General Discussion : Most-anticipated movies

[djross]

Below is a list of the 14 movies I am currently most looking forward to seeing. They are in various stages of production or completion. Some directors whose work I would most likely be very interested to see are absent, as I think their next movie is still not quite clear (e.g., Paul Thomas Anderson, Darren Aronofsky, Coen brothers, Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman, Jacques Rivette).

1. Terrence Malick: The Tree of Life and Untitled Project (with Ben Affleck)
2. Lars von Trier: Melancholia
3. Adam Curtis: All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace
4. Abbas Kiarostami: The End
5. Andrew Dominik: Cogan’s Trade
6. Paolo Sorrentino: This Must Be the Place
7. Noah Baumbach: While We’re Young
8. Wes Anderson: Moonrise Kingdom
9. Pedro Almodóvar: The Skin I Live In
10. Steven Soderbergh: Haywire and Contagion
11. David Cronenberg: A Dangerous Method
12. Bertrand Bonello: L’apollonide (Souvenirs de la maison close)

[ShogunRua]

10. Steven Soderbergh: Haywire and Contagion

I'm still struggling to figure out which of this guy's movies is supposed to be good. Everything I have seen ranges from mediocre to complete garbage.

Even directors who I don't think very highly of (Darren Aronofsky) have made good films, and are legitimately talented at certain things. Soderbergh has the highest reputation from film snobs with the least accomplishments and no talent.

Honestly, I think even fucking Michael Bay is better than him; at least Bay made a good film called "The Rock" once upon a time, can do certain elements of CGI action okay, and makes way more money for his studio.

[TheDenizen]

The Limey is a great Soderbergh film.

[paulofilmo]

I like Soderbergh more than other Hollywood people. It wouldn't surprise me if Ocean's Eleven was just an elaborate scheme to fund Full Frontal. That has no basis in reality, but I do hope there are notes somewhere.

I think Traffic is fucking awful.
But maybe he's a good asshole and guffaws at its acclaim.


Don't want Ramsay direcing Americans, but yeah:
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) - Lynne Ramsay

Taketori monogatari (2010) - Isao Takahata

The Rum Diary (2011) - Bruce Robinson

[tomelce]

Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)
The Adventures of Tintin (Steven Spielberg)
Impardonnables (Andre Techine)
Tomboy (Celine Sciamma)
Dark Horse (Todd Solondz)
The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)

[paulofilmo]

The Overcoat (????) - Yuriy Norshteyn
Post Tenebras Lux (2011) - Carlos Reygadas

Take your time, Yuriy.

[paulofilmo]

Samsara (2011) - Ron Fricke

[djross]

In relation to Steven Soderbergh, I've seen a dozen of his movies, with an average score of 59.17, which is not great. If I look at those directors where I have seen at least 10 of their movies, then this places Soderbergh in 20th position (out of 26), between Mike Nichols and David Cronenberg. But unlike either Nichols or Cronenberg, I have seen no Soderbergh movies that I would place in my top tier.

I have seen no masterpieces by this director, nor even any movies I would call great, and in fact I have not given him a score higher than 70 (the tier 7 movies are as follows: a score of 70 for Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Solaris, and Che: Part One; a score of 65 for The Informant!, Che: Part Two, The Girlfriend Experience and Out of Sight). So there is perhaps little reason to consider him a great director.

That said, Soderbergh is one of those directors who seems to want to play a particular kind of Hollywood game, shifting between calculatedly commercial projects and other, more personal, smaller-scale projects. My feeling is that he is a director who likes to experiment at technical, aesthetic, and thematic levels, and is thus a somewhat interesting director, even though none of his experiments is entirely successful. For that reason I probably look forward to seeing his movies more than some other directors, even though I don't really have enormous expectations.

[sebby]

Tree of Life might be my most anticipated film since There Will Be Blood. Moonrise Kingdom right behind it.

[ShogunRua]

Soderbergh stuff

Fair enough. I only watched Ocean's 11, Traffic, and Erin Brockovich, and it basically made me never want to watch another of his films ever again.