# Most Over-Rated Film Directors
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 10, 2004, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462 "2004-10-10T10:05:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 7
### Author:  [@Waccoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waccoe)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2004, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/121 "2004-10-12T11:22:17Z")
I have to admit I don’t get why people think the Coen Brothers are so great. To me, they are trying so hard to be quirky and to get in witty reference points to Hollywood classics, that I can’t really get into the films. I’m just sitting there thinking…um, there’s another little in-joke. I think true originality is less self-conscious than this. I enjoyed Fargo, but not so much that I ever bothered to see it a second time. Admittedly, I’ve never got round to seeing Miller’s Crossing and one day I will. But Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski? - I think these are overrated films. And now they’re doing straight covers.
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### Author:  [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2004, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/122 "2004-10-12T12:37:28Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#):
>
> Oh, Brother!
>
> Can we all agree that _The Trouble with Harry_ was top drawer?
And then some!
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2004, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/123 "2004-10-12T13:59:08Z")
> [@Waccoe](#):
>
> I have to admit I don’t get why people think the Coen Brothers are so great. To me, they are trying so hard to be quirky and to get in witty reference points to Hollywood classics, that I can’t really get into the films. I’m just sitting there thinking…um, there’s another little in-joke. I think true originality is less self-conscious than this. I enjoyed Fargo, but not so much that I ever bothered to see it a second time. Admittedly, I’ve never got round to seeing Miller’s Crossing and one day I will. But Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski? - I think these are overrated films. And now they’re doing straight covers.
Well, as to the last two fils you mentioned: to paraphase Jessica Rabbit, they make me laugh. Big Lebowski especially is to me one of the most hilarious movies since the the Marx Brothers. But since humor is highly subjective, its perfectly understandable that you disagree.
As to the other reasons I love the Coen Brothers, I think I’ll let [Cervaise](http://www.moviegeek.homestead.com/files/Obrother.htm) explain. He does it better than I can.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2004, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/124 "2004-10-12T14:57:57Z")
I like Quentin Tarantino but I don’t think he’s a genius. He makes entertaining movies about movies. And he deserves credit for his ability to draw great performances out of some mediocre actors. But when he starts believing the hype and thinking he’s got a message, it leads him astray. Tarantino needs to realize he’s the modern version of Hitchcock; a great master of the skills of film making but limiting in artistic vision.
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### Author:  [@Waccoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waccoe)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2004, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/125 "2004-10-12T15:46:54Z")
As to the other reasons I love the Coen Brothers, I think I’ll let [Cervaise](http://www.moviegeek.homestead.com/files/Obrother.htm) explain. He does it better than I can.
[/QUOTE]
Yeh, that site sums it up well.
“O Brother, Where Art Thou is a perfect example of this approach. Where the Coens have applied themselves, and indeed where the entertainment value of the film lies, is the allusive interplay, in recognizing where the Coens are directly referring to Homer, as with the Sirens, and when they’re deliberately reversing their source. (For example: In Homer’s Odyssey, the hero has a son, Telemachus, who plays a significant supporting role. In O Brother, not only do the Coens not give their hero a son, they underline the joke and give him seven daughters.) We grin at the pure absurdity of a meadow full of Klansmen performing high-school-band synchronized marching routines, and we chuckle when a character is literally “run out of town on a rail.” The escapist fun in a mainstream movie is in watching stuff fly around and blow up; the escapist fun in a Coen Brothers film is in feeling that one’s intelligence, one’s literacy and wit, is being catered to”.
The films are light confections - fine, just usually not quite my humour. I think when they go absurdist, as in Klansmen doing high school band routines, I saw it all thirty years ago in Monty Python. As for being run out of town on a rail, did they steal that from “Carry on Sherriff”? Have to admit that _Intolerable Cruelty_, the one that all the true fans hate, made me laugh more than anything else they’ve done, and I didn’t feel empty afterwards. Maybe now they’ve sold out, I’ll like them…maybe I should try The Ladykillers after all.
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### Author:  [@Mal\_Adroit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mal_Adroit)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2004, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/126 "2004-10-12T16:29:16Z")
> [@Waccoe](#):
>
> Have to admit that _Intolerable Cruelty_, the one that all the true fans hate, made me laugh more than anything else they’ve done.
Count one true fan who loves it. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Mal\_Adroit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mal_Adroit)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2004, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/127 "2004-10-12T16:30:47Z")
By the way, is there any director, really, that would escape this thread if it were topped long enough?
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### Author:  [@Waccoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waccoe)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2004, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/128 "2004-10-12T16:44:16Z")
> [@Moody Bastard](#):
>
> By the way, is there any director, really, that would escape this thread if it were topped long enough?
Yeh, Billy Wilder I reckon. Rated highly, but surely, perceptibly, still underrated.
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### Author:  [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2004, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/129 "2004-10-12T18:03:22Z")
> [@Waccoe](#):
>
> …maybe I should try The Ladykillers after all.
Please don’t. I had to turn it off after about 20 minutes.
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2004, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/130 "2004-10-12T19:19:44Z")
> [@Cervaise' site](#):
>
> Where the Coens have applied themselves, and indeed where the entertainment value of the film lies, is the allusive interplay, in recognizing where the Coens are directly referring to Homer, as with the Sirens, and when they’re deliberately reversing their source. (For example: In Homer’s Odyssey, the hero has a son, Telemachus, who plays a significant supporting role. In O Brother, not only do the Coens not give their hero a son, they underline the joke and give him seven daughters.)
Added to that, the Coens were often _not_ directly referring to Homer (even by inversion), but referring instead to the Odyssey by way of James Joyce’s _Ulysses_. One example of this is John Goodman as the “Cyclops”, who doesn’t resemble Homer’s Polyphemus much at all, but turns out to be a race-bigot that the protagonist has to stand up to, just like Joyce’s Citizen.
