boll. Someone that truly thinks they're making great films when they aren't. I guess Shyamalan would also fall into that category.

:lol:
:up:

seem like pretty much every director, ever, if this thread is to be believed.

Agreed. I've done many Criterion blind buys, and "Breathless" is probably the only one I wouldn't re-do.

Michael Cimino's rampant hubris, egotism and pretentiousness has been well documented.

Jules and Jim is Truffaut.
See Contempt & Alphaville.

Vincent Gallo has always struck me as pretentious...Creepy and pretentious.

Or Band of Outsiders and My Life to Live.

Oops. Getting my new wave stuff all mixed up! :doh:

Samuel Fuller and Yasujiro Ozu.

Hm. Maybe I have a different idea of what pretentious means. I feel it means an unearned snobbery and a focus on an "elitist"-feeling style with no substance to back it up.

When someone says a Paul Thomas Anderson or a Tarantino, that rubs me the wrong way because those guys are genuinely brilliant filmmakers, not poseurs.

Sam Raimi may act like an asshole for all I know, but his films are pretty lowbrow and entertaining, not what I'd call "pretentious" at all.

Now Oliver Stone, I'd call pretentious. M. Night and Wes Anderson I'd call pretentious because they've turned into parodies of themselves.

I would call Vincent Gallo pretentious because he pulls shock stunts in the name of "art" and they don't mean shit except he gets to have a hot chick suck his cock onscreen.

I would call Lars Von Trier pretentious because he makes boring incomprehensible movies based on this silly "dogma" he concocted and they all have the same silly theme: America (a place he's never visited) sucks.

Very well put. Wes Anderson started off strong, but "The Darjeeling Limited" might be one of the most boring movies I've ever seen, Vincent Gallo is probably the poster boy for young pretentious directors, and Dogville was such a pretentious, overlong piece of garbage, I can't believe Nicole Kidman would agree to star in it.

Surely you realize that those two being "genuinely brilliant filmmakers" is your opinion, not a statement of fact?