Yet Another Cycling Forum

Off Topic => The Pub => Arts and Entertainment => Topic started by: kyuss on 30 December, 2008, 03:06:00 pm

Title: Favourite directors
Post by: kyuss on 30 December, 2008, 03:06:00 pm
Does anyone here have a favourite film director?

Darren Aronofsky is one of my favourites. Pi, Requiem for a Dream, and the Fountain are 3 of my favourite movies (I like my films a bit dark). He's also meant to be directing a Robocop remake. :thumbsup:

Guillermo Del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu are another two good ones. Anyone else whose work is worth looking out for? The less well known and mainstream the better.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: clarion on 30 December, 2008, 03:10:47 pm
Renoir

Almodovar

Waters

Soderbergh

EDIT: Forgot

Luhrman

Demme

Lynch
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: JT on 30 December, 2008, 03:12:38 pm
I have to say that I really like David Lynch - Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive in particular.

Others would be Woody Allen (not many of his recent films though), Hitchcock, Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Wascally Weasel on 30 December, 2008, 03:15:16 pm
Michael Curtiz.  He directed classics like The Adventures of Robin Hood, Angels with Dirty Faces, Casablanca, The Sea Hawk and The Private Lives of Elizabeth & Essex.

Also:

John Huston
Akira Kurosawa
Spike Lee
Clint Eastwood

(I'm aware that the latter two don't like each other much at the moment but I do)
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: blackpuddinonnabike on 30 December, 2008, 03:36:05 pm
Richard Linklater (esp. Befores Sunrise and Sunset)

Kevin Smith (the first few anyway)
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Wascally Weasel on 30 December, 2008, 03:37:02 pm
Considering just how good the original Night of the Hunter is, it's a great shame that Charles Laughton didn't direct more films.

+1 to Kevin Smith too
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: ChrisO on 30 December, 2008, 03:46:05 pm

Jim Jarmusch I think would be one of the few that would make me see a film just because he directed it. Stranger Than Paradise is in my top ten of all time.

Other than that I like:
Hal Hartley
Hitchcock
The Cohen brothers
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 30 December, 2008, 03:49:20 pm
Wes Anderson.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Biff on 30 December, 2008, 03:52:01 pm
Wim Wenders
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Bez on 30 December, 2008, 03:53:09 pm
Terrence Malick
Stanley Kubrick
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Wascally Weasel on 30 December, 2008, 03:57:36 pm
Wayne Wang, if only for the work he did with Paul Auster that resulted in 'Smoke' and 'Blue in the Face'

Jim Jarmusch does a great improvised cameo in the latter if you haven't seen it ChrisO
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 30 December, 2008, 03:59:27 pm
Hitchcock
Coen Bros
Terry Gilliam
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: ChrisO on 30 December, 2008, 04:19:08 pm
Wayne Wang, if only for the work he did with Paul Auster that resulted in 'Smoke' and 'Blue in the Face'

Jim Jarmusch does a great improvised cameo in the latter if you haven't seen it ChrisO

Oh yes, forgotten those - excellent.

Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: rogerzilla on 30 December, 2008, 04:19:24 pm
Peter Weir

Peter Greenaway <runs away and hides>
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Hot Flatus on 30 December, 2008, 05:10:35 pm
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 30 December, 2008, 05:12:45 pm
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Ooh yes, good call.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: CAMRAMan on 30 December, 2008, 05:27:27 pm
Kristof Kieslowski's death was a sad loss to the world of cinema.

Aki Kaurismaki makes some bone-dry humour Finnish films

Almodovar is wackily wonderful

Bigas Luna is also good.

Ken Loach is excellent

Who made Local hero? S/he deserves a mention...

Michael Winner   ;)
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Bez on 30 December, 2008, 05:31:45 pm
Who made Local hero? S/he deserves a mention...

Bill Forsyth - also did Gregory's Girl.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Wowbagger on 30 December, 2008, 05:32:17 pm
John Courage.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Hot Flatus on 30 December, 2008, 05:37:49 pm
John Courage.
Filthy stuff  :sick:
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: CAMRAMan on 30 December, 2008, 06:24:13 pm
John Courage.

Had my first pint of that for 20+ years last night. Mediocre. Nice barmaid though...
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Wowbagger on 30 December, 2008, 06:26:58 pm
John Courage.
Filthy stuff  :sick:

Yes, but name another brewery that makes Directors.

If the thread title had been "Favourite Ales" there would have been a lot more choice.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Chris S on 30 December, 2008, 06:37:40 pm
Ridley Scott.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: rogerzilla on 30 December, 2008, 06:48:58 pm
John Badham, for some of the cheesiest and most enjoyable 80s movies.

He also did Saturday Night Fever in the 70s, if you like that sort of thing.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Deano on 30 December, 2008, 06:52:30 pm
John Badham, for some of the cheesiest and most enjoyable 80s movies.

He also did Saturday Night Fever in the 70s, if you like that sort of thing.

