Search found 6 matches: Kar-Wai Wong

All Time:

Stanley Kubrick
Martin Scorsese
Akira Kurosawa
Christopher Nolan
Wes Anderson

Right Now:

Christopher Nolan
Martin Scorsese
Wes Anderson
Nicolas Winding Refn
Peter Jackson

Up-and-Comers:

Duncan Jones
Neil Blompkamp
Zach Snyder
Jason Reitman
Edgar Wright

Honourable Mentions:

Jim Jarmusch, Sergio Leone, Jean Luc Godard, Coen brothers, PTA, Darren Aronofsky, Tarantino, Guy Ritchie, Soderbergh, Tarkovsky, Sofia Coppola, Wong Kar Wai, Spike Jonze, Polanski, Lars von Trier, Adam Curtis, Danny Boyle, Gilliam, Herzog, Fritz Lang, Sion Sono, Haneke, Bergman.

Directors I haven't seen enough of:

Kieslowski (only Three Colours)
Truffaut (none)
Melville (none)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Emir Kusturica (only time of the gypsies)

That's a long list, but I didn't think there was anyone not worth mentioning. There's also some big names left off, namely Spielberg and Hitchcock, that are intentionally left off.

1. Federico Fellini
2. Ingmar Bergman
3. Luchino Visconti
4. Stanley Kubrick
5. Peter Greenaway

Akira Kurosawa, Lars von Trier, Wong-Kar-Wai, Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, Bernardo Bertolucci,Woody Allen...and more others

1. Stanley Kubrick
2. David Lynch
3. Akira Kurosawa

Personally I can't put any others on those 3's level right now. These other directors I can foresee having an even more favorable opinion about than I do now, in the future: Terrence Malick, Jim Jarmusch, Darren Aronofsky, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean-Luc Godard, Wong Kar Wai, Andrei Tarkovsky. Well, those are just the ones that are right on the cusp, there's even more behind them.

Vertiggo wrote:1- François Truffaut
2- Luis Buñuel
3- Charles Chaplin
4- Kryzstof Kieslowski
5- Stanley Kubrick

Haha, that's a great way to describe them

It's going to change, that's a fact, but currently right now the five directors I have assigned

Jim Jarmusch
His films tie into a lot of my musical tastes. John Lurie of Lounge Lizards and Tom Waits frequently appear in his works, Iggy Pop is the frontman of my first ever "favorite band" and now among my "absolute favorite bands the Stooges. Neil Young does the soundtrack for Dead Man and is also the subject of a documentary by him. Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai's music is done by RZA and Coffe & Cigarettes has GZA, both of Wu-Tang Clan, a rap good as equally good as they are popular. Beyond the music, his stories are very post-modern, and his direction matches.

David Cronenberg
Although these directors are listed in the order they appear on my profile in no particular order, David Cronenberg is by far my favorite. In each of his decades working he made films that reflect the era, cinematiclly and socially. I'm not a big fan of excessive horror but The Brood and Shivers are two of the best in the genre and their time that I have seen. Although those were unique in their own right he really went crazy in the 80's, many consider that then he was at the top of his game. After the transition of Scanners, which is a ridiculous sci-fi horror story he belted out Videodrome, which is still my favorite film and even though I change "favorites" all the time, I don't see this and Cronenberg moving from their spots anytime soon. Then he gave us The Fly, a remake that surpasses the original in every way possible and the chilling Dead Ringers. The 90's brought the surrealistic Naked Lunch, a great example of how to film an "unfilmable novel" by my favorite author William S. Burroughs. Admittedly Crash and eXiztenZ are love or hate 'em, but I love them. The 00's he made Spider, Eastern Promises, two great films to be remembered from the decade and A History of Violence, easily a contender for "Best Of" and my personal Top 10 of the decade. I cannot wait to see what the future holds. Long live the new flesh!

Jean-Pierre Melville
I forgot where I read this so I'm paraphrasing here, but it was along the lines of "Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai defines cool," and I couldn't agree more. While writing some of the greatest Crime films ever made, especially in the Gangster subgenre, there's just something about the way he shoots it. Influenced by American Cinema, again Crime and Film Noir, and me being American, there's a lot to like as a lot of it feels very familiar, but at the same time presents something very new. Very European. Occasionally he stepped outside of Gangsters but most often still remained in Crime and always in Drama. He had changed his last name from *whatever* to Melville, in honor of Herman Melville, his favorite Author, and he picked a great one at that.

Jean-Luc Godard
It was a really hard choice for me to chose between Godard and Truffaut, both considered leading men for the French New Wave film movement. Godard's many subtexts appear and reappear through just about all of his films, sometimes more obvious than other times. His stories are just so damned charming and likeable, I find it hard to believe that someone could dislike them.

Kihacki Okamoto
Akira Kurosawa, Shohei Imamura, Yasujiro Ozu, Kon Ichikawa.... I'm not going to say the on a technical point that Kihachi Okamoto is a better director than any of those listed or others unlisted Japanese film makers, I would place any of them above Kihachi Okamoto, but god damn I find him so entertaining. He toys with classic Samurai conventions that makes him stand out in a sub-genre of films with so many to choose from. Sword of Doom makes the hero ambiguous and implies that he may have mental problems to make him so violent as expressed in the glorious ending scene. Kill! acknowledges that many of the great Spaghetti Westerns were heavily inspired by Samurai film, and with Kill! Kihachi Okamoto returns the favor. Samurai Assassin is a bit more standard but still extremely well made, Red Lion is more or less a Historical Comedy set with Samurai. You know what? I would place Okamoto with the listed directors actually.

