The Guardian has named PTA as the best director in the world currently working today. Full article is here. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/sep/01/best-film-directors-world-2012?fb=optOut)
1. Paul Thomas Anderson
2. Lynn Ramsay
3. Nicholas Winding Refn
4. Joss Whedon
5. Lars Von Trier
6. Jason Reitman
7. Steve McQueen
8. Leos Carax
9. Edar Wrights
10. Andrea Arnold
11. Steven Soderberg
12. Quentin Tarantino
13. Lena Dunham
14. Christopher Nolan
15. Jacques Audiard
16. JJ Abrams
17. David Fincher
18. Werner Herzog
19. Ben Wheatley
20. Mia Hansen-Løve
21. Gasper Noé
22. Terrence Malick
23. Gareth Edwards
I'm not quite clear why there's only 23 directors on the list (odd number) and there's some blatantly obvious omissions (Ramin Bahrani and Spielberg are the two that immediately come to mind).
Rip it apart guys.
well i agree with the first part.
The mere mention of Lena Dunham in the same breath or vicinity as PTA invalidates the whole list.
Are there any of these "best" lists that don't suck? Can we make a list of those lists?
As someone who writes for a blog that does too many of these "list" things, the reason most of them suck is simple: they get more hits that way. Anytime you take a controversial position on anything, people love to shit on it and pass their shit onto their shitty friends. The point isn't to get people to agree with you, it's to get them to click on your ad riddled site and comment on your post showing how smart they are. Instead of an intelligent article about Breaking Bad, it'll be a post titled "The 5 deadliest bald heads on Breaking Bad".
No one can resist a list.
yeah, so they came up with the most infuriatingly bad list they could think of and magically picked the right person for number one?
nah i think they simply don't know shit about movies and probably picked PTA as number one because they heard from all their hipster friends that he's releasing the best movie this year. then they filled it with whatever they could come up with off the top of their flaky british heads. that explains the presence of a bunch of irrelevant british directors, including some girls to keep the list somewhat PC, then actual good directors in the bottom half of the list.. because.. they got tired of trolling.
Hey, what's up with the hipster thing? Is PTA popular among hipsters or what?
EDIT: Fuck, I just realized where I am. Nevermind.
JJ Abrams? WTF?
I bet you they couldn't spell Tomas Alfredson.
There's no wes anderson. hipsters had nothing to do with this.
PTA don't need no goddamn list to make him 'officially the best'
I'll tell you right now, as the ReeList and in the words of Tina Turner...
He's...
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ft2.gstatic.com%2Fimages%3Fq%3Dtbn%3AANd9GcSthcwR_pWD1YOlu-CprVnJeQ8bavW_i2UNkuf2CgeJdvwYCc5uD-w11z4&hash=723992dcdf6f3bab8efb1f6590f2a00a23b78d8a)
No Coen Brothers, Alfonso Cuaron, Sam Mendes or Michael Haneke? This list is way off. Leos Carax & Lena Dunham? Fuck off and take your pretentiousness with you.
realistically, as extreme as Pubrick sounds, not about the directors, but in his language, it is unreal and unfair to put Herzog 18 on a list like this. and by, "list like this," i mean people who are too fresh out the gate to compare with some of these artists
Lists or compilations have been a problem long before blogs came into existence, and also, it's not lists in themselves that are the problem, it's any form of absolutism that is the issue here. But then again, as abrasive as P was, how/why do they choose PTA as # 1. I don't think they, "magically" picked him, but i'd love to know an actual substantial reason.
There are bigger problems with mouse clicking issues such as this and it involves substance and how much of that exists in lists and stories about the, "top 5 bald heads of breaking bad."
On top of it all
the coen's get zero recognition. Nolan will spend his days wishing that he was as cerebral and visually effortless yet at the same time enthralling, as the coen's but he will never succeed, and he'll try to reason it with the fact that he had the budget to make anything happen.
Honestly, i do like memento a lot, but me liking that film is very similar to my admiration for the band Nirvana; my older brothers liked it, so i thought it was cool and each year that I continue to live, that admiration decreases. Not for any deep or philosophical reasons but merely for the lack thereof. The entire time it pretends as if it is in the same company as gold, incense and myrrh (yeah, i realize it's Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh, but seriously get a life, it's joke).
I am drunk. I'll read this later and sympathize with all of your disdain towards me.
Quote from: Neil on September 07, 2012, 02:53:38 AM
realistically, as extreme as Pubrick sounds, not about the directors, but in his language, it is unreal and unfair to put Herzog 18 on a list like this. and by, "list like this," i mean people who are too fresh out the gate to compare with some of these artists
Lists or compilations have been a problem long before blogs came into existence, and also, it's not lists in themselves that are the problem, it's any form of absolutism that is the issue here. But then again, as abrasive as P was, how/why do they choose PTA as # 1. I don't think they, "magically" picked him, but i'd love to know an actual substantial reason.
There are bigger problems with mouse clicking issues such as this and it involves substance and how much of that exists in lists and stories about the, "top 5 bald heads of breaking bad."
On top of it all
the coen's get zero recognition. Nolan will spend his days wishing that he was as cerebral and visually effortless yet at the same time enthralling, as the coen's but he will never succeed, and he'll try to reason it with the fact that he had the budget to make anything happen.
Honestly, i do like memento a lot, but me liking that film is very similar to my admiration for the band Nirvana; my older brothers liked it, so i thought it was cool and each year that I continue to live, that admiration decreases. Not for any deep or philosophical reasons but merely for the lack thereof. The entire time it pretends as if it is in the same company as gold, incense and myrrh (yeah, i realize it's Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh, but seriously get a life, it's joke).
I am drunk. I'll read this later and sympathize with all of your disdain towards me.
I'll be honest, my respect for Nolan is mainly conjured from how much I enjoy The Prestige. It's his best film in my opinion. And I think he deserves to be placed amongst the Top 20 directors working today.
I do enjoy the prestige as well, a great deal. I was drunk xixaxing, which was my first mistake, but i think what I would like to say with regards to the topic is, there would be a great deal of cinematic excitement if some of the folks on this list had budgets like nolan. Not that some of them even WANT that, or whatever. I do understand that people can do a lot with a little, but i guess like i said previously, Nolan's films struggle with actualizing their potential. Good ideas only go so far, his execution visually is enjoyable in many instances throughout his filmography, but I think they really struggle thematically.