Wargames was on this afternoon :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: mattc on 30 December, 2008, 07:01:43 pm
It'd be interesting to note how many of these nominations are mostly writer/directors (I'm too ignorant to say, apart from a few obvious ones).
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Bez on 30 December, 2008, 07:05:34 pm
O.k. not a real favourite but Peter Yates as one of the few who have directed a film about cycling - Breaking Away.

He also directed Bullitt.

Incidentally OP but http://uk.geocities.com/mikstar123/films.html#Cycling Films. Main List.... (http://uk.geocities.com/mikstar123/films.html#Cycling Films. Main List....)

No. 42 Belleville Rendezvous is great - no idea what No. 11 is like.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: nicknack on 30 December, 2008, 07:06:05 pm
Andrei Tarkovsky
Terry Gilliam
Werner Herzog
Mel Brooks
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Deano on 30 December, 2008, 07:08:32 pm
Powell and Pressburger.

Ken Loach.

Coen Brothers.

And I've enjoyed everything I've seen directed by Darren Aronofsky (The Fountain and Requiem for a Dream).


Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Flying_Monkey on 30 December, 2008, 08:57:00 pm
Too many, but here's a few...

Fritz Lang - Metropolis, M, Dr Mabuse, oh and he also invented film noir... the most important director ever IMHO
Alfred Hitchcock - he was every bit as good as his reputation
Otto Preminger - another great hardboiled director, but far more than that
John Huston
Akira Kurosawa - even his later films are mesmerising
Lindsay Anderson - the best British film director ever?
Alan Pakula - particularly The Parallax View...
Werner Herzog - the craziest, most egotistical, most brutal... but what films!
Francis Ford Coppola - the best US director of big movies of recent years
Bertrand Tavernier - L.627 is the best cop film of all time. See it if you don't believe me.
Jim Jarmusch - Ghost Dog is my favourite
Patrice Leconte - he is very sentimental and frankly wierd about women, but I love his work...
Spike Lee - such an amazingly talented director sometimes overwhelmed by his own politics, but anyone who can make films as diversely brilliant as Do the Right Thing, Inside Man and When the Levees Broke is alright by me...
Hayao Miyazaki - the king of Japanese animation
Coen Brothers - most of the time they are the bleakest but funniest author-directors around...
Ki-duk Kim - my current favourite Korean director
Kore-Eda Hirokazu - the best of a very good crop of young Japanese directors around. Try Afterlife, Nobody Knows, or Still Walking.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Mr Larrington on 31 December, 2008, 09:17:23 am
Quentin Tarantino.  Srsly.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: hubner on 31 December, 2008, 11:13:44 am
A few not mentioned so far:

Sergio Leone - the best western ever; Once Upon a Time in the West

J Lee Thompson - Ice Cold In Alex, Tiger Bay etc

Cavalcanti - Went The Day Well (1942)

Howard Hawks

Sam Fuller - Pickup on South Street (1953), The Crimson Kimono (1959) etc

Anthony Mann

Jules Dassin - Brute Force (1947), Night and the City etc

Jacques Tourneur - Night of the Demon, Out of the Past etc

Jean-Pierre Melville

Roger Corman

Martin Scorsese - Mean Streets etc

Francois Truffaut - The 400 Blows etc

Wang Xiaoshuai - Beijing Bicycle etc

Joseph Losey

Robert Aldrich
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: LEE on 31 December, 2008, 11:40:36 am
Tarantino because he not only wrote Pulp Fiction but he invented a new style of film in the process of directing it as well.

Ridley Scott for combining film noir and epic set design (Blade Runner, Alien)

Hitchcock for his ability to make something out of nothing (the proof of this can be found in any attempted remake of one of his films)

Yimou Zhang for House of the Flying Daggers.  It's the most stunning looking film I've ever seen.

Kevin Smith for Clerks.  Like Tarantino, he wrote it and directed it.  Like Tarantino he based it around superb, natural dialogue.

Woody Allen.  I got hooked when I saw Sleeper many years ago.  I know it's slapstick but it's great slapstick.  Not only did he invent a style but he wrote and starred as well. Manhattan is of course visually stunning as well as funny.

Stanley Kubrick for 2001 a Space Odyssey. (co)Written and Directed.  A film so far ahead of it's time and so beautiful it's hard to believe it's 40 years old.  The 'Space Shuttle' docking sequence set to "The Blue Danube" could be my favourite film moment ever.

David Lynch for The Elephant Man.  I don't care if the critics think it's sentimental and a bit 'hammed up', I think it's a beautiful film.


A common theme is seems to be my liking for writer/directors, maybe it's because only the writer can really bring the dream to life.

Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Bollards on 31 December, 2008, 04:17:32 pm
Powell & Pressburger - A Canterbury Tale is a work of genius.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Really Ancien on 01 January, 2009, 08:44:02 pm
Christopher Guest. His style of improvisation and editing with an ensemble cast is as close to reality as it gets. Enormously influential in the digital age.
Who can forget this scene from 'Best in Show'.
YouTube - Best In Show - Pine Nut (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6i9Mcj-pUaI)

Damon.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Really Ancien on 02 January, 2009, 10:53:53 am
Hard to see why Ang Lee hasn't been mentioned. I suppose it's because his films range across so many boundaries. 'The Ice Storm' is my favourite.

