Last night I watched a well-received film featuring terrible prosthetics, and it was both well entertaining and basically lacking in that-hard-to-pin-down quality, soul. Anyways, I realized that I have a particular aversion to this director - who is very talented, and whose work, so far, has been far more good than bad but oddly unsatisfying - and part of it’s due to the fact that I do not care, one whit, about any of the humans in his work; the human condition is sacrificed for cool shit, party tricks, and it all goes down like something delicious and kind of forgettable. It was also full of guns and you know what? I’m seriously not in the mood for any movies that treat death in such a cavalier fashion.
I will admit in this case that my feelings err on the side of irrational because I think this man’s ego - the desire to point out how clever he is in every frame - leeched into his turns behind the camera on my favorite TV show, leading to the chilliest, worst episodes (it should be obvious who this is, obviously). It’s funny, too - my favorite TV show is familiar with death, and there have been shootouts, but a high percentage of the deaths on the show have mattered and have had weight and I think that’s important for the psyche.
But I also think that directors along the likes of this guy and the other guy with a movie coming out soon (hint: the star of my favorite TV show would be the Kevin Bacon-like link), directors who have done entertainments, who have tried action and done something reasonably novel enough even if that doesn’t make them the next great artiste; well, I feel like people should chill out about that person’s oeuvre. (Funny - both of these directors have taken on actors about my age as muses, and they’re not very good in most of their works!) They’re talked about in far too elevated terms when I think they’re just … pleasant talents - who make moderately entertaining, above-the-norm work with a woman problem - who certainly have the potential to go all David Gordon Green-like run of trash in the future.
In short, nobody’s going to be talking about this guy in 20 years, but the amount of ego laced throughout his work means you know he thinks that could be the case, and it’s so annoying. And I think he’s part of a movement of overrated writer-director types, and I think there need to be more straight-up humanists making movies and art out there, and not just easily impressed little boys.