You guys are merciless.
I happen to like Daldry's films even more than the Academy. I nominated Billy Elliot for pest picture and actor (Jamie Bell) in my own little awards as well as supporting actress and director. I nominated The Hours for Meryl Streep's performance in addition to those of Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris and Julianne Moore as well as best picture and director.
I liked Streep better in The Hours than in Adaptation, a film I didn't like, and Moore better in The Hours than Far From Heaven, another film I didn't like.
As for The Reader, I got that it was about German guilt and the banality of evil. I got the complexities within Winslet's character. What didn't work for me was Ralph Fiennes' character. Was he emotionally scarred because of the affair with Hanna (Winselt), her sudden leaving, what he later learned about her or what happened later? It's never made clear. I also didn't think the scene with Lena Olin at the end really worked. Still it was good enough for me to consider it the year's fourth best film behind Button, Slumdog and Milk.
Daldry may not be a great director, but he's a competent one who chooses interesting projects and interesting actors to play in them.
Greengrass belongs in a discussion with Michael Bay and McG, not Daldry. Todd Haynes gets an A for effort in my book, but his style overwhelms the substance in his films. Far From Heaven is beautiful to look at, but atrocious to listen to. The two Dennises (Quaid and Haysbert) do excellent work but Julianne Moore's affected vocal delivery is appalling and Patricia Clarkson is such a pale imitation of Agnes Moorehead in All That Heaven Allows that I've approached every film's she's been in since with trepidation, really liking her only in The Station Agent.
The Reader
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Mister Tee
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In fairness, Penelope hasn't seen the two films Greengrass is most acclaimed for, Bloody Sunday and The Bourne Ultimatum. The former is a near masterpiece of agitprop, and the latter is one of the most exciting action films of the decade.Bog wrote:The Paul Greengrass extreme hatred and belittling always confuses me a little because I literally haven't seen a single thing he's ever done. Has he done like a dozen films that I don't know about? He's done some Bourne sequels and the 9/11 plane film, non? The Bourne crap I feel just puts him in the Ratner, Bay, McG territory and a negligible hack...and I'm just late to the party in seeing the Oscar nominee. Just feels like there is not a quantity to be considered worse than Ron Howard or Marc Forster et al.
Anyway, what Sabin said - Daldry's fanbase drooling at every film is AMPAS, and that's far worse.
It's not so much the quantity of work as the quality of admiration. Howard and Forster don't, for the most part, have a posse of fanboys drooling over their films the way Greengrass inexplicably does.
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
The Paul Greengrass extreme hatred and belittling always confuses me a little because I literally haven't seen a single thing he's ever done. Has he done like a dozen films that I don't know about? He's done some Bourne sequels and the 9/11 plane film, non? The Bourne crap I feel just puts him in the Ratner, Bay, McG territory and a negligible hack...and I'm just late to the party in seeing the Oscar nominee. Just feels like there is not a quantity to be considered worse than Ron Howard or Marc Forster et al.
Sabin wrote:Stephen Daldry is the single most boring director on the planet.
My vote would go to Todd Haynes. Daldry and Paul Greengrass would be close by, though.
...unless you're secretly him, in which case I love your work and I have a script I'd like you to read.
No, dreaMaker is not him. However, it's my understanding that he knows him.
No, I get Stephen Daldry. What's not to get? He is the most literal-minded filmmaker of the decade. Three films. Not a note of realized ambiguity, not a single moment of joy contained on film since the profoundly average Billy Elliot. In bringing Stephen Daldry on board a film is to see the most painfully literal transitioning from script to screen imaginable. Marc Forster and Ron Howard are at least competent-if-boring journeymen. Stephen Daldry is the single most boring director on the planet. I will never sit through another one of his films again. Whereas Damien has a corral of blacklisted filmmakers, I have never said that about another director before. Not Tom Shadyac. Not Rob Reiner. But I will say it here and now: Stephen Daldry offers nothing to the world of film and I see no need to continue to keep his career going with my $12...
...unless you're secretly him, in which case I love your work and I have a script I'd like you to read.
...unless you're secretly him, in which case I love your work and I have a script I'd like you to read.
"How's the despair?"
