25 Best Directors?
Entertainment Weekly just published their list of the 25 Greatest Active Film Directors.
1. Steven Spielberg
2. Peter Jackson
3. Martin Scorsese
4. Christopher Nolan
5. Steven Soderbergh
6. Ridley Scott
7. Quentin Tarantino
8. Michael Mann
9. James Cameron
10. Joel and Ethan Coen
11. Guillermo del Toro
12. David Fincher
13. Tim Burton
14. Judd Apatow
15. Sam Raimi
16. Zack Snyder
17. Darren Aronofsky
18. Danny Boyle
19. Clint Eastwood
20. Ron Howard
21. Ang Lee
22. Paul Thomas Anderson
23. Paul Greengrass
24. Pedro Almodóvar
25. Jon Favreau
Here are some names that didn’t make the list:
Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, Spike Lee, John Lasseter, Brad Bird
Woody Allen made Annie Hall
Wes Anderson made Royal Tennebaums
Spike Lee made Do The Right Thing
John Lasseter made Toy Story
Brad Bird made The Incredibles
I appreciate the list. It’s good for discussion. But it’s a bad list.
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38 comments:
Chirstopher Nolan is above James Cameron? Clint Eastwood and Ron Howard are on this list to the exclusion of Woody Allen? Peter Jackson is number 2???? Above Scorcese????
WOW ... Entertainment Weekly must be going out of business. If not, they soon will be.
Wow, that's a bad list. I've seen some bad ones during my time but this takes the biscuit.
Not that I expected much but still.
Yikes.
Ray,
I'm not sure the list is in descending order.
Brian
Trying to narrow down to TOP 5 is nearly impossible. Here are mine:
Scorsese
Speilberg
Tarantino
Coen Bros.
Woody Allen (1977-1992)
Honorable mention: Steven Soderberg, Michael Mann, Clint Eastwood, Paul Thomas-Anderson, Wes Anderson, Ang Lee, Pedro Almodovar
Bad list, indeed. I make lists on my own site - they're fun and spark conversations. But I suspect some listmakers do it to outrage folks ... and spark conversations in a less honest fashion.
This list smacks of that.
@ brian - Ah ... I guess the numbered entries threw me off.
In thinking about this more, why does everyone about Peter Jackson so much? Half of the films in his rather short career are almost jokes. He is my pick for most overrated active director.
Peter Jackson wouldn't be on my top 25.
He did King Kong, right?
Now I'm understanding why I don't see Entertainment Weekly on newsstands anymore.
This is a horrible list made by someone who doesn't really know much about the current state of cinema. I agree with Ray that most of Peter Jackson's career has been one "joke" movie after another.
And well, everyone knows how I feel about Opie.
And Jon Favreau? Jeez, you make one good comic book movie and you get on the list?
I would add Cronenberg. Brad Bird is a good addtion. The fact that Woody Allen and Wes Anderson aren't on that list is a crime.
And let's go back to Jon Favreau. Really? Really? Over P.T. Anderson? Really? Come on.
David Lynch made Blue Velvet.
Yikes,
Completely forgot Lynch. How could I do that?
This list sucks. I can discuss it no more.
Jon Favreau
Jon Favreau
Jon Favreau
In 20 years I want to put his Wikipedia Filmography up against Woody Allen's.
The EW list is so horrible that I am done rambling and I regret the original post. Sorry LazyEye readers who know better.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY is shit.
Yeah, Piper's right about Favreau ... and he's damn fucking right about Cronenberg, one of the bravest active directors out there. When we're all in The Matrix, that guy will be our Jesus.
There's a max of, maybe, 5 directors on that list who might make my own top 25. A lot of them wouldn't make my top 500. And at first I thought it was top 25 active *American* directors, which would be bad enough, until I saw Pedro Almodovar. Now I wonder how they can justify the exclusion of Claire Denis, Michael Haneke, Raoul Ruiz, Werner Herzog, Jean-Luc Godard, etc., etc. Picking just 25 great directors is damn hard, but it'd be very easy to pick 25 better choices than these ones.
I saw that list the other day, got mad, almost posted, and then thought... I just can't... I'll wait for someone else to post on it and comment there.
AND THEN PIPER DID IT!
OK... as Ed said, um, if you don't list Godard anywhere in the 25 (he should be #1) then your list is automatically dead.
