Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Film Threats

The snarks at Pajiba have gratiously uncovered the 10 worst directors in Hollywood. And yes, they earned it.

Dennis Dugan
Resume: You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, Benchwarmers, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Saving Silverman, National Security, Beverly Hills Ninja
Signature Style: Happy Madison’s most accomplished director, Dugan combines an adolescent’s lexicon (e.g., “schmegma”) with adult actors and a lot of yelling-for-comedic-effect to create films for men whose intelligence was stunted at around the age of 12.
Redeeming Films: Big Daddy, Happy Madison
Pain Scale: Brutal, with occasional fits of guilty laughter.


Steve Carr
Resume: Are We Done Yet?, Rebound, Daddy Day Care, Dr. Dolittle 2, Next Friday
Signature Style: White director who specializes in ruining once-funny or controversial African-American leading men by removing all that was once funny or controversial about them and saddling them with lame family comedies, usually accompanied by talking animals.
Redeeming Films: None.
Pain Scale: Imagine being murdered by Ice Cube. With spit balls.

Joel Schumacher
Resume: The Number 23, Flawless, 8MM, Batman and Robin, Batman Forever, Phone Booth, The Phantom of the Opera, The Client
Signature Style: Attaching A-list talent to shit-list scripts, Schumacher excels at generic, paint-by-number studio films and cornball hamfistedness; he has a particular knack for wasting excellent casts.
Redeeming Films: Tigerland, The Lost Boys, Flatliners
Pain Scale: Like being beat to death with a codpiece.

Michael Bay
Resume: Transformers, The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, The Island, Bad Boys II
Signature Style: Hiding his particular brand of suck behind huge, gratuitous, budget-heavy, credibility-straining special effects and explosions; largely responsible, along with his former producing partner, Jerry Bruckheimer, for the proliferation of empty action spectacles.
Redeeming Films: Bad Boys
Pain Scale: Imagine sitting through an entire Celine Dion concert, only to discover that in the finale, Dion herself explodes and you are gored by her left arm.

Brian Levant
Resume: Problem Child 2, Beethoven, Flintstones, Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, Jingle All the Way, Are We There Yet?, Snow Dogs
Signature Style: Family-films designed for the mentally-underdeveloped children of sibling couples, created primarily to remind parents that there are worse things than a six-year old brat throwing a tantrum on the floor in the toy aisle of Wal-Mart. Like, for instance, Tim Allen Christmas films.
Redeeming Films: None. But he did write a few episodes of “Happy Days”
Pain Scale: Being kicked in the shins for 90 minutes by a gang of 9-year-old punks with steel-toe boots.

Uwe Boll
Resume: House of the Dead, BloodRayne, Postal, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Seige Tale, BloodRayne II, German Fried Movie, Seed
Signature Style: Specializes in creating aimless, plot-less movies out of video games that have absolutely no business being made into movies; when he’s not boring the shit out of you with mindless, overly serious dialogue, he does have some value for creating hilariously awful films
Redeeming Films: None.
Pain Scale: Similar to having your brain stem jerked out of your head and used as a joystick.

Adam Shankman
Resume: A Walk to Remember, Wedding Planner, Bringing Down the House, The Pacifier, Cheaper by the Dozen, Hairspray
Signature Style: Originally a choreographer (he choreographed one of the Spice Girls Tours), he injects sickening levels of schmaltz, camp, over-the-top obvious comedy into family films, and manages to shoehorn dance scenes into inappropriate places; largely responsible for the rise of Steve Martin 2.0.
Redeeming Films: None.
Pain Scale: You know what happens when you eat too much ice cream? You puke. Imagine vomiting so violently, you expel your stomach. Inside out.

Brian Robbins
Resume: Good Burger, Ready to Rumble, The Perfect Score, The Shaggy Dog, Meet Dave, Norbit
Signature Style: Awesome ability to kill the funny and leave it whimpering on a floor, begging for air; takes immense pride in sucking bags of dicks; strong believer that box-office performance reflects quality.
Redeeming Films: Varsity Blues
Pain Scale: Buried alive. In a prosthetic fat suit.

Brett Ratner
Resume: Money Talks, Rush Hour 1-3, After the Sunset, The Family Man, Red Dragon, X-Men 3: The Last Stand
Signature Style: Like Michael Bay, only less talented and more douchetastic. Unlike many of the other directors on this list, Ratner tends to get huge budgets (for hookers and blow) and at least mediocre scripts, which he ruins with his hands-off approach. And by hands off, he yells “Action,” and hides out in his trailer until the crew goes home. He got his start as a director of Mariah Carey music videos, and it shows.
Pain Scale: Slowly fellated to death with a douche wand.

Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
Resume: Disaster Movie, Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans
Signature Style: Taking scenes from the films of the other nine directors on this list and making them even worse by adding flatulence, stereotypical gags, and pop-culture jokes that were old the day after the spoofed movie was released.
Pain Scale: Being slowly cooked to death on a giant hot plate by the person you love most in the world, all the while being injected with adrenaline shots to keep you alive long enough to experience every last second of pain until your organs slowly fail.

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