rw2516

From some of these posts it appears that if a director known for great films makes a competent average movie it's automatically shit.

Ash Ketchum

Scorsese
Best: MEAN STREETS, TAXI DRIVER, GOODFELLAS
Worst: BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, anything with DiCaprio

Walter Hill
Best: EXTREME PREJUDICE, JOHNNY HANDSOME, TRESPASS
Worst: LAST MAN STANDING, WILD BILL, UNDISPUTED

inri222

IMO Rumble Fish would be included as Top of Game.


Have to disagree with that.
Playtime is IMO Tati's masterpiece.



IMO Tarkovsky & Haneke have not made a bad film.


I will add

Ridley Scott
●Top of his game: The Duellists, Alien, Blade Runner
●WTF is this crap?: Everything else

godzilla rules

I love the lovely bones. I have seen it multiple times. It may not be the best movie, but it is told in such an original way that it has stuck with me.

Mabuse

What?!

Groucho

I don't know. Watching him paw at Meryl Streep in The Bridges of Madison County was pretty horrifying.

Dr. DVD

I somewhat disagree with these two. If you look at Batman Returns as a Batman movie, then yes, it is kind of lackluster. However, as a work of Tim Burton's weirdness, it's kind of cool. I think Sleepy Hollow is my favorite Burton movie overall, due to how well his style melds with that of the Hammer horror movies he's imitating.

Dr. DVD

P.S. It is okay to disagree with other's opinions in this thread, but give some reasoning behind it. Respectful and mature arguments keep these forums interesting! Emphasis on mature I might add.

Solid Snake

So goddamn true on JC and FFC

why don't you like DiCaprio again?

Ash Ketchum

I never believe DiCaprio, esp. when he's supposed to be playing an adult. In Scorsese's films he looks like a kid in dress-up. And the only "acting" he does is when he furrows his brow to look "serious." He doesn't look right, he doesn't stand right, he doesn't talk right, he doesn't move right. I need a real actor in those roles, someone who inhabits the character from the inside out and makes the character his own. DiCaprio always seems to be at quite a remove from his characters. Just compare him to young De Niro in the earlier Scorsese movies. De Niro became those characters in a way DiCaprio will never be capable of.

Quatermass

I agree wholeheartedly. DiCaprio was fantastic in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", "This Boy's Life" and "The Basketball Diaries" and a few others, but that trailer for the new J. Edgar Hoover movie makes me cringe. Lots of brow-furrowing.

BambooLounge

I feel like perhaps some people just got overtaken by DiCaprio's immense celebrity post-Titanic. In all the pre-Titanic work, he was just an actor and it was easier to just go with him in the role. I think he has done a good job of maturing as an actor though by working with great directors. I thought his performance in The Aviator was fantastic, as well as Catch Me If You Can. The De Niro comparison is unfair, I believe. De Niro is essentially a character actor that was lucky enough to rise to prominence during the American New Wave when acting talent was valued far more than mere playboy looks. Perhaps, I'm just too young, but I don't think De Niro or Pacino were ever "teen heart throbs." The heart throb actors of that time were McQueen, Newman, and maybe Burt Reynolds and I think all three of them are more akin to DiCaprio in that they have a hard time just becoming the character excepting a few roles in their careers.

I'd say the actor who is the hardest for me to ever see simply becoming a character, outside of a few of his films, is John Wayne. He is simply too iconic and he overpowers his roles unless he is under expert direction.

And to be on-topic:

Sidney Lumet

The Best: Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, 12 Angry Men, Network

WTF: The Wiz

Norm de Plume

...Prince of the City, The Verdict, Child's Play (1972), The Deadly Affair...

wm lopez

Matt Damon has the same type of looks but is able to play any role.

Ash Ketchum

If DiCaprio had stuck to playing "teen heart throb roles," I wouldn't be complaining about him because I wouldn't have seen any of those stupid movies. But in the Scorsese movies, he's not playing teen heart throbs, he's playing real characters that demanded a real actor, so he should be held to the same standard as De Niro. The '60s equivalent would be like casting Troy Donahue or Tab Hunter in the Newman roles of that time, like THE HUSTLER or HUD. We can debate Newman's talent as an actor versus his appeal as a movie star, but he sure made Fast Eddie come alive in THE HUSTLER in a way that's much closer to De Niro than DiCaprio. And, of course, he later won an Oscar for the same role in a sequel directed by...Scorsese!

TheMovieman

Richard Donner

The Best: Lethal Weapon, The Omen, Superman (I'd put the Goonies here, but IMO it's good but overrated)

WTF: Lethal Weapon 3 and 4, Timeline

whoopdido

DiCaprio is a great actor. Probably one of the best working today. At the moment, I can't think of anybody with a larger screen presence. He plays a wide variety of roles and plays them all well. What's not to like?

Charlie Goose

Ivan Reitman
Top of His Game: Meatballs, Dave, Ghostbusters, Stripes
WTF is This Crap: Six Days Seven Nights, Fathers' Day, Junior, Ghostbusters II

Rypro 525

Can i disagree and say that Bug def belongs in the Crap department? A movie so bad and boring that Ashley Judd going full monty couldn't save it

BambooLounge

The teen heart throb comment was not meant to imply that DiCaprio still plays such roles or should, but that such roles increased his celebrity to such heights that he was overexposed as such for a period of time. I think that is what is influencing a lot of people who hate him as an actor.

Especially, when people cite his pre-Titanic films as his best work. I mean, most "celebrity actors" today cannot blend into a role. It is so hard to get invested in an Angelina Jolie character for this reason. Brad Pitt on the other hand tends to do it better than most (12 Monkeys, Se7en, Fight Club). I think DiCaprio leans more towards Pitt than Jolie. I can find myself believing his characters. But, then again, I cannot watch Kevin Costner movies because I always feel like I am simply watching Kevin Costner and not a character. We all probably have an actor we cannot buy into for whatever reason

PenguinJoe

DAVID GORDON GREEN

BEST: ALL THE REAL GIRLS
WORST: YOUR HIGHNESS

(how did the same guy direct both of these)

inri222

I would also include

Good stuff : Assault on Pecinct 13, Prince of Darkness, In the Mouth of Madness, Escape From NY

Crap: Escape From L.A.

Solid Snake

Ahem...Hooper didn't direct Poltergeist, Spielberg did. Dunno how I skipped your post the last time.

JumpCutz

Yeah I know all the stories...but whose name is on the credit?. Go to any movie reference site and you'll find Hooper listed as the director. You can even ask Spielberg. Case closed. It's officially a Tobe Hooper film. Sorry Snake.

BTW you can have Poltergeist....It's nothing special. Tobe still directed one of the greatest films of all time ... The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I can hang my hat on that.

Norm de Plume

Damn right, but excepting Salem's Lot, I haven't liked a single thing he has done since his debut.