the slate is clean, the new has come the old is gone. and burt is right, you should thank him for reminding us.

thank you burt

Well I'm fairly mainstream when it comes to movies. I tend to avoid the arthouse movies. So here are some of my favorite movie directors. Mind you I don't like all their movies, but enough of them that I put them on my favorite list. I make no pretense of thinking they are the best directors in the whole world nor do I expect anyone else to agree with me. After all this is my list.

And once again they're all pretty mainstream. Nothing artistic here. Though Michael Mann does have a flashy style.

John Frankenheimer. The man could be wildly uneven. Especially in the seventies when he was deep in the throes of alcoholism. But I liked Dead Bang, Ronin, Seven Days in May, Black Sunday and The Manchurian Candidate.

Sydney Pollack. A director who made movies from many different genres. But he made a few that I like alot. 3 Days of the Condor, The Yakuza, Jeremiah Johnson, Absence of Malice.

Michael Mann. His movies are flashy. They use realistic details for style not substance (does that make sense?), but they are watchable (for the most part). Also I grew up in the eighties. Thief, Manhunter, Miami Vice, Crime Story, L.A. Takedown. These are movies and television shows that I watched and still watch. Nostalgia I guess is one of the reasons why he is on this list. Well that and Heat. This description is about as close as I can get to copying a film critic.

Clint Eastwood. That's probably all I need to write. Another actor/director that I grew up watching.

Steven Spielberg. Yes I like him. I'm not ashamed to admit I watch his moves.

Ridley Scott. Very commerical, but ever since I saw Alien in 1979 and The Duelists in 1982 I've been a fan. Even his weaker movies (Legend and Robin Hood anyone?) I end up watching.

Don Siegel. Dirty Harry, Escape from Alcatraz, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1955), The Shootist, Charley Varrick, Hell is for Heros. The man was something of a pioneer in the action movie genre. He cut his teeth in the 1940's as a second unit director working with classic actors like Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart. He developed an action oriented film style that continues to influence film makers to this day. While many born after say 1980 would probably find his movies ......old fashioned......... I like them.

Good choices. What do you think of Danny Boyle?

I liked 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Slumdog Millionaire. I didn't like that movie set in SE Asia. The Beach? I haven't seen any of his other movies.

His newest movie about the bicycle guy in Utah cutting off his hand looks interesting.

Go out and rent Trainspotting if time permits you. It's a great film.

That's interesting. Is it true that people in your area still find spent .223 blanks lying around from all of the gunfire scenes? (I once read that "Starship Troopers" set a record for blank ammunition fired on a movie set.)

Exactly. And the problem is that Heinlein's brand of politics hasn't aged very well (either today, or 15 years ago when the movie was filmed). It's pretty hard to make a movie out of a utopian novel where the author actually admires the utopian world he's conceived. Verhoeven's approach was a satirical depiction of the novel's militaristic society, which is (I think) probably the best anyone could have done. I realize that "Starship Troopers" is regarded as a classic, but so were Mike Hammer novels (which came out around the same time), and I think it would be quite difficult to make a movie adaptation of those, in this day and age.

I'm actually not the biggest fan of "Total Recall", though it is an enjoyable movie in its own right.

Starship Troopers would of been cooler if they gave the soldiers those powered armor suits.

I wonder what's keeping the studio who owns the rights to Starship Troopers from doing a reboot that goes back to the roots with power suits and nukes? I would think a massive, 3-D, CGI-filled summer blockbuster would make more money for the franchise than yet another straight-to-video crapfest.

Because "Starship Troopers" was unsuccessful (in the U.S., its box office receipts covered only about half of its production budget). It would probably be pretty hard to get investors behind a big-budget reboot.

And yet they've pumped out two DTV sequels. The original was rated R with a B-movie cast with a B-movie script yet made with a blockbuster budget. Put a name in it, with a hot girl, pump it full of SFX, keep it PG-13, and you won't even need to write a good script. Hell, it worked for Transformers. (This is in no way an endorsement of Michael Bay or a suggestion that Michael Bay remake Starship Troopers.)

R rated Transformers would have owned.

Fixed that for you

You'd be surprised how much plotholes and bad acting can be glossed over in action movies with titties, blood, and liberal use of "fuck".

Example: The Expendables

amen, x2 that dawg

It's worse when you are watching it at home instead of in the theater

I like that movie, very fun, lets remember, many movies are for entertainment, not analyzing the deep underlying meanings or anything.

Spawning low-budget sequels is not a good sign. "The Punisher", for instance, got a direct-to-DVD sequel even though it wasn't a huge box office success. Or, look at all of the "Universal Soldier" sequels that didn't get theatrical releases. Usually, if a big-budget movie has several lower-budgeted sequels, that's an indication that investors are only confident that the franchise has appeal to hardcore fans of the original and/or the source material, not mainstream audiences (where the big $$$$ are). That's the situation with "Starship Troopers" now - the novel may have fans, but for most people (even sci-fi lovers), it's a relic of the Cold War era. If I were a producer, I would be hard-pressed to convince my investors that such material has enough box-office appeal to be worth $150 million of their money.