I agree with many of the other readjustments the commenters have suggested (I second Clair Denis, Wes Anderson, and David Lynch) and I also add Mike Leigh, Michel Gondry, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Jonathan Demme, Alexander Sokurov, Brian DePalma (suck it, haters!!!) and so many others my head is gonna pop!
Thanks for taking one for the team Piper! You're a true gamer.
Ed,
You think you could pick 25 better directors than the ones on the EW list? Better than Spielberg and Scorsese and Coen Bros? I realize this is a bad list but they did get SOME right.
I'd love to see your list. I must be missing some good movies.
Brian
Fox,
Brian is responsible for this post. That's not to pass blame because there's a good conversation going on here.
I made a mistake earlier in not noticing P.T. Anderson on the list. I made it in sheer anger.
I like the inclusion of DePalma but not for his recent crapola like Femme Fatale (suck it, lovers!!! and by lovers, I actually mean lover because I don't know anyone else that likes it besides Fox).
And I would add Demme to the list.
And what the fuck with Zach Snyder? What's so wrong with this list is that it has no history. Favreau, Snyder, Apatow. They have like two or three movies to their names and they make this list? Damn, I'm all pissed off all over again.
Seriously, somebody at EW should lose their job over this.
Well, Scorsese & the Coens would probably make my own list too. Though I like some of the other directors they listed, too, I don't think any others would make it if I was limited to 25. And yes, Godard would be #1. Maybe I'll try and make up an alternate list one of these days if I'm in the mood.
Somehow I missed PT Anderson too. OK, add him to my imaginary list as well.
This is now Exhibit A in the case against the idea that mainstream critics have more "legitimacy" than bloggers. What a joke.
Peter Jackson wouldn't be on my Top 2,000.
Out of curiosity, if the list isn't in descending order, what order is it in? It's a bit of a relief to see Jackson isn't actually #2, but it's still embarrassing.
Don't get pissed, Piper. This is merely yet another fanboy wank-off. Snyder, for instance, has not yet made a film that has impressed me ... we'll see about WATCHMEN, but early reviews are bolstering my hunch about that one as well. He definitely shouldn't be anywhere on this list.
Ray and Pat,
Years ago I bid Zach Snyder for an ad campaign. He had just finished a jeep commercial where guys with jeeps are playing frisbee from different mountains.
Still the best work he's done...
Brian
@ brian - And what were his prices like back then? Surely much lower than they are today, what with his Golden Boy status and all ...
I realize that the only directors who matter are white men who are American or who make fanboy movies. This list isn't even a discussion starter. It is a reason to cancel your subscription to EW.
Marilyn,
The ground beneath me shook a bit when I read this.
See why I hate lists? They sucker-punch fans into talking about them My cat wouldn't deign to take a crap on this one in her litter box, but most are useless because there is no way to get around many grievous sins of omission and cultural bias. Let's just talk about the films!
Marilyn,
But what about Top 5 Tuesdays? It would be lost without you.
I absolutely agree. I would much rather talk about what makes a director great then put him or her on a list of great directors.
The Top 5 Tuesdays are just fun. Nothing definitive.
I'm looking forward to Watchmen as much as anyone, but the inclusion of Zack Snyder makes this list completely irrelevant. That, and it's Entertainment Weekly. I sure don't miss the pre-internet days when EW was my only source for movie news.
Bemis,
I wrote a piece a while back asking if print was dead. I think it's stuff like this that proves it is.
Well I do like lists (and canons) - they start discussions, help us define parameters which can then be knocked down or defended, and hell, they're just fun. I even like the AFI list, as flawed as it is - it renewed my interest in movies at a time when I had drifted from it a bit, and sent me down the primrose path of the classics which I still walk.
But this EW list is so bad that it's not even interesting. Although we are discussing it, aren't we? But then if the list had Brett Ratner's name repeated twenty-five times, we'd be discussing it too so that's not saying much.
Ratner on the list? Now that would be something.
I think if that happened, I would buy a plane ticket, fly to EW headquarters and burn the place down.
Re: "I like the inclusion of DePalma but not for his recent crapola like Femme Fatale (suck it, lovers!!! and by lovers, I actually mean lover because I don't know anyone else that likes it besides Fox).
