The great directors' most disappointing films

All the great directors have made stinkers.

I'll open the batting with David Lynch's Lost Highway.

It has its moments, but I'd say 130 minutes of it are stylish pap. However, as usual with these things, there's no consensus. I think 'Fire Walk With Me' is excellent, but there are a lot of angry 'Twin Peaks' fans out there.

Erica Ambler wrote:

All the great directors have made stinkers.

I'll open the batting with David Lynch's Lost Highway.

It has its moments, but I'd say 130 minutes of it are stylish pap. However, as usual with these things, there's no consensus. I think 'Fire Walk With Me' is excellent, but there are a lot of angry 'Twin Peaks' fans out there.

Lost Highway doesn't work for me, either, though I'd rather watch it than Inland Empire. Lynch greatly improved on Lost Highway's structural gambit with Mulholland Drive.

John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars sucks more ass than an enema.

And then there's 1941 by Spielberg...

I've a soft spot for Inland Empire as it's the only film I've seen that's made me literally vomit. That's got to mean something. Don't think I'll see it again anytime soon, though...

Ghosts of Mars has a terrible rep, but isn't that bad. Definitely not classic Carpenter, but the good cast and cardboard sets appeal to the B-movie fan in me.

Not seen 1941 and have no intention of doing so.

Ghost of Mars has its defenders, but I can't really say much for it. Even on a B-movie level, I don't think it has much to offer. It feels more authentically Carpenter-ian than The Ward, though.

Francis Ford Coppola's worst has to be Jack. I'm glad he's gotten away from the studios entirely. His small, idiosyncratic films from the past decade comprise my favorite Coppola run.

Scorsese's worst? Probably New York, New York, though I still find it more interesting on a conceptual level than a lot of the studio pictures he's done over the past decade.

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De Palma's "Femme Fatale" was a disappointment when I first saw it, though I remember thinking somewhat more kindly of it when I re-watched it a couple of years ago.

For Coppola, it's clearly "Jack".

I would also list "Ghosts of Mars" for Carpenter.
I have yet to see "The Ward", so I don't know if that is any better.

Samuel Fuller: "White Dog".

Fritz Lang: Journey to the Lost city

Jules Dassin: Circle of Two

whether or not he counts as a great director, Terence Young's Inchon

Of course, there are different types of disappointment. Kubrick's Lolita is a dreadful caricature of a superb novel, but it's hard to see how it could be anything else given its subject matter and when and where it was made. Does that make it less of a disappointment? Perhaps.

Salomé wrote:

De Palma's "Femme Fatale" was a disappointment when I first saw it, though I remember thinking somewhat more kindly of it when I re-watched it a couple of years ago.

Femme Fatale is a masterpiece.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Of course, there are different types of disappointment. Kubrick's Lolita is a dreadful caricature of a superb novel, but it's hard to see how it could be anything else given its subject matter and when and where it was made. Does that make it less of a disappointment? Perhaps.

Kubrick's Lolita at least preserves something of Nabokov's comic sensibility.

Neither film adaptation measures up to Nabokov's brilliant screenplay for Lolita.

Largo's Shark wrote:

For Hitchcock it's got to be TOPAZ. Sluggish is the word I'd choose to describe it.

Yep. Quite the piece of shit, unfortunately.

Some others:

David Lean's SUMMERTIME
Don Siegel's PRIVATE HELL 36
Roman Polanski's OLIVER TWIST
Brian De Palma's SCARFACE (No, BODY DOUBLE is not his worst film.)
Francois Truffaut's FAHRENHEIT 451
Martin Scrosese's GANGS OF NEW YORK

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Control wrote:

Brian De Palma's SCARFACE (No, BODY DOUBLE is not his worst film.)

Isn't Body Double generally regarded as one of De Palma's better films? It certainly doesn't have the bad rap that Mission to Mars or Black Dahlia do.

Control wrote:

Martin Scrosese's GANGS OF NEW YORK

I like Gangs more than any of the Scorsese films that followed it, excluding the terrific Wolf of Wall Street.

Harmsway wrote:

Salomé wrote:

De Palma's "Femme Fatale" was a disappointment when I first saw it, though I remember thinking somewhat more kindly of it when I re-watched it a couple of years ago.

Femme Fatale is a masterpiece.

A femme friend of mine dared me to try that scene with Rebecca Romijn and Rie, the Gucci girl at the time. And my pal was better looking too.

No one stole my jewellery tho.

Never understood the hate for Gangs of New York. Would say Hugo is probably Scorsese's weakest film - though I have yet to see some of his early early stuff.

I'm not sure if Marc Foster is great but Quanturd of Solace was a trip to the loo.

Harmsway wrote:

Control wrote:

Brian De Palma's SCARFACE (No, BODY DOUBLE is not his worst film.)

Isn't Body Double generally regarded as one of De Palma's better films? It certainly doesn't have the bad rap that Mission to Mars or Black Dahlia do.

Modern audiences would call it trash, probably because it's not serious enough.

I contemplate throwing it on my top 10 list. I love watching it.

Hilly KCMG wrote:

whether or not he counts as a great director, Terence Young's Inchon

Wish I could actually see it properly. All I've come across is a recording of a pan-and-scan TV airing that happened on one of the channels that was owned by the company that holds the rights.

Harmsway wrote:

Salomé wrote:

De Palma's "Femme Fatale" was a disappointment when I first saw it, though I remember thinking somewhat more kindly of it when I re-watched it a couple of years ago.

Femme Fatale is a masterpiece.

I would respectfully disagree.

Control wrote:

Harmsway wrote:

Control wrote:

Brian De Palma's SCARFACE (No, BODY DOUBLE is not his worst film.)

Isn't Body Double generally regarded as one of De Palma's better films? It certainly doesn't have the bad rap that Mission to Mars or Black Dahlia do.

Modern audiences would call it trash, probably because it's not serious enough.

I contemplate throwing it on my top 10 list. I love watching it.

"Body Double" used some of the same ironic casting choices for which Verhoeven was praised a little over a decade later (Starship Troopers).
Like with Troopers, a lot of people obviously missed the joke at the time.

Michael Powell's stinker is The Queen's Guards. Forget the know-nothing bullshit about how Peeping Tom destroyed his career. Powell just didn't make any good films after that. Although 'Age of Consent' features a young Helen Mirren skinny-dipping.

De Palma's turd is Wise Guys. I can only assume none of you have seen it.

Hitchcock made plenty worse than Topaz, most of them long forgotten.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Michael Powell's stinker is The Queen's Guards. Forget the know-nothing bullshit about how Peeping Tom destroyed his career. Powell just didn't make any good films after that. Although 'Age of Consent' features a young Helen Mirren skinny-dipping.

De Palma's turd is Wise Guys. I can only assume none of you have seen it.

Hitchcock made plenty worse than Topaz, most of them long forgotten.

Any examples? I have to say I enjoy a lot of his less-heralded early Hollywood features.

Erica Ambler wrote:

De Palma's turd is Wise Guys. I can only assume none of you have seen it.

I have. Eeesh. Get to Know Your Rabbit is terrible, too.

For Marty I gotta' say HUGO as well.