Your Top Five Worst Film Directors?

Now it's time to vent, folks. What directors have made you think to yourself, "I've seen better film on teeth"? I know I stole that line from somewhere, but I can't remember where it's from. Anywho...

1) Uwe Boll, director of the latest Jason Statham turd known as In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, among other turds. Mostly adapts bad video games into worse movies. Truly a disgrace.

2) Michael Bay. Car chases, exploding planes, terrible dialog, complete with A.D.D. editing and dazzling surround sound. Next?

3) Baz Luhrmann. How someone can actually sit through his version of Moulin Rouge without vomiting is beyond me.

4) Vincent Gallo. He should be higher on the list considering he made Brown Bunny, but such a small percentage of the world's population will actually sit through it, so he hasn't quite committed the cultural atrocities of the directors listed above.

5) Joel Schumacher. To his credit, he has made some good films in his time. Tigerland, Falling Down, and St. Elmo's Fire, among a few others, are quality flicks. The reason he made the list? See below.

 

Ken Russel

 

Uwe Boll is something else. Didn't he challenge some film critic to a boxing match and won?

 

I envy you, Steve.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uwe_boll

 

You've missed nothing. On the other hand, I'm still missing the two hours I had to give up to review one of his films!

Maybe he's an alien..."missing time"...

 

Robert Altman - I don't like his long, rambling slices of life. Too much sex and I'm no prude. Is there a point where too much realism is a bad thing? MASH was like THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, an attempt to retrofit the 50s to a 70s world.

Oliver Stone - I could go on for hours. But THE DOORS has to be the most overwrought tribute to a person's youth ever crafted. Seriously Jim Morrison was a decent singer, but not a God. His idea of style is OVERLOAD!!! But his scripts for CONAN and MIDNIGHT EXPRESS were better than anything he's directed. SCARFACE, another script, is typical of the films he's actually directed.

 

Tim Burton

 

Interesting choices, Robert. I think Altman has his moments (though Gosford Park wasn't one of them), but you're dead on about Oliver Stone. Natural Born Killers was one of the most over-stylized pieces of crap I've ever seen.

And guys, I'm asking for five directors here. Not trying to be a fickle pickle, but come on.

 

My list (carried over from the Best 5 Directors...it would take too long to explain):

1. Uwe Boll-"Bloodrayne" (or "Inane" as I loved to call it. The only man who has challenged his critics to a boxing match to "prove" he's a good director. Oh, and the guy has a doctorate in literature. Go figure).
2. Ed Wood (At least Wood's films could be strangely entertaining and transfix a viewer because they were SO bad).
3. Bert I. Gordon (Got his start as a former producer of TV commercials-"The Amazing Colossal Man", "King Dinosaur"..OK admittedly "TACM" was entertaining particularly to a six year old watching it on TV).
4. Ray Kellogg ("Attack of the Killer Shrews"--that's right a killer shrew!, "The Giant Gilla Monster" with that horror of a song "The Lord Said Laugh, Children Laugh" sung as a gilla monster runs over a miniature landscape menacingly sticking its tongue out).
5. Ed Hunt (Hey, I worked with the guy on "Alien Warrior". Imagine "Starman" crossed with "Clash of the Titans" and a Steve Reeves epic and you'll have an idea of the plot...now imagine any of Uwe Bolle's films and multiply that by 10 and you've got an amazingly bad, bad filmmaker. He also directed such "classics" as "Starship Invasions", "The Brain" and "UFO's Are Real". Nice guy just had minimal talent and was a great salesman).

 

Stone's problem has more to do with his choices of material and his approach to it. He's cleared a talented craftsman (he would be perfect for a list of gifted director's who have lost their way...")

 

Oliver Stone, most definately. Tarantino as well.

 

Hey Burton's films aren't for everyone!

I would definitely list his "Planet of the Apes" remake as a perfect example of a poorly packaged product; choose the wrote actor, the wrote writers, the wrong director and the wrong producer for a project, get them together with a iconic science fiction film, mix well and serve a disaster!

 

I saw Starship Invasions when I was a kid. It was bad. Didn't it have the guy from The Man From UNCLE in it?

 

Yep. I also saw it--cringe--in a theater. Imagine my surprise when ended up working with the director! I was hard put to come with a compliment when I first met him.

"I saw your film....it was...I really liked...it had Robert Vaughn and Christopher Lee!"

Both were down on their luck at the time. Vaughn eventually got more work in the UK than here which is tragic because he's a fine actor. Same with Lee.

 

It's rather difficult to think of hack directors' names, as the natural reaction to seeing one of their films is to try to erase everything about it from memory. I'll have to go with:

1) Michael Bay - as his movies basically personify everything that I can't stand about current mainstream moviemaking

2) Brett Ratner - King of the Hacks. Seeing his name associated with a film is all you need to know about it

3) Joel Schumacher - 8mm. Say no more

4) Tony Scott - see number one, although somehow less offensive

5) Eli Roth - for re-popularising the worst aspects of the horror genre

Vincent Gallo - disagree, Bufallo '66 is a great film and more than balances out Brown Bunny.

Oliver Stone - can't agree. Salvador, Platoon are brilliant films. JFK is awful history but compelling nevertheless. Any Given Sunday shows he can still do mainstream fare.

Tarintino - overrated, yes, but one of the worst directors, no.

Tom

 

I'm not going to say they're "bad", but here are five directors I don't care for:

1. Michael Bay
2. Steven Spielberg
3. Oliver Stone
4. Joel Schumacher
5. Michael Mann

 

John Woo!

 

Michael Bay
Roland Emmerich

No dignity. No brain.

 

But, he has pigeons at least.

 

I'd add Peter Hyams to the list. As far as I'm concerned, he only did one decent film in his life, and that was Timecop. Everything else was awful -- and everything he's done in the past ten years bombed, big-time.

Brian DePalma is a director who makes four horrible movies and then one great movie, usually in cycles. A few of his are almost unwatchable to me (Bonfire of the Vanities, Body Double, Blow Out), but then he also did Phantom of the Paradise, Carrie, and Obsession, which were all good films.

 

Upon Reflection, I'd give my #3 to none other than George Lucas. Obviously STAR WARS is a CLASSIC, no arguments, but the prequels were all, uh, well . . .

And you owe it to yourself to listen to his commentaries to really get the full sense of his inflated view of himself. Pretentious beyond belief!

#4 and #5 will be harder. I don't watch enough movies by directors that I don't like. I suspect there are some directors I'd not like (but why subject myself to the torture of more than one of their works???)

 

Spike Lee.
I've only liked a doc he did about 4 little girls in a church in the south.
I HATE his films and think he is very untalented.
He RUINED my favorite book Autobiography of Malcolm X
Ironically, he is very good at directing commercials.
Feature length? Forget it.
Yes I've seen most of his work.

 

There are some movie genres or directing styles I don't like and some directors which are successful with them, but I wouldn't qualify them as worst directors.

 

The only director I really hate is Steven Spielberg. But he's gotten slightly better of late.