Bad Movies by Great Directors?

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Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
His entire post-Hard Boiled output is wack. I mean, it's pretty clear as to why. He moved to the US. He was one of those filmmakers who couldn't find themselves in Hollywood. His biggest strengths were the Buddy & Heroic Bloodshed melodramatics and the beautiful take on love/friendship and he had to forgo both in America. He never ever returned to his glory days and his is one of the biggest downfalls in cinema history, though it was so slow it's hard to take it as a single downfall. His run from 1986 to 1992 is really strong. But even his earlier Comedy & Wuxia films were incomparably better than what he did later.

I haven't seen all American Woo films. I dread the thought of possibly hating a John Woo film. So, an American John Woo film is a big deterrent to me.
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



His entire post-Hard Boiled output is wack. I mean, it's pretty clear as to why. He moved to the US. He was one of those filmmakers who couldn't find themselves in Hollywood. His biggest strengths were the Buddy & Heroic Bloodshed melodramatics and the beautiful take on love/friendship and he had to forgo both in America. He never ever returned to his glory days and his is one of the biggest downfalls in cinema history, though it was so slow it's hard to take it as a single downfall. His run from 1986 to 1992 is really strong. But even his earlier Comedy & Wuxia films were incomparably better than what he did later.

I haven't seen all American Woo films. I dread the thought of possibly hating a John Woo film. So, an American John Woo film is a big deterrent to me.
You should take a chance with Face/Off some day, which I like, albeit slightly ironically due to the ridiculous premise and Nicolas Cage being at his Cage-iest. While not at the level of his peak years, he handles the themes you like (that I bolded) pretty well.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
You should take a chance with Face/Off
Face/Off is his best American film, probably. Anyway, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Not on par with his Hong Kong masterpieces, tho.



John Carpenter: Prince of Darkness - It comes across like a rehash of Assault of Precinct 13 and The Thing and the religion vs. science theme isn't done all that interestingly. Plus, it's not very scary.

Oh, but what of Escape from L.A. and Ghosts of Mars? So, so bad.



Oh, but what of Escape from L.A. and Ghosts of Mars? So, so bad.
Ghosts of Mars - I hardly remember that movie (mostly because I deleted it from my conscious because it was so bad). I do remember it was bad (and not in a "so bad it's good" way).



mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
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Most of these movies aren't terrible (and Judd Apatow is more good than great), but I was left feeling disappointed since I know these directors can do much better.

Alfred Hitchcock: Torn Curtain - This movie starts off interesting, and Richard Burton's restrained performance helps add mystery to his character. Unfortunately you realize after a while it's not really building up to much of a compelling plot at all, and Burton's performance is really just him phoning it in. He and Julie Andrews are supposed to be deeply in love with each other, but the chemistry feels absolutely dead. There are some fun side characters and scenes that keeps it watchable, but only just.

Woody Allen: Celebrity - A thoroughly mediocre and uninspired satire of celebrity culture. Something Woody has covered a few times, but this time does so unsuccessfully. You struggle to care about most of these characters, with Leonardo Dicaprio (Despite still doing a great job) being so unlikable you don't understand why you're meant to feel anything for him whatsoever. Kenneth Branagh impersonating Woody throughout is just embarrassing. Why couldn't he simply have casted himself instead of forcing us to watch a weird replica? And by the time the film ends you're left wondering what the point of it all was. There is some observational/subtle humor that works, and Charlize Theron plays the one character that really shines. I enjoyed seeing Aida Turturro pre-Sopranos as well. Overall though, a miss.

Quentin Tarantino: What do you get when you take a bunch of people talking about nothing but clothes and fashion for the first half, and you're then expected to root for them despite having almost nothing that compells you to? Well... not that fun of a movie, that's for sure. The banter is unusually uninspired for a Tarantino flick, to the point where I was wondering if he was trying to write bad dialogue on purpose. If that was indeed the intention, then he failed either way since even intentionally dumb writing still has to be entertaining.
It starts picking up some steam once Kurt Russell shows up, who breathes some new life into the movie. But it never recovers entirely, and the fact that
WARNING: spoilers below
the group of "friends" left one of their own behind to be raped with no care in the world made me wish for Stuntman Mike to run them over with his car.
The only bum note in Tarantino's filmography, and if not for some of his flourishes remaining intact I would definitely not be as kind on it.

Judd Apatow: The Bubble - All right, here is the real stinker folks. While I may not be a big fan of the movies I mentioned above, I can still say some effort was put into all of them. But this... I don't even know what to make of this one. It's unwatchable, unfunny, pointlessly long, shamelessly trend chasing and even poorly acted in some areas (Leslie Mann giving her worst performance ever and Iris Apatow proving nepotism can have seriously negative consequences), everything that can possibly fail fails. It's a horrible sign when the movie-within-a-movie the characters are making literally has better dialogue than all the stuff surrounding it. There is no reason for you to watch this whatsoever. I saw it for David Duchovny, and they couldn't even make his scenes funny! It doesn't get any worse than this. COVID must have affected Apatow's sense of humor or heart, since this lacked literally everything that's usually good about his films.
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Oh, but what of Escape from L.A. and Ghosts of Mars? So, so bad.
I haven't seen the latter and all signs say I shouldn't, but I found L.A. to be weird, silly fun. Yeah, even the basketball scene.




