I read through this list and while I disagree with most of the comments left in defense of certain directors, I do think some qualifications need to be made that would offer further room for debate.
1. If anything, I think one needs to go into a Verhoven film with a dollop of irony. Robocop is a parody of the "cop" film taken to its most oppressive limits, especially during the Reagan 80s. It critiques the passivity of both television culture and television's inability to deliver truth content in the face of totalitarian governments enforced by trigger-happy police departments. Basic Instinct deconstructs the "femme fatale" and the over-sexualization of women (using that very over-sexualization). Starship Troopers is like a sequel to Robocop, but instead looks at military culture instead and how easily everyone is willing to believe the Big Lie (especially those who tell the Lie). Hollow Man degrades into a clichéd slasher film in order to demonstrate how silly most slasher films are, as well as implicating the audience through the killer's eye (hardly novel in 2000) but only through the anonymity and vicariousness afforded by invisibility. To take his films at face-value could only lead to disappointment, I suspect.
2. Haven't seen any of Gallo's films, can't comment. Mind you, he's only made two.
3. Uwe Boll plays up his own mediocrity and in actuality is a curious example of the state subsidy system. His films are interesting for the economy of their production rather than their form or content. He has parlayed this notoriety into some kind of celebrity that too is amusing beyond the simple reactions it offers. He may not be as shrewd as Verhoven, but there is some kind of Kaufmanesque play at work here (and I can't help but stress the word "some").
4. I would never classify Harlin as a "great" director or even a good one, but merely as a director-for-hire. He demonstrates a rudimentary competency of the film form and does not seem to even strive for that something greater anyway, so to me he is kind of a moot point.
5. I think Schumacher is certainly inconsistent, but even his biggest offense against the cinema, Batman and Robin, offers up something worthwhile. Batman and Robin is actually a great film when it is read as a camp film, much like the 60s TV show. Batman and Robin is a reminder that Batman has a checkered, colourful (if not neon) past, and does not need to be so dour and depressing. In terms of sheer enjoyment value, i.e. "fun," Batman and Robin trumps The Dark Knight. His inconsistency should at least provide some sort of unpredictability.
6. More or less, see #4.
7. I haven't seen enough Van Sant to properly comment.
8. The inclusion of a screenwriter on a director's list doesn't make much sense, to be honest. Although, something like Sliver was rather rote. I can't help but express apathy towards Eszterhas any which way.
9. Where I think Shyamalan fails is that he directs his own scripts. I quite enjoy The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable while Signs was a very muted alien film. I haven't seen anything he's made since, not because I was put off, I just wasn't interested. I am curious about The Last Airbender. I think he is more than skilled as a director, but it is in the script where his problems lie.
10/11. See #4 and #6.
12. Von Trier's cinema has always been anti-cinema in this respect, looking at the tenets of Dogme 95. Mind you, he is not against the idea of cinema itself, but how it has become typified and synonymous with "American" cinema. His films are purposefully against those conventions seen in whatever blockbuster film is du jour. I cannot say I am a fan of Von Trier's (my curiosity for Antichrist aside), but I at least get what he tries to do.
13/14. The Matrix was not the first postmodern film but it certainly was the most popular. I enjoy the film as the poaching romp it is (which is especially funny when the brothers' nod to Baudrillard at the beginning was more or less dismissed by the author himself). Again, I appreciate what the film does even when it sets about its goals very haphazardly. The sequels were not very interesting on their own right, but rather as markers of a trend for grinding out sequels in a short time span and so close together at the same time other studios were attempting to do the same thing (like New Line with the Lord of the Rings trilogy).
15. Stone's recent problems is that he dates himself by seeking to produce something SO contemporary that when whatever his project is upon its release is no longer ubiquitous. The parallels of Alexander (the expansion of empire) or the zeitgeist of World Trade Center or W do not necessarily work in the now (at least, when they are very conventional they do not work). I do not think he has been true to the quality of what he COULD do, but he is certainly not worth outright disregard.
16/17. I am familiar with Kids and Gummo, but have not seen them. Cannot comment.
18. I am no David Lynch fan, but I must admit your Carradine joke leaves something to be desired. Not because I was offended by it (I wasn't), but rather it is so irrelevant and extemporaneous to your argument, you more or less commit the film reviewing equivalent to that mindf***ery you lambaste. What I like about Lynch, at least superficially, is that he is one of the few directors today that works within the oneiric tradition. Even if he is making stuff up: so? Lynch so much as never been about content but form, the experimentations of how to tell a story (see further:
www.egs.edu/faculty/zizek/zizek-the-cyberspace-real.html). There is something to be said about this, but that really comes up in your next section.
19. You stress the needs of story and character as constants of good story-telling (and implicitly, because of your article, good filmmaking). There is nothing set in stone about how to make a good film, a 'ten commandments' of story, character, dialogue, conflict, rising action, denouement, camera style, editing, and special effects. I fail in describing ten to prove just how arbitrary these criteria truly are. Kubrick's style I would argue was never to create psychological involvement, but instead psychological distance. His films are cold and analytic for a reason. That a character like Alex DeLarge is so popular kind of proves Kubrick right to keep such a distance, because this character is someone who should NOT be loved. Kubrick's 'inhumanity' as it were is more of a pessimism about society which serves up DeLarge as a hero rather than a villain because he is not duplicitous (but no better than those he criticizes, much like the Joker from the latest Batman movie). Again, irony I feel is needed when watching his films because he will always keep you away from any kind of deep connection with the characters on screen.
20. I think George Lucas' best film was his first one, THX 1138. It demonstrates a vitality and creativity that, granted, has not been seen in his recent films (even though THX owes itself over to Godard's Breathless, and even he admits something to this affect on the commentary track). Star Wars indeed consecrated the blockbuster film began with Spielberg's Jaws. I would not put Lucas within any kind of directorial canon, although it does seem to easy to target Lucas for his visual deficiency. Even in his scripting and directing of actors, they are archetypes (that sometimes border on stereotypes) borrowed from the Joseph Campbell tradition. In attempting to create a new and universal myth, it requires banal, accessible language. I liked the prequels for what they were, a filling-in of the overall trajectory of the Star Wars story, preludes rather than stand alone stories.
If anything, what I found so curious is that, despite your qualifications of taking several film courses and having run an arthouse rental store for many years, your article only offers declarations and not arguments. You could indeed make substantive points that you allude to, but your invective only reduces the impact of your stance. This too can be found in some of the spelling mistakes of your article. It does not speak to a lack of an editorial oversight, but a general disdain that indicates that this piece was never meant to inspire a debate: it is a straight-through screed. True, screeds can certainly be effective too, but speaking to both the assumed goal of your article and the original poster, the whole piece does not truly speak to the discussion at hand. You ultimately speak to this because you even say you offer opinion, your opinion, and it is much easier to argue in favour of one's opinion rather than interpretation and appeal to a kind-of objective reality or truth-content of the artwork.