Updated January 23 2003
PASSION LISTS
CRITICS PICK TOP FILMS OF 2002
So far, at least twenty-two critics have placed Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale on their lists of top 10 films of 2002. This includes an index of critics voting in the Village Voice's 4th annual film poll, three of whom placed Femme Fatale at the top of their lists (Jim Ridley of Nashville Scene, Film Comment's Gavin Smith, and Armond White, whose full list will probably be published next week in the New York Press). De Palma's film came in at number 19 overall, appearing on the top 10 lists of 11 out of 78 alternative press critics who voted in the poll. Topping those three individual lists helped push its "passiondex" rating to what J. Hoberman calls "a hefty 2.90".
According to Hoberman, the passiondex is "derived by dividing a movie's total points by the number of mentions to get its average 'score,' and then multiplying that figure by the proportion of that movie's supporters who named it their number one."
Two prominent critics, Roger Ebert and Michael Sragow, have given the film special mention in year-end articles. Ebert, in a section devoted to overlooked films of the year, wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times, "Femme Fatale was Brian De Palma's elegant, sexy and masterful thriller, starring Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as a woman who steals a dress made of diamonds--during the Cannes Film Festival." Sragow contributed a paragraph titled "A bad-guy ballet" in the film segment of a Baltimore Sun article on 2002's memorable moments: "The bravura opening sequence of Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale traces a jewel heist, at once glamorous and lowdown, that's executed in a bathroom during a gala at the Cannes Film Festival. As the bisexual antiheroine prepares for her no-holds-barred seduction of a female mark, she, her boss and their collaborators glide through an erotic dance scored to a Bolero-like rhythm and melody. De Palma turns bad behavior into a bang-up ballet." Sragow also included the film on his top 10 list, in a tie for number 9 with The Last Kiss.
Still one other critic, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader, included Femme Fatale not in his top 10, but in his top 40 (at number 15).
Following are the lists of the critics who had Femme Fatale among their top 10 (and also Rosenbaum's top 20), and what they had to say about the film, if anything:
Travis Crawford (Village Voice ballot)
1. Spirited Away
2. The Piano Teacher
3. Far From Heaven
4. All or Nothing
5. The Happiness of the Katakuris
6. Femme Fatale
7. Time Out
8. Lagaan
9. Bloody Sunday
10.Morvern Callar
Manohla Dargis Los Angeles Times
(In alphabetical order)
About Schmidt
Blissfully Yours
Far From Heaven
Femme Fatale
In Praise of Love
Japón
The Pianist
The Piano Teacher
Time Out
Y Tu Mamá También
"This is the film in which Brian De Palma finally stopped being so freaked out by women and decided to succumb to them. Wildly entertaining (and wildly sexy), this mash note to the pleasures of cinema and the beauty of the female beast not only marks the director's best work in 10 years; it also stands among his greatest accomplishments."
John Demetry Gay Today
1. Femme Fatale
2. Catch Me If You Can
3. Minority Report
4. Time Out
5. The Cat's Meow
6. CQ
7. Storytelling
8. Undisputed
9. Triumph of Love
10.A Walk to Remember
"In 2002, Spielberg with Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can and, catching Spielberg cuz he can, Brian De Palma with Femme Fatale push the limits of spectator cognition and the capacity for cinematic complexity and empathy. These films evoke the moral, political, and spiritual revolution inherent in Spielberg's new -- post-cinematic -- way of seeing the world. The spectator must respond to the eternal, yet urgent, call resonating in every shot of the year's three indisputable masterpieces: 'You can choose.'"
Scott Foundas indieWIRE
1. As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
2. Time Out
3. Bloody Sunday
4. Bowling For Columbine
5. Femme Fatale
6. I'm Going Home
7. In Praise of Love
8. Auto Focus
9. The Piano Teacher
10.Cremaster 3
"The most delicious, deliriously inventive narrative spiral since Raul Ruiz got his hands on Proust's 'Remembrance of Things Past.' A grand summation for De Palma -- so much so that he needn't ever make another film, though one hopes he will -- and one of the greatest 'fuck you's to the Hollywood studio system ever created."
