Most over-rated/under-rated filmmakers on criticker?

Discuss your favorite actors, directors or screenwriters
CosmicMonkey
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Most over-rated/under-rated filmmakers on criticker?

Post by CosmicMonkey »

The new update to the filmmakers section came with a bunch a new features. One of them being the ability to sort filmmakers by how many users have marked them as a favourite. For the record: the top 25 Directors (in alphabetical order) are:
  • Woody Allen
    Wes Anderson
    Darren Aronofsky
    Ingmar Bergman
    Tim Burton
    David Cronenberg
    Joel & Ethan Coen (I'm combining them together into one)
    David Fincher
    Werner Herzog
    Alfred Hitchcock
    Krzysztof Kieslowski
    Stanley Kubrick
    Akira Kurosawa
    Sergio Leone
    David Lynch
    Hayao Miyazaki
    Christopher Nolan
    Martin Scorsese
    Steven Spielberg
    Quentin Tarantino
    Andrei Tarkovsky
    Paul Thomas Anderson
    Lars von Trier
    Billy Wilder
    Wong Kar-Wai
Which filmmaker do you feel like is the least deserving of being on the list? Which director that isn't the Top 25 do you feel should be?
Last edited by CosmicMonkey on Wed Dec 02, 2020 11:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

movieboy
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Re: Most over-rated/under-rated filmmakers on criticker?

Post by movieboy »

Out of the 25 in your list, I have marked only 2 as my favourite (Nolan & Tarantino), and I haven't seen any movies by 6 of the remaining 23 (Bergman, Miyazaki, Tarkovsky, Kieslowski, Lars von Trier, Herzog) so I guess the other 17 are overrated.

snallygaster
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Re: Most over-rated/under-rated filmmakers on criticker?

Post by snallygaster »

Well, it's a list of favourite directors, not best directors. However, if this list were titled "25 Greatest Directors" or something like that, I'd say the ones that most obviously don't belong (yet) are:

Aronofsky
...
Wes Anderson
Burton
Fincher
Nolan
...
Miyazaki*
PT Anderson

I like all these directors to some degree but I don't think they can be included among the greatest. Most of them are still working so who knows how their bodies of work will look in the future (Miyazaki is still retired AFAIK, and he's probably the most deserving of these, but personally I would put animation on a separate list; Burton is still working but it's not helping his case for inclusion).

The first few names that spring to mind as omissions:

John Ford
Orson Welles
Yasujiro Ozu
Robert Altman
Satyajit Ray
Chaplin
Coppola
Fellini
A bunch of foreign peeps
Some old guys
Roland Emmerich

CosmicMonkey
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Re: Most over-rated/under-rated filmmakers on criticker?

Post by CosmicMonkey »

If I had to pick one on that list who was over-rated I would say Aronofsky. I've seen 3 Aronofsky films but only liked one (The Wrestler). Tim Burton is also questionable, but I'd still put him above Aronosky.

If I could add one film-maker to the list it would be Powell & Pressburger, who's run of films during the 40s was incredible, and I definitely think they deserve a lot more attention amongst cinephiles.

BillyShears
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Re: Most over-rated/under-rated filmmakers on criticker?

Post by BillyShears »

Nolan can suck my ass yesterday and tomorrow

paulofilmo
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Re: Most over-rated/under-rated filmmakers on criticker?

Post by paulofilmo »

surprised by Burton. pleasantly surprised by cronenberg. with snally on the omissions.
(tho disagree on wes anderson. better/worse, i put a high value on that kind of cozy cinema.)


hang about. no malick? thnkd he'd beat a few on that list.

sfxy
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Re: Most over-rated/under-rated filmmakers on criticker?

Post by sfxy »

Aronofsky, Fincher, and Nolan are all quite overrated IMO.

ShogunRua
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Re: Most over-rated/under-rated filmmakers on criticker?

Post by ShogunRua »

Say what you will about Tim Burton's post-1995 career, but he made some damn good films before that, and Ed Wood is borderline great.

Which, at the very least, puts him well ahead of Aronofsky. Forget being one of the greatest ever; I don't even believe he qualifies as "good". His three most famous movies are

1. "Drugs are bad, mkay?" in a cartoonish manner future generations will find as laughable as we do Reefer Madness.
2. A shitty adaptation of Satoshi Kon's (speaking of filmmakers who actually do deserve to be on the list) masterful Perfect Blue.
3. A cliched story about a has-been pro wrestler that has been written and filmed a hundred times over, largely carried by the performance of Mickey Rourke.

I find the inclusion of Quentin Tarantino equally laughable, given his penchant for making collages cribbed from far better action movies whose full appeal he doesn't even understand, but injected with nauseating, navel-gazing pseudo-philosophical bullshit the junior high dropout considers very profound.

But I will say this. I've read Tarantino's scripts, and while his grammar and spelling are on the level of a 3rd grader, he has some ideas and talent through all the shit mentioned above, probably moreso than Aronofsky.

Everyone else on the list? We can argue whether they're overrated or not (I'm not a fan of Miyazaki, I find most Kubrick movies deeply flawed, etc.), but I consider every single one of them to be, at the very least, a good, talented director.

Stewball
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Re: Most over-rated/under-rated filmmakers on criticker?

Post by Stewball »

My shouldda been list, in approximate order:

Norman Jewison
Walter Hill (among other great films, Director of the most underrated film of all time, "Undisputed", probably due in large part to ignorance, what with the fact that it wasn't marketed and then that four sequel chain of trash that were, which overshadowed his epic masterpiece. Also the best supporting actor performance of all time, Peter Falk, and best overall casting of all time.)
Ridley Scott
Marc Webb
Kathryn Bigelow
Taylor Sheridan
Spike Jonze
Gavin O'Connor

Massively overrated, i.e., director of cinematic psychobabble:
Federico Fellini

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