Attaching some big Hollywood names (director, actors, F/X houses, etc.) might help, but it's still hit-or-miss when the material has such limited appeal to contemporary audiences. "Transformers" may have done well, but look at, say, last year's "Land of the Lost".

They Will Ferrelled that movie to Hell and back.

I haven't seen it, and I used to watch the TV show when I was a kid.

The Beach isn't the greatest of his films. And DiCaprio was a miscast (in the book, Richard is British).

If they were willing to pump millions in stars and CGI into Land of the Lost, why NOT a Starship Troopers reboot? If they're willing to remake Death at a Funeral three years after it was released IN THE SAME LANGUAGE, why not a fresh look at Starship Troopers?

And as much as I hate to admit it, I don't know if anyone could've done a better job with Transformers 1 as Michael Bay did. (This does not apply to TF2.) The source material was a glorified toy commercial, full of inconsistancies, that dorks like me revere. (Hub has been running the old episodes, and man, I can't believe I used to believe that it was the greatest show ever.) Aside from a few dorky complaints (why not have Peter Cullen as Ironhide if he's already on the payroll, why not bring Vince DiCola back to do the score, etc) I can't find much to complain about TF1. (TF2, on the other hand...) We've seen "good" directors try to handle "dorky" franchises, like Ang Lee, and watched them fail, and we've watched TF's partner, GI Joe, fail as well. I went into TF1 expecting the worst, and I came out pleasantly surprised.

I dunno. For all I know, there are producers out there who are trying to get a big-budget reboot of "Starship Troopers" into production. However, I'm just saying that I think it would be hard to reboot, since (1.) the original film was a box office disappointment, and (2.) the novel doesn't have much appeal to contemporary audiences. And unlike "Transformers", it would be pretty hard to do a "Starship Troopers" that both adults and their kids would enjoy (even if it weren't R-rated).

I suppose "Starship Troopers" might have some contemporary appeal if they tried to adapt the source material to the War on Terror as opposed to the Red Scare. However, given that almost no movies about the War on Terror have done well at the box office, even that would be a hard sell.

Guys, this thread is suppose to be about DIRECTORS!!

Hey now, I defended Michael Bay in my last post there, relax. (I can't believe I just typed that.)

Back to directors, I've been trying to catch up on the works of Sergio Leone. I saw the Man with No Name trilogy, and I loved the For a Few Dollars More. I couldn't but think of Fistful as just another retelling of Yojimbo (which was just Red Harvest, but still) and GB&U just dragged way too much. I loved Duck, You Sucker, and I just watched Once Upon a Time in the West, which was great. I still have to see Once Upon a Time in America. I'd like to see if he was able to leave his comfort zone.

Once Upon a Time is good. It'd be my favorite De Niro movie if Casino didn't exist.

You like Casino better than GoodFellas?

I did, actually. Just what Scorsese did to get that Vegas mood is...amazing. I've probably watched it like four times in the last month

I loved Casino as well, but it just felt like Goodfellas 2. Same actors, same director, same songs, similar situations, but in Vegas instead of NYC.

Did you see Raging Bull? Or Taxi Driver?

I have seen Taxi Driver, woulda helped screencap it iif it wasn't done when I joined up. Good movie, it's hard to go bad with DeNiro-age Scorsese. Though I haven't seen Raging Bull

Who here likes the Coen Brothers?

I liked Fargo, also the Big Lebowski

I loved Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou?, No Country For Old Men, Burn After Reading, True Grit, and yes, even The Ladykillers. I didn't really get Barton Fink or The Hudsucker Proxy but they were watchable.

I've seen The Big Lebowski, Fargo, No Country for Old Men, and a Serious Man. The only issue I have with them is that they don't have a signature feel, or look, to their work. With a lot of movies, you can tell who directed just by the way the film looks or feels. I never got that from the Coen Brothers. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing.

They alway have the same dark dry humor in their films that give me the feel of a Coens movie

The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo, Millers Crossing, O' Brother Where Art Thou?, Barton Fink and The Ladykillers. My wife doesn't like them, but I find their movies interesting.

I'm now interested in Sam Mendes' work. Jarhead was badass and American Beauty makes you realize how beautiful life is.

I did not care for Jarhead. If you ask me, other films and such have done that sorta thing way better. Generation Kill, Hurt Locker. That sorta thing.

I didn't exactly love "Jarhead" as a movie, but I hated the book even more. It's another one of those examples of a movie being made from source material that is inherently weak. I think Sam Mendes deserves props as a director for doing the best he could with it.

Also, I liked "American Beauty", but let's face it - Mendes is not exactly sympathetic to American gun ownership, and that movie is a perfect example.