Top 5 Favorite Directors

Discuss your favorite actors, directors or screenwriters
by Devol
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Re: Top 5 Favorite Directors

Post by by Devol »

Ok - I must be blind. I don't think I've ONCE seen either Jewison's or Bogdonavitch's names mentioned. Anywhere. Unblind me < ?
just curious what folks think of those two

TheDenizen
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Re: Top 5 Favorite Directors

Post by TheDenizen »

I like a handful of Jewsion's flicks, especially Rollerball... Jesus Christ Superstar and Moonstruck are both pretty decent as well.

As for Bogdanovich, the only things of his I've seen are Mask (ok but not great), and Noises Off which was a pretty good adaptation of a screamingly funny stage play.

ShogunRua
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Re: Top 5 Favorite Directors

Post by ShogunRua »

TheDenizen wrote:As for Bogdanovich, the only things of his I've seen are Mask (ok but not great), and Noises Off which was a pretty good adaptation of a screamingly funny stage play.


Yeah, I have only seen "Noises Off" from Bogdanovich, which was brilliantly funny. (Didn't know there was an original theatrical production)

TheDenizen
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Re: Top 5 Favorite Directors

Post by TheDenizen »

Yeah I saw Noises Off onstage in the early 90s somewhere, and then discovered it had been adapted to a film shortly after.

The film had better actors, but it's really the sort of thing that was designed to be done in a theater. Half of the plays' brilliance is in the staging/timing of all the wacky shit that happens, escpecially in the second half.

by Devol
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Re: Top 5 Favorite Directors

Post by by Devol »

A couple Bogdonavitch films I'd like to recommend: "Targets" (1968) - pretty awesome first film. In a climate of Kennedy assassinations and especially the U of Texas sniper, this flick sometimes has an almost documenatry-like way the lead character methodically goes about his quotidian snipings. Boris Karloff co-stars! Pete also has a part.......his character is a budding young filmmaker!

While I hereby do not endorse the usual shenanigans of Ryan O'Neal and Barabara Striesand, I thought they were both in their best form in the kooky screwball comedy "What's Up Doc?" ('73). I wouldn't run out to rent it, but I'd most definitely prioritize it if it popped up on the boob tube. Madeline Kahn's in it and she's always ruled.

I didn't want to do this chronologically because I wanted to save the best for last: I gave the "The Last Picture Show" ('71) a 96 rating because it flung me catapult-like to an elevation of 1100 feet, like in that video game commercial from a couple years ago. Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Bridges do a good job. Cybil Sheppard and Ellen Burstyn and Chloris Leachman are all great in this. The nude pool party scene didn't really date well (and too long). Shot arrestingly in black and white (upon Orson Welles's personal advice!) this film is so guaranteed to make you feel so goddamned.......forlorn(?) by the end. You'll feel more drained than Peter North after six rounds with Anita Black, except waaaayyyyy more.......in a funk? Powerful godamned shit.

have yet to check out "Texasville"

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Re: Top 5 Favorite Directors

Post by MmzHrrdb »

Paper Moon is the only Bogdanovich flick I've seen. I like it a lot, but I also have plenty of respect for Bogdanovich as film historian. He's written a number of great essays, and contributed to a lot of great DVD extras. This is Orson Welles is a fantastic book, the definitive Welles biography. Also, I really want to see Directed by John Ford.

by Devol
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Re: Top 5 Favorite Directors

Post by by Devol »

durn I knew I was forgetting something. yeah - "Paper Moon" is another goody. Again I gotta say O'Neal put in another good turn with this one, his bemused double-takes as good as anyone's. (perhaps not as gem-like as the more frantic Cary Grant in "Arsenic and Old Lace" or a more cynical Barth Gimble staring down Jerry Hubbard after a comment from the latter). The money scam they pull in the shop is golden, and Madelaine Kahn shines again this one - she nabbed a best supporting oscar nomination, only to lose out to Tatum! Usually kids bug me, but in this one she's good. And d.p.'d by the great Laszlo Kovacs - all adds up to good stuff. The theme song is very whistleable.
In the stack of books-to-read I'm looking at, there's P.B.'s "Who the Hell's in it?"

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Re: Top 5 Favorite Directors

Post by MmzHrrdb »

Ordering them is impossible, but here's my favorite 6:

Federico Fellini
Jean-Pierre Melville
Jerzy Skolimowski
Robert Bresson
Jacques Rivette
Louis Malle

some other favorites:
Wocjiech Has
Eric Rohmer
Buñuel
Claude Chabrol
Juraj Jakubisko (though i haven't seen much)
Alain Resnais

PerryStroika
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Re: Top 5 Favorite Directors

Post by PerryStroika »

top 10
-in no particular order

1) Zhang Yimou
2) Akira Kurosawa
3) Alfred Hitchcock
4) Roman Polanski
5) Masaki Kobayashi
6) Carl Dreyer
7) Fritz Lang
8) Yasujiro Ozu
9) David Cronenberg
10) Billy Wilder

Honorable mentions: Roger Corman, Shohei Immamura, Mamoru Oshii, Joe Dante, Ernst Lubitsch, John Carpenter, Hayao Miyazaki, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Stanley Kubrick, Max Ophuls, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Wong KarWai, Guillermo Del Toro, Charlie Chaplin
Last edited by PerryStroika on Mon Jan 31, 2011 2:39 am, edited 4 times in total.

svenerik
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Re: Top 5 Favorite Directors

Post by svenerik »

1) Ingmar Bergman
2) Louis Malle
3) Nicolas Roeg
4) Wim Wenders
5) Charles Chaplin

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