Other directors that I think are true auteurs that if I had more than just five spaces here I would have listed up there with them. Don't be surprised in a week or two if or any other time that one of these names is swapped with one of the five above

Paul Thomas Anderson, François Truffaut, Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Wes Anderson, Stanley Kubrick, Kar Wai Wong, Ridley Scott, Fritz Lang, Chan-Wook Park, Hayao Miyazaki, John Cassavetes, Richard Linklater.... and loads more that would just take up all of my space here. Five is such a small number!

1. Krysztof Kieslowski (For his whole filmography, but especially for Dekalog, the greatest piece of cinema I've ever seen)
2. Jim Jarmusch (Also for his whole filmography. I really can't seperate them. I love all his films, almost equally)
3. Andrzej Żuławski (For "Third Part of the Night", "Possession", and "My Nights are More Beau...")
4. Jerzy Skolimowski (For "Moonlighting", "Rysopis" and "Deep End")
5. Carl Theodor Dreyer (For "Ordet", "Passion of Joan of Arc" and "Gertrud")
6. Theo Angelopoulos (For "Landscape in the Mist", "The Bee-keeper", "Eternity and a Day", "Suspended Step of the Stork")
7. Hal Hartley (For "Henry Fool", "Trust", "Unbelievable Truth", "Simple Men", "Surviving Desire", and "The Book of Life".)

And I'm a huge fan of the following, though I can't number them or place them in my growing Top 10 for some reason::
Neil LaBute (For "In the Company of Men", and "YF&N")
John Cassavetes (for "Faces" and "Woman Under the Influence")
Michael Polish (For "Northfork" and "Twin Falls Idaho")
Jake Kasdan (For "Zero Effect", "The TV Set", and "Walk Hard")
Edward Yang (For "YiYi" and "A Brighter Summer Day")
Abbas Kiarostami (For "A Taste of Cherry" and "Close-Up")
Wong Kar Wai (For "In the Mood for Love" and "Happy Together")
Satyajit Ray (For "Devi", "The Music Room", and "Charulata)
Stanley Kubrick (For "Eyes Wide Shut", and "The Killing")
Paul Thomas Anderson (For "Punch-Drunk Love", and "Magnolia")
Marco Ferreri (For "Tales of Ordinary Madness" and "Bye Bye Monkey")
Andrzej Wajda (For "Kanal", "Young Girls of Wilko", and "Innocent Sorcerers")
Wim Wenders (For "Paris, Texas" and "Until the End of the World")

Favorite directors:

1) Ridley Scott: He hasn't had a career of only solid gold (I didn't enjoy Hannibal, Matchstick Men or G.I. Jane) but the vast majority of his films I have seen have been either masterful or entertaining. Kingdom of Heaven (Director's Cut), Blade Runner, Alien and Black Hawk Down are some of the best films I've ever seen in my entire life. His action scenes have a real energy to them and every cut between angles just flows together perfectly.

2) Akira Kurosawa: I've seen 7 of his films now and all but The Hidden Fortress (which I feel drags on too much) have been masterpieces. I still need to see many more of his films but I'm sure I'll enjoy all of them.

3) George Clooney: Originally I thought he was just a pretty face for teenage girls to oogle over but after seeing Three Kings I was very impressed with his acting and have been since. After seeing his directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind I was blown away at how well my two of my favorite film genres, surrealism and spy films, could be combined. He followed this up with Good Night and Good Luck, a fantastic film. I also really enjoyed Leatherheads. Though I wouldn't consider it a masterpiece it is one of the funniest films I've ever seen. I believe it was marketed poorly as a light-hearted generic sports action movie rather than a comedy.

4) Orson Welles: I've only seen 3 films by his fully, I have seen part of "The Trial" however it was from some "Orson Welles DVD Collection." It had terrible transfer quality and a watermark on the lower right hand corner throughout the film. After 40 minutes I just stopped watching due to that. Of the three films I've seen by him though I've been unbelievably impressed. Maybe it's cliche for a movie buff to say he's one of their favorites but he is one of mine. I suppose this could be due to Citizen Kane being the first film I've seen that really made me think of it as an art form rather than just an entertainment medium but nostalgia or not I still think he's an amazing director.

5) Tony Scott: As with FitFortDanga picking number 5 was really hard. There are quite a few directors who I feel have consistantly made better films than Tony Scott. I can't offer anything other than the fact that I find his films incredibly enjoyable to watch. The visual style of Man on Fire was fantastic and was the only positive aspect of Domino for me.

There's a ton of other directors I really enjoy that I should list: Kubrick, Coen Brothers, Billy Wilder, Francis Ford Coppola, Wong Kar Wai, Paul Thomas Anderson, Spielberg (admit it, he's done some great stuff), Wes Anderson, Eugene Jarecki, David Lynch, Michael Mann, James Cameron, Errol Morris, David Fincher, Kevin Smith (though more as a writer than director), Michel Gondry and others. I'd like to put more documentary directors on there but the majority of the documentaries I watch are Canadian and most make only one film or most of their films are impossible to get ahold of.

Also I need to see more foreign films.