Damon.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: LEE on 02 January, 2009, 01:50:19 pm
Hard to see why Ang Lee hasn't been mentioned. I suppose it's because his films range across so many boundaries. 'The Ice Storm' is my favourite.

Damon.

I was going to mention him but thought that the visually stunning "Crouching Tiger" was out-visually-stunninged by "Flying Daggers"
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Really Ancien on 02 January, 2009, 02:16:38 pm
I was thinking more of Sense and Sensibility.

Damon.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Really Ancien on 02 January, 2009, 11:53:49 pm
Charles Laughton, although it was probably his inexperience that allowed his lighting cameraman  Stanley Cortez - : (http://www.filmreference.com/Writers-and-Production-Artists-Ch-De/Cortez-Stanley.html) to create such lovely effects. Too much control probably inhibits the input of the technicians, which is why I'm not that big a fan of the cult of the director.

YouTube - Robert Mitchum - The Night of the Hunter - &quot;Leaning&quot; (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N9LnkKQfuc)

Damon.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Really Ancien on 03 January, 2009, 12:20:03 am
Андре́й Арсе́ньевич Тарко́вский,
Francois Truffaut,
Mike Leigh,
Mel Brooks.

Damon.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Jakob on 05 January, 2009, 06:28:27 pm
Hard to see why Ang Lee hasn't been mentioned. I suppose it's because his films range across so many boundaries. 'The Ice Storm' is my favourite.

Damon.

I was going to mention him but thought that the visually stunning "Crouching Tiger" was out-visually-stunninged by "Flying Daggers"

You serious? I found that it tried too hard and could never really convince me the same way that 'Hero' did. Visuals have to be connected to a story for it to work. Especially the 15 minute death/fight sequence in the snow had me and my girlfriend shouting "Die already" at the TV.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Really Ancien on 05 January, 2009, 06:57:29 pm
I'm trying hard to remember the death/fight sequence in Sense and Sensibility, the Ice Storm or even Brokeback Mountain.

Damon.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: ChrisO on 05 January, 2009, 07:08:21 pm
I compiled a Top Ten films list with my wife last night - largely because we introduced Lawrence of Arabia to our 12 year old who couldn't believe we even liked it (his Top 10 features I Robot and other action films).

I was struggling to decide which one or possibly all of Apocalypse Now, Dr Strangelove, Lolita and Barry Lyndon so I suppose I must add Kubrick.

The conclusion was Apocalypse Now definitely and Dr Strangelove possibly.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Jakob on 05 January, 2009, 07:08:58 pm
I'm trying hard to remember the death/fight sequence in Sense and Sensibility, the Ice Storm or even Brokeback Mountain.

Damon.

I was referring to 'Flying Daggers', Sorry.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Hot Flatus on 19 January, 2009, 09:01:21 pm
Bertrand Tavernier - L.627 is the best cop film of all time. See it if you don't believe me.

Watching this at the moment.

It's a steaming turd.

Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: LEE on 19 January, 2009, 11:52:24 pm
I'm trying hard to remember the death/fight sequence in Sense and Sensibility, the Ice Storm or even Brokeback Mountain.

Damon.

All 3 would have benefitted from one.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Andrew Br on 20 January, 2009, 02:20:34 pm
Bergman ?
Altman ?

Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: onb on 21 January, 2009, 12:25:27 pm
Havnt been all the way through this thread but Ridley Scott does it for me he always seems to get lighting spot on.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 January, 2009, 01:17:22 pm
Altman ?

Wanted badly to be killed for the abortion that was O.C. And Stiggs >:(
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: Really Ancien on 26 January, 2009, 02:30:59 pm
Sidney Lumet.
I've just been watching some of Network from 1976.
Sidney Lumet (http://www.geocities.com/karl_rackwitz/slumet.html)
YouTube - Network: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jmuhZY2mgs)

Damon.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: mikeitup on 27 January, 2009, 06:13:05 pm
Sidney Lumet.
I've just been watching some of Network from 1976.
Sidney Lumet (http://www.geocities.com/karl_rackwitz/slumet.html)
YouTube - Network: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jmuhZY2mgs)

Damon.


He's is a great director. IMO

I liked The Verdict, Serpico, Prince Of The City, Night Falls On Manhattan,Q&A and the absolute classic 12 Angry Men.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: mikeitup on 27 January, 2009, 06:14:31 pm
For eastern movies I highly rate: Tsui Hark, John Woo, Akira Kurosawa and my two favourites Chang Cheh and Lau Kar Leung.
Title: Re: Favourite directors
Post by: kyuss on 27 January, 2009, 06:29:39 pm
How about Zack Braff (you know, the guy from Scrubs). Didn't mention him initially because he's only done one film, but it's one of my favourites. If you haven't seen it you should. Garden State (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0333766/).  Natalie Portman is fantastic in it.