WARNING: "Spoilers" spoilers below
In defense of the stunt girls, it was a Challenger R/T with a 440. Sacrifices have to be made.



Your post is rather repetitive and useless. I know "disagreeing with people" is "a big part of healthy discord". I never argued against that. What I did argue is that calling a film "silly crap" and lambasting anyone who disagrees is not good. No one seems to be able to read properly, because the words are as plain as the E on your keyboard. I don't even like Django Unchained and it still annoys me he has to trash everything, including other fans, over it.

Here, I hate all of Kubrick's and Scorsese's and Woody Allen's movies. You'll notice I didn't attack anyone, but I disagreed with a vast majority. See how easy it is to not attack someone even when you disagree? Is that so hard to do and understand?
What specific part/parts of Wooley's posts do you think qualify as attacking someone in this thread? Not criticizing a movie as that's completely different.



Your post is rather repetitive and useless. I know "disagreeing with people" is "a big part of healthy discord". I never argued against that. What I did argue is that calling a film "silly crap" and lambasting anyone who disagrees is not good. No one seems to be able to read properly, because the words are as plain as the E on your keyboard. I don't even like Django Unchained and it still annoys me he has to trash everything, including other fans, over it.

Here, I hate all of Kubrick's and Scorsese's and Woody Allen's movies. You'll notice I didn't attack anyone, but I disagreed with a vast majority. See how easy it is to not attack someone even when you disagree? Is that so hard to do and understand?
Peter's response to the post:


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Overlong, and totally upstaged by Rodriguez's other half of the double feature, which is definitely not something I would've guessed.

My two cents on the Hollywood discussion is that it's closer to top-tier Tarantino than the rest and all that, but still a pretty long ways from Pulp, KB, and Basterds. And probably Jackie Brown. And yes I've rewatched it. It's not as rewatchable as most of his stuff, which is part of why I'm saying this, because his ability to make films that delight initially and continue to delight well after the point of almost total memorization is one of his cinematic superpowers.
I think the flip-side is true where Planet Terror ultimately doesn't hold up because it plays like a visibly inferior modern homage to masters like Carpenter or Romero whereas Death Proof, for all its flaws, comes across as something of an improvement on its grindhouse inspirations. As for Hollywood, I rewatched it the other night and not only does it prove rewatchable but it's slowly but surely moving up my QT ranking (would definitely rank only Jackie and Pulp ahead of it). That it's a comparatively subdued piece of work next to the constant violence and thrills of his other films only helps to make it rewatchable - in recreating the world and fleshing out its history (alternate or otherwise) so deeply, it creates a film that's easy to hang out in, which is more than I can say for his previous couple of features.

An infinite number of Tarantinos on an infinite number of word processors will eventually produce a Uwe Boll film.
This would explain the retiring after ten films thing, I guess.

It was disappointing because on paper, it seems like a movie I would like; plus, there's people like Donald Pleasance, James Hong and Dennis Dun in the cast! Oh well, it seems to be a love it or hate it kind of movie of his.
For what it's worth, I haven't seen Vampires, Ghosts of Mars, The Ward, i.e., movies that are considered his real low points. Oh, and I did enjoy Escape from L.A.
At least those all have a semblance of Carpenter about them. My pick for his absolute worst is Memoirs of an Invisible Man, which might well have been yet another footnote in the career of living footnote Chevy Chase if not for the fact that Carpenter directed it (and he definitely doesn't seem proud of it because of how much of a mercenary for-hire job it was). This is leaving aside that Prince of Darkness is top 5 Carpenter for me, though.

His entire post-Hard Boiled output is wack. I mean, it's pretty clear as to why. He moved to the US. He was one of those filmmakers who couldn't find themselves in Hollywood. His biggest strengths were the Buddy & Heroic Bloodshed melodramatics and the beautiful take on love/friendship and he had to forgo both in America. He never ever returned to his glory days and his is one of the biggest downfalls in cinema history, though it was so slow it's hard to take it as a single downfall. His run from 1986 to 1992 is really strong. But even his earlier Comedy & Wuxia films were incomparably better than what he did later.

I haven't seen all American Woo films. I dread the thought of possibly hating a John Woo film. So, an American John Woo film is a big deterrent to me.
Hard Target rules, though.