Ed Gonzalez Slant Magazine
1. Far From Heaven
2. Spider
3. What Time is it There?
4. Femme Fatale
5. Spirited Away
6. Trouble Every Day
7. Sunshine State
8. Late Marriage
9. Adaptation
10.Gangs of New York
"Brian De Palma's formal obsession with allusions to seeing and sightlessness have forever brought to mind the works of Dario Argento, perhaps the only other living director who can create and sustain the kind of delirious artifice on fierce display in Femme Fatale. While its Cannes Film Festival sequence must count as one of the most impressive set pieces ever mounted by a director, it is the film's opening long shot that deserves special mention. Laure Ash (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) watches Double Indemnity on French television, studying Barbara Stanwyck and rewriting herself as a modern femme fatale. Laure packs a gun and a one-liner or two, challenging the way men perceive women and using that perception to consume and spit out her men. De Palma remarkably superimposes Romijn-Stamos's face over that of the film's many women (Stanwyck during the film's opening shot and Mellais's Ophelia when Laure chit chats with Nicolas over cold espresso), at once reinforcing the nature of the character's split self and the overall dreamlike momentum of the narrative."
Jeremiah Kipp filmcritic.com
1. Far From Heaven
2. Catch Me If You Can
3. Trouble Every Day
4. Time Out
5. Undisputed
6. Femme Fatale
7. Wendigo
8. Minority Report
9. Warm Water Under a Red Bridge
10.All or Nothing
"From its voluptuous opening heist sequence at the Cannes Film Festival to its divine interventions at two climactic murder scenes, Brian De Palma embraces the art of motion pictures. His technique feels like a musical fugue or a silent film, providing direct access to the sensuality of movie-watching and movie-gazing. Each frame is something special. But he also does a nice critique on the mindlessness of film noir. As his characters sink deeper and deeper into their own self-involved bloodshed, De Palma allows for spiritual cleansing through profound use of religious iconography: a glowing neon cross, beams of light shining down from the sky, and a woman plunged naked into the watery depths only to be reborn. Anyone who called it "incomprehensible" has lost touch with what's primal about watching movies."
Amy Longsdorf Allentown Morning Call
1. About Schmidt
2. Chicago
3. Talk to Her
4. Road to Perdition
5. Adaptation
6. Far From Heaven
7. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
8. About a Boy
9. Catch Me If You Can
10.Femme Fatale
Dave McCoy MSN Entertainment
1. Y Tu Mamá También
2. Far From Heaven
3. Punch-Drunk Love
4. Femme Fatale
5. The Hours
6. Adaptation
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
8. About Schmidt
9. The Piano Teacher
10.The Pianist
"The biggest crime of the year was that Brian De Palma's sly, intelligent thriller didn't find the audience it so deserved. This is the smartest film De Palma's made since Dressed to Kill and the first real De Palma movie since Body Double (i.e. one where the studios didn't have final cut and ruin his vision). Essentially a send up of film noir, Femme Fatale, underneath its sleazy, glossy surface, is about vision: how movies affect the popular consciousness, how our eyes trick us and how things we see may not always be what they are."
Rob Nelson (Village Voice ballot)
(In alphabetical order)
ABC Africa
Far From Heaven
The Fast Runner (Atanarjuat)
Femme Fatale
Gangs of New York
Lovely & Amazing
Personal Velocity
Spider
Spirited Away
Y Tu Mamá También
Geoffrey O'Brien (Village Voice ballot)
1. The Lady and the Duke
2. The Fast Runner (Atanarjuat)
3. Far From Heaven
4. Auto Focus
5. Minority Report
6. Gangs of New York
7. Nine Queens
8. Adaptation
9. Femme Fatale
10.Merci Pour le Chocolat
Geoffrey O'Brien later altered his list slightly for the Film Comment year-end issue, moving Femme Fatale up a couple of notches:
1. The Lady and the Duke
2. The Fast Runner
3. Far From Heaven
4. Auto Focus
5. Minority Report
6. Gangs of New York
7. Femme Fatale
8. Nine Queens
9. Adaptation
10.Merci Pour le Chocolat
Keith Phipps (Village Voice ballot)
1. Y Tu Mamá También
2. Far From Heaven
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
4. About Schmidt
5. Time Out
6. Spirited Away
7. Adaptation
8. 25th Hour
9. Talk to Her
10.Femme Fatale
Jim Ridley (Village Voice ballot)
1. Femme Fatale
2. Gangs of New York
3. Far From Heaven
4. I'm Going Home
5. Adaptation
6. Spider-Man
7. Esther Kahn
8. 25th Hour
9. Y Tu Mamá También
10.What Time Is It There?