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### Author:  [@vl\_mungo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vl_mungo)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2004, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/131 "2004-10-12T20:29:41Z")
**Tim Burton** was the first person I thought of before I opened this tread. Someone once said that Tim Burton is the kind person who, when he was a kid, had all the coolest comic books… but never read them.
**Spike Lee** should also be getting more of a spanking in this thread… one good movie (Do The Right Thing) at the most. Me hate him.
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### Author:  [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2004, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/132 "2004-10-13T01:32:02Z")
Andrei Tarkovsky. I know the guy has a reputation for being a maverick genius Soviet-era filmmaker, but I’ve tried three of his films and only barely made it through two of them, and it was like enduring water torture. And I don’t generally have a problem with lyrical imagery and, ahem, stately pacing in a film – I can sit through an Ozu picture just fine – but A.T. bugs the heck out of me for some reason.
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### Author:  [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2004, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/133 "2004-10-13T06:59:21Z")
> [@vl\_mungo](#):
>
> **Spike Lee** should also be getting more of a spanking in this thread… one good movie (Do The Right Thing) at the most. Me hate him.
I used to thin so.
But **Summer of Sam** and **25th hour** is showing him with more mature work. He _is_ a gifted director. I don’t think he’s ever been over rated, though.
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### Author:  [@Ozchick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ozchick)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2004, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/134 "2004-10-13T08:16:50Z")
> [@Waccoe](#):
>
> Admittedly, I’ve never got round to seeing Miller’s Crossing and one day I will.
You must! My fave gangster movie…not that I remember much about it except what a great performance John Turturro gave - that scene where they’re in the woods and he’s begging for his life is branded into my memory forever.
**Peter Greenaway** Not that I don’t love what a visual feast “Prospero’s Books” was. And I quite liked “Cook, Theif, Wife, Lover” too. I just don’t get his cult following. I actually kind of think he’s a sadist…he just seems to use violence in a really creepy, off way. Not that I object to screen violence _per se_. I love the over-the-top, comic book way \*\*Tarantino \*\* uses violence, for instance. I found the three-way Mexican stand-off in “Reservoir Dogs” and its culmination exhilirating in its stylishness. Likewise, I thought the “Kill Bill” bloodbaths were great fun, and as for reaching out and pulling out someone’s eyeball…laugh! But Greenaway just seems to revel in suffering in a very unfunny way.
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### Author:  [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2004, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/135 "2004-10-13T08:28:44Z")
and the winner is…
Kevin Smith!
…admittedly, it’s not as though he is rated that highly anyway, but there are enough people around who rate him as some sort of genius that it must be mentioned, yet again, that he is in fact an incompetent bore.
It’s strange, really, that we even know this guy’s name. **Clerks** was so bad that it should have been “one try and your done” with this guy. But enough fools gave him attention and money that he was allowed to shit all over the screen again and again. That level of horribleness can’t be seen in most of the directors mentioned here so far. Some of them are overrated, yes (ahem-- Spielberg) but geeeeez-- this Smith guy is in a category by himself in terms of being allowed to continue to make crap films even after he has already shown that he is (and I’ll be nice here) **really not good.**
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### Author:  [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2004, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/136 "2004-10-13T08:37:46Z")
Oh well, chacun a son gout. I was flicking channels on the plane a couple of years ago and started watching something which turned out to be _Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back_. I thought it was very funny all told. Like all comedies a bit uneven, of course.
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### Author:  [@Rainbowthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rainbowthief)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2004, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/137 "2004-10-13T09:54:57Z")
I don’t think **Paul Verhoeven** is an overrated director. A shitty one, yes, but not overrated because other than lissener, I’ve never seen anyone online or IRL take him so seriously. Even the **Showgirls** fans I know love the movie as a guilty pleasure, an over the top romp, much in the same way that I absolutely love **Prison Heat** or **Return to Savage Beach**.
I’d say **Kevin Smith** is overrated, but critics seem to knock him movies pretty hard. I was shocked to see a piece of garbage like **Chasing Amy** get a Criterion DVD and am stunned to hear college kids go on and on about how great his characters are.
**James Cameron** might take the cake, though more and more people are waking up when it comes to him. Really, can anyone think of a movie with as many awards as **Titanic** that has that many detractors? The girls who flocked to see it a dozen times are grown up now, so the films has lost most of it’s luster. I even think the reason Cameron hasn’t made a follow up feature yet is because he doesn’t want his collossal ego to get bruised when his next film gets laughed at and bombs.
**Martin Scorsese** is another one. I don’t think he’s awful, just not “The Great American Filmmaker” as so many critifcs portray him. His body of work is too uneven to support such a reputation, though I loved **The Last Temptation of Christ**.
I’m really surprised–but pleased–that no one has mentioned **David Lynch**. A lot of people love to knock his entire post- **Eraserhead** output, but I think he’s made great films ( **Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man, Lost Highway, Wild at Heart, Mulholland Drive** ) more often than not ( **Dune, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me** ) and has been a true original all the way.
Also surprising is that no one said **Peter Jackson**. I’ve loved everything he’s done since **Bad Taste** to **Return of the King** , but people seem to turn on commercially successful filmmakers, as shown by the wave of anti-Tarantino message board posts and articles in film publications and websites.
And, **C.K.** , how could you! **Bergman** films _are_ “deep” and “artsy”! ☹
You all just wait until I film my screenplay about hostile invaders from outer space with their 1920’s style death rays!
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### Author:  [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2004, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-over-rated-film-directors/268462/138 "2004-10-13T14:20:32Z")
What do people here think of Coppola? I think he’s a tad overated, tho I don’t have the time to go into an essay about why.
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