Michael Powell, who made A Matter of Life and Death, A Canterbury Tale, The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, Peeping Tom and many others.
Member since Wednesday 09.09.09
Kubrick is my fave, with "Eyes Wide Shut" really being the only one I didnt care for
almost everybody else I pay attention to is hit-n-miss with me, some of which include John Carpenter, James Wan, Darren Aronofsky, Tarantino, and several others
He made Scorpio with Lancaster and Delon. It's a solid spy thriller. He directed a lot of films in the second half of the 60's and first half of the 70's. The Lawman with Lancaster and Ryan. Also The Nightcomers with Brando but I haven't seen it.
If he has one strength, his films have their own identity. Especially those 70's flicks.
Antonioni, by far, from an era when the directors came into their own as artists in their own right. And he made three movies that should be essential for rock music fans, Blowup -Herbie Hancock score, plus The Page'Beck Yardbirds playing live in a club-, Zabriskie Point with Pink Floyd and others in the soundtrack, and Identification of a Woman, with a soundtrack by John Foxx.
Most of my favourites have already been mentioned, I'll add:
Terry Gilliam for Brazil, Twelve Monkeys, Monty Python & The Holy Grail, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Time Bandits, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, & The Fisher King
John Boorman for Excalibur, Deliverance, Point Blank, & The Emerald Forest
Francis Ford Coppola, for Godfather I & II, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now only.
Terence Fisher for a load of great Hammer films: Dracula, The Curse of Frankenstein, The Revenge of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, The Devil Rides Out, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Curse of the Werewolf, The Brides of Dracula, Dracula Prince of Darkness
Peter Jackson for Bad Taste, Braindead, & The Lord of the Rings/Hobbit trilogies
James Cameron for Terminator/T2, Aliens, The Abyss, True Lies & Avatar
Christopher Nolan for the Dark Night trilogy, Memento & Inception
Collectively, Pete Docter, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich, and Brad Bird for the Toy Story trilogy, Up, Inside Out, Wall-E, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc, & Ratatouille
Walter Hill, for his first seven films: Hard Times, The Driver, The Warriors, The Long Riders, Southern Comfort, 48 Hours, Streets of Fire
Brian De Palma for Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Body Double, Scarface, The Untouchables, Carlito's Way & Casualties of War
Tu veux un camembert?
Martin Scorsese - Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Good Fellas, Cape Fear, Casino, Gangs of New York, The Departed
Sir David Lean - Pygmalion, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Bridge Over the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Dr, Zhivago
Francis Ford Coppola - Patton (screenplay), The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather II, Apocalypse Now,
John Ford - The Informer, Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache, The Quiet Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Terry Gilliam - Monty Python & The Holy Grail (co-directed), Brazil, Time Bandits, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Fisher King
Ridley Scott - The Duellists, Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven
"And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision."
Occasional musical musings on https://darkelffile.blogspot.com/
It's a bit of a stretch to call Cronenberg's The Fly a remake of the earlier film. The screenplay is 99% different I'd say and is only very loosely based on the original short story. I think it's a great movie, and is more about loss of control of one's body due to disease and aging than it is about a scientist crossed with a fly (though that's a framework). I do like the original movie too. As I mentioned earlier, both Cronenberg's parents died from degenerative diseases, and it affected him greatly.
In a similar way Cronenberg's film "The Naked Lunch" is much more that a film of Burrough's novel. IMO he is probably even more important as a screenwriter than as a director.
Last edited by JKL2000; 07-03-2016 at 11:48 AM.
Cronenberg's The Fly is as much a "remake" of that earlier film as Carpenter's The Thing is to its predecessor.
George A Romero - Knightriders and a few other flicks whose titles escape me
Russ Meyer - whole body of work is top notch
Joe D'Amato - a few choice ones out there
There are usually at least two good reasons to like a Russ Meyer film, (Supervixens was my favorite...Charles Napier was ***^$#@! great).
John Waters put out some great moments. Same w/ Sam Peckinpah. Not sure if Vincent Gallo has a large enough body of work to fit in this thread, but Buffalo 66 was excellent.
Alan Pakula - for his thriller trilogy in the 70's. I haven't seen any of his drama films but there was more potential in him than the mediocre thrillers he made in the 90's.
James Bridges - wrote Colossus The Forbin Project which had a great first half but a poor second one. I like him rather for The Paper Chase and The China Syndrome. He also made a bunch of interesting films in the 80's which I've yet to see.
Andrew Davis - Almost everything he made between 1983 and 1996 was at least watchable. I guess his crowning achievment is The Fugitive.
Michael Crichton - The Andromeda Strain (as a writer), Pursuit, Westworld, Coma. And Looker and Runaway up there too.
Peter Hyams - mainly for Capricorn One, Outland and 2010. There are some other watchable ones he's made.
Also (maybe) Walter Hill. I don't think he made anything as good after The Warriors but The Driver and Southern Comfort are fairly good films. I think The Warriors is the real gem, a standout not only in his filmography but one of the better action/crime pics that there is.
There was a rumor that he and Carpenter were planning to make a movie together about some zombie soldiers (back in the day). Shame it never happened. The same with Scott and Cameron coming up with Alien 5 and the studio instead chosing to go ahead with AVP.
Walter Hill did The Long Riders, one of my favorite 80s westerns. It has a great Ry Cooder soundtrack.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Frank Darabont - Not sure what else he directed but Shawshank Redemption is one of my all time favourite movies.
He also directed The Mist, which I liked a lot. He crafted a new ending, to which Stephen King remarked "wish I'd thought of that."
The Mist stars Thomas Jane, and some familiar faces who then showed up in the first season of The Walking Dead: Laurie Holden (Andrea), Jeffrey DeMunn (Dale), Melissa McBride (Carol), and Juan Gabriel Pareja (Morales).
Darabont also directed The Green Mile and Buried Alive. In 1990 there were two films with this title - one with Pleasence and Vaughn and another with Matheson, Leigh and Atherton. He made this second one. Saw it a long time ago.
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