Ridley also chose Brian De Palma as best director of 2002.
Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader
(Top 20)
1. *Corpus Callosum
2. Platform
3. Y tu mama tambien
4. I'm Going Home
5. Ellipses, Reels 1-4
6. Russian Ark
7. The Cat's Meow
8. Far From Heaven
9. Germany Year 90 Nine Zero
10.8 Mile
11.Bowling for Columbine
12.El Valley Centro, Los, and Sogobi
13.Changing Lanes
14.Diamond Men
15.Femme Fatale
16.Heaven
17.In Praise of Love
18.Kandahar
19.Mostly Martha
20.Undercover Brother
"Femme Fatale is my favorite Brian De Palma film, along with Raising Cain (1992) and Obsession (1976). Like these, it has almost nothing to do with reality and everything to do with the playful and artful arrangement of kitsch. Made for less than De Palma's blockbusters, it also has fewer distractions and lapses, and for once I was delighted by the absence of stars, which kept this thriller lighter on its feet."
Gavin Smith (Village Voice ballot)
1. Femme Fatale
2. Merci Pour le Chocolat
3. The Piano Teacher
4. Skin of Man, Heart of Beast
5. The Sleepy Time Gal
6. Sunshine State
7. Bloody Sunday
8. Time Out
9. In Praise of Love
10.Far From Heaven
Gregory Solmon (Village Voice ballot)
1. Minority Report
2. Gangs of New York
3. Catch Me if You Can
4. Femme Fatale
5. Time Out
6. All or Nothing
7. Adaptation
8. Storytelling
9. Undisputed
10.The Cat's Meow
Solmon also chose Brian De Palma - Best Screenplay and Thierry Arbogast - Best Cinematographer for Femme Fatale.
Michael Sragow Baltimore Sun
1. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2. Y Tu Mama Tambien
3. Spirited Away
4. Last Orders
5. Chicago
6. All Or Nothing
7. Lantana
8. Triumph of Love
9. (tie)The Last Kiss and Femme Fatale (tie)
10.Rabbit-Proof Fence
"The former is Gabriele Muccino's masterful group comedy about a bunch of Roman guys who can't grow up; the latter is Brian De Palma's virtuoso bad-boy thriller about a con-woman on the loose in Cannes and Paris. Muccino's film is essential viewing for anyone who prizes movies as an extension of theater; De Palma's for those who love movies as an empire of dreams."
Amy Taubin Art Forum
1. Spider
2. In Praise of Love
3. Corpus Callosum
4. The Fast Runner (Atanarjuat)
5. La Commune (Paris 1871)
6. Far from Heaven
7. Femme Fatale
8. The Uncertainty Principle
9. Auto Focus
10.Lovely & Amazing
"The flip side of Mulholland Drive is a rogue-female empowerment dream as euphoric as an Angela Carter fairy-tale makeover."
Amy Taubin altered her list later for the year-end issue of Film Comment, moving Femme Fatale up a couple of notches:
1. Spider
2. The Commune (Paris, 1871)
3. Solaris
4. Far From Heaven
5. Femme Fatale
6. *Corpus Callosum
7. The Fast Runner
8. The Uncertainty Principle
9. Gerry
10.Lovely & Amazing
Charles Taylor Salon.Com
1. Y Tu Mamá También
2. What Time Is It There?
3. Femme Fatale
4. Morvern Callar
5. Far From Heaven
6. The Pianist
7. Chicago
8. Triumph of Love
9. CQ
10.Possession
"As a visual storyteller Brian De Palma is without equal in contemporary moviemaking. Inevitably, his films are dismissed by critics and audiences who have become too lazy to process visual information. (Here's a decoder: When a critic describes a De Palma film as "incoherent" it usually means he was too lazy to follow it.) Like a plush seat at the swankiest peep show in town, 'Femme Fatale' allows us to luxuriate in De Palma's chic, sleek erotic trickery. He signals us to every trick he is playing on us and, because movies are about wanting to be fooled, we are only too happy to be taken in. De Palma has always loathed the sentimental manipulations of movies, and in 'Femme Fatale' he turns the misogyny of film noir on its head, giving us a corrupt heroine and making us acknowledge that we love her for being so bad. As De Palma's heroine, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos gives a sexy, gleeful performance that leaves the sexual timidity of more established actresses in the dust. No movie this year offered the sensual pleasure that this sex-fantasy thriller did. No American movie was better."
