I’ll put my vote in for Kevin Williamson. He can write but he sure as hell can’t direct. Anyone remember Teaching Mrs. Tingle?
One more thing. I’ll put my vote in for Kevin Williamson. He can write but he sure as hell can’t direct. Anyone remember Teaching Mrs. Tingle?
Robocop is exactly what it appears to be; a good SF action movie with some clever humor in it. I’ve also seen several other Verhoeven movies, including some of his early European work. Verhoeven’s problem is that he thinks he’s smarter than the material he works on. And he’s wrong. If he was willing to accept his limitations and work on projects that are at his level, he’d make better movies.
Wow , can’t believe some of the names mentioned here;
David Lynch - Have you not seen Blue Velvet, Elephant Man, Wild at Heart of Straight Story. Now, Eraserhead is unquestionably a bizarre movie, but that doesn’t make Lynch a bad director
Paul Voerhoven - I wouldn’t consider him to be a great director but he turned an awful script for Basic Instinct into an almost watchable film. Robocop, Starship Troopers and Hollow Man are all watchable and the first two at least almost work. His earlier work, like Soldier of Orange, is very good.
John Woo - His hollywood work (except maybe Face/Off) isn’t too great but no where near bad enough for him to qualify as worst director. His Hong Kong work is exceptional; try watching anything he did with Chow Yun Fat (Killer, Hard Boiled, Better Tomorrow etc.) and you’ll see he is a very, very competent director in general but a simply outstanding action film director.
Paul Thomas Anderson - Again, he has made 4 movies (Hard 8, Boogie Night, Magnolia & Punch Drunk Love) of which none could reasonably be considered awful.
A lot of people on the list are better writers than directors (Kevin Smith, Kevin Williamson, Paul Thomas Anderson & I’d add Quentin Tarantino to that list) but that doesn’t make them bad directors.
Joel Schumacher is another who has made some bad movies, but nowhere near consistently bad enough to qualify. Falling Down, Tigerland, Phone Booth, Flawless & Flatliners are all reasonable movies.
My vote, btw, goes to Ed Wood.
I’ll second George Lucas for ruining Star Wars.
Easy. Renny Harlin. Hands down. His magnum opus, Driven, is so badly directed that it’s hillarious to watch. Horrible. Terrible. Prententiousness on a whole new level.
I’d nominate Albert Brooks, writer-director-star of such movies as Mother, Modern Romance, Lost in America and The Muse. He’s in the same category as Henry Jaglom as someone who’s spent most of his time making the same movie over and over again to widespread public indifference.
But what makes Brooks worse is that whilst obviously influenced by Woody Allen (which itself begs the question “Why?”) he consistently exceeds the awfulness of Woody’s shittiest pictures. Woody Allen has probably directed more terrible and excruicating movies than anyone else mentioned here, but at least he did Sleeper and a couple of other classics.
Also Barbra Streisand. Obviously.
(And not to get into a vast debate, but Lynch cannot be such a bad director because achieves precisely what he sets out to do. If you were trying to make a Stepmom-style sensitive family drama and it came out like Eraserhead, you would be a bad director, but if you were trying to make the freakiest thing in the world and ended up with Eraserhead, then you’ve hit the spot.)
Nope. Bill “Monster a-Go-Go” Rebane is even worse. Just.
The Long Kiss Goodnight and Deep Blue Sea are terrible, yet entertaining enough to save him from my “worst ever” vote. And it would help if he would fire whoever does special effects for him. Bleh.
I don’t know about “Worst of all time…” but Courtney Solomon (Dungeons & Dragons(2000)) gets a serious nod.
Michael Bay is the worst director ever to draw breath. Just look at his filmography:
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Bay,+Michael
Show me one good movie on that list. The worst part is that he spends tons and tons of money on his movies–money that could be making GOOD movies. Or hell, money that could be doing something–ANYTHING–besides funding Armageddeon! At least Ed Wood didn’t waste millions making dreck. And, as has already been pointed out, lots of idiots go see these movies and producers make more crap as a result.
For the love of Orson Welles and all that is good and right in American filmmaking, I beg everyone reading these words not to go see Bad Boys II, the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or anything with his or Jerry "Kangaroo Jack’ Bruckheimer’s name on it.
Leaving aside Ed Wood, Bill Rebane, who directed (if you can call it that) The Giant Spider Invasion, as got to rank right up there in the Worst Directors list…
I’m going to disagree with Michael Bay. First, I’ll mention The Rock as a good film of his (Armageddon and Pearl Harbor sucked, never saw Bad Boys).
But more than that, I think you have to look at what he’s trying to do. He has no sublte messages or themes in his movies, no higher purpose, he’s simply a commercial action film director. And judging by the amount of money his movies have made, I’d say he’s pretty good at what he does. He’s not trying to be clever and cool at the same time. Studios are simply telling him “Here’s $50 million, turn that into a couple hundred”, and he does.
Good call, Elwood.
Until Don Simpson died, you could depend on a Bruckheimer/Simpson production to be damned good summertime films. Top Gun speaks for itself. Is it great cinema? Nope. Is it a good “movie”? Damn straight.
Things went well until Pearl Harbor, when, apparently, Jerry Bruckheimer decided that he wanted to be Steven Spielberg, only without a) directing and b) a soul. Now, I’ve not seen Pearl Harbor, and don’t feel the need to. I know that no one involved with the making of it is capable of telling the kind of story that would need to be told. Michael Bay is an excellent technical film maker – not quite as good with the medium as Oliver Stone is – but is not an emotional filmmaker. Jerry Bruckheimer is good at producing summertime blockbusters, but, for the love of God, I am willing to become a depressed cocaine addict just to prevent anymore movies like Kangaroo Jack.
Oh yes, how could I forget.
The Polonia brothers. Directed Feeders, and Feeders 2.
Don’t make me come over there…
I stand by Coleman Francis. His editing is unmatched; why in just a few short seconds you can actually forget which film you’re watching, or where you are. Plus I don’t think even Rebane can claim that he accidentally dropped the audio track to one of his films into Lake Tahoe (The Beast of Yucca Flats).
I can’t find much info about this one (not carried by Netflix and they have everything!)
… but it has a perfect 100% rating at RottenTomatoes.com
Whats the deal?
I’ve posted twice in this thread, and haven’t listed my “worst”, so I’m gonna go with Coleman Francis – the only man who made a movie so bad that it made Cambot cry. Red Zone Cuba, IIRC.
“A woman’s handbag… Man on the moon…”
Eraserhead is one strange movie. Beyond that, there isn’t a lot of consensus. Some people (including myself) love it and think it’s a masterpiece. Others hate it and think it’s an overhyped piece of garbage.
The interpretation that I believe is true is that Eraserhead is supposed to be a dream that the protagonist is having. Being a dream it doesn’t have a subject or plotline, but it does concern itself with the protagonist’s anxiety about the impending birth of his first child.