Judd Apatow: The Bubble - All right, here is the real stinker folks. While I may not be a big fan of the movies I mentioned above, I can still say some effort was put into all of them. But this... I don't even know what to make of this one. It's unwatchable, unfunny, pointlessly long, shamelessly trend chasing and even poorly acted in some areas (Leslie Mann giving her worst performance ever and Iris Apatow proving nepotism can have seriously negative consequences), everything that can possibly fail fails. It's a horrible sign when the movie-within-a-movie the characters are making literally has better dialogue than all the stuff surrounding it. There is no reason for you to watch this whatsoever. I saw it for David Duchovny, and they couldn't even make his scenes funny! It doesn't get any worse than this. COVID must have affected Apatow's sense of humor or heart, since this lacked literally everything that's usually good about his films.
That's on you for thinking Apatow is anywhere close to great, though. First movie of his I've seen since Knocked Up and he's somehow gotten worse.
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The fact he needs to be "colored confused" when it's incredibly simple. People don't have to like what you do. His comments belittle people and their opinions.
Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with being confused by someone's movie opinion, just as you're allowed to be confused by any movies I adore and dislike.

Really, the initial post you were quoting seems more like it's belittling Tarantino's films rather than SuperMetro (who, going off of his recent post, didn't seem to mind Wooley's comment).
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mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
The truth is in here
That's on you for thinking Apatow is anywhere close to great, though. First movie of his I've seen since Knocked Up and he's somehow gotten worse.

I thought King Of Staten Island was his best yet when it came out, so I still managed to be shocked by just how poor this movie was. Though I was getting a hunch I wasn't gonna have a great time when I saw the reviews.



Your post is rather repetitive and useless. I know "disagreeing with people" is "a big part of healthy discord". I never argued against that. What I did argue is that calling a film "silly crap" and lambasting anyone who disagrees is not good. No one seems to be able to read properly, because the words are as plain as the E on your keyboard. I don't even like Django Unchained and it still annoys me he has to trash everything, including other fans, over it.

Here, I hate all of Kubrick's and Scorsese's and Woody Allen's movies. You'll notice I didn't attack anyone, but I disagreed with a vast majority. See how easy it is to not attack someone even when you disagree? Is that so hard to do and understand?
How is it you saying that someone's post is "repetitive and useless" any different than the post you've been having a fit over all these days? Either way, I really don't think that the initial post merits all these contortions you're going through. I can say a film is "silly crap" if I want. That's my opinion and you, or anyone, is allowed to argue against it. If you feel that me stating my opinion, well versed or otherwise, belittles you, then I'm afraid you're not gonna make it in the Internet.
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Your post is rather repetitive and useless. I know "disagreeing with people" is "a big part of healthy discord". I never argued against that. What I did argue is that calling a film "silly crap" and lambasting anyone who disagrees is not good. No one seems to be able to read properly, because the words are as plain as the E on your keyboard. I don't even like Django Unchained and it still annoys me he has to trash everything, including other fans, over it.

Here, I hate all of Kubrick's and Scorsese's and Woody Allen's movies. You'll notice I didn't attack anyone, but I disagreed with a vast majority. See how easy it is to not attack someone even when you disagree? Is that so hard to do and understand?
Wooley didn't attack anyone either - he simply stated he was confused by someone's opinion on a film. That anyone would think this is a personal attack, is...confusing?

I must have missed the post that he trashed Django Unchained fans. Can you quote that for me so i can catch up? Maybe it was in a different thread?

Regardless, it's time to get back on topic. Let's not derail the original discussion, please.

A nickel's worth of free advice: A thick skin goes a long way around here, and for that matter, on the internet in general.

Also for your benefit: Here is a link to the forum rules.
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A system of cells interlinked
Back on topic...

I will cite The Coen Brothers' run of Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers. I didn't really care for either film, and at the time, I thought the Coens might have used up all the lightning in their shared bottle. Alas, just a few short years after these misses, they released perhaps the finest film of the decade. Shows what I know!






Back on topic...

I will cite The Coen Brothers' run of Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers. I didn't really care for either film, and at the time, I thought the Coens might have used up all the lightning in their shared bottle. Alas, just a few short years after these misses, they released perhaps the finest film of the decade. Shows what I know!



I haven't seen The Ladykillers, but pretty much everyone I know has it at the bottom of their filmography, along with Intolerable Cruelty I don't hate the latter, but it's at the bottom of my Coen ranking. But what a wonderful rebound they had with No Country for Old Men!



I really don't think that the initial post merits all these contortions you're going through.

When we read a post we "hear" a "voice." If we don't like the tone of that voice in our head, we attack what we thought we heard. So much of this business is responding angrily to a voice in your head and not text on your screen.

Of course, old grudges, veiled insults, sarcasm, equivocations, and innocent jokes, create an environment where it is easy to "hear" such a "voice." As you said, the best thing to do is to develop a thick skin and try not go on tilt whenever someone disrespects your mother or a movie.