Scott Tobias (Village Voice ballot)
1. About Schmidt
2. Time Out
3. Gangs of New York
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
5. What Time Is It There?
6. Y Tu Mamá También
7. Devils on the Doorstep
8. Spirited Away
9. Femme Fatale
10.Morvern Callar
Armond White New York Press
1. Femme Fatale
2. Catch Me If You Can
3. Time Out
4. Minority Report
5. All or Nothing
6. Storytelling
7. The Cat’s Meow
8. The Triumph of Love
9. 24 Hour Party People
10.Songs from the Second Floor
Chuck Wilson LA Weekly
1. Dahmer
2. Y Tu Mamá También
3. Roger Dodger
4. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
5. Femme Fatale
6. The Pianist
7. Signs
8. Time Out
9. The Cockettes
10. Bartleby
Andrew Wright Portland Mercury
1. Solaris
2. Y Tu Mamá También
3. 24 Hour Party People
4. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
5. Spider-Man
6. Punch-Drunk Love
7. Femme Fatale
8. The Ring
9. Spirited Away
10.Jackass
Stephanie Zacharek Salon.Com
1. Y Tu Mamá También
2. Far From Heaven
3. About a Boy
4. Secretary
5. Femme Fatale
6. Chicago
7. The Pianist
8. Morvern Callar
9. Possession
10.CQ
"A lot of moviegoers complained that Brian De Palma's beautifully structured thriller about a very bad girl didn't make sense. Not liking the movie is one thing; claiming it doesn't cut together is something else again. If there were a remedial school for film fans, this one would have to be on the curriculum."
Jeez Geoff,
I guess I'll go crawl inside a bottle now for making my statement.
I won't debate any of this since no one would probably know the subject better than you.
What I will say is that while I'm a big fan of DePalma, I didn't much care for this film. And aside from you and Fox, I haven't heard anyone defend it. Or write about it in a more recent context. It just seems that while it made a lot of 2002 lists, it seems to have faded. But that just might be because I didn't care for it so I wasn't necessarily looking for someone to criticize or praise it.
I agree with the comments about DePalma finally embracing female characters and I'm all for an artist evolving his craft, but I think I will forever be a lover of the old DePalma. I guess that's just me. But what I respect about DePalma is that he always remains relevant.
But let it be known: I will no longer write that there are no Femme Fatale lovers out there.
Ha-- fair enough.
Marilyn and I battle it out sometimes over "the sexes"/gender issues, but I can't agree with her more on the lack of women on this list.
There indeed seems to be a lingering (and maybe even more deeply rooted) boxing out of women filmmakers not only in Hollywood but in the indie film industry as well. Sure, there are some out there but the male-to-female ratio is staggering if you check it out.
Brian-
Sorry I didn't see that you posted this discussion generating post. That was my bad.
I'm not trying to be a contrarian, and I'm not even necessarily defending the list (heck, I didn't give it or many others like this the credence to even read through it all), but it does say right in the title: "Active."
Now, as for the directors that Brian called out specifically (Allen, Lee, Bird, etc.), outside of Anderson and Lee, couldn't one make an argument that none of them are all that active? How many films have Bird and Lasseter made in the last 10 years? Or James Cameron, for that matter? Or David Lynch?
I'd have to see what the criteria really were, but of course, it's laughable and I probably won't make that effort.
Oh, and yeah, I ignored Allen on purpose. Just 'cause you pump out a movie each year, doesn't make you actively great - how long can he coast on successes of the past? But he would make my list of adequate active directors.
Fletch,
Actually Brad Bird has put out 3 films in the past decade. Iron Giant (Wonderful), The Incredibles (More Wonderful) and Ratatouille (Not as Wonderful as The Incredibles but still Wonderful)
Same with David Lynch.
That's more than Favreau has put out. It's just that the list doesn't seem too thought out. I guess I might expect it from a blog, but not a magazine.
But I'm with you on Woody Allen. I'm in to his older stuff.
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