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Post by hobowar on Jan 29, 2018 0:02:39 GMT
I mean seriously, he's basically a dude-bro Michael Bay, but you get people all over message boards and on youtube acting like he's some kind of thinking man's director. Most of his movies are also visually unpleasant to look at. Joss Whedon and Shane Black are better than him and put much more thought into their movies.
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Post by thenewnexus on Jan 29, 2018 0:06:45 GMT
Hes a great director not a great writer tho
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Post by Nalkarj on Jan 29, 2018 2:48:32 GMT
Well, I’m no expert in anything Snyder has done, only having seen a few of his movies, but I’ve liked several of them— Batman v Superman in particular. (I’ve not yet seen Watchmen, unfortunately, though I’ve read a great deal about it.) Two things intrigue me: his deconstruction of mythology and his action sense, both of which appeal to me as I enjoy superhero flicks for their status as “modern mythology,” in many ways, and as I think his staging of action scenes is more effective than the majority of directors nowadays. The whole fight sequence between Bats and Supes in Batman v Superman is striking, matched by the sheer majesty and magnificence of Superman’s twin funerals later. This is a visual sense that we simply do not see in action films nowadays, that has no similarity to Marvel’s movies, and that is distinctly Snyderian. Indeed, I believe, from what I have seen and read, that his films, even those I disliked ( Man of Steel) are exclusively, particularly, and personally his—he makes the movies his own, and art here is done by individual, not by committee. I should leave it there, as I’m not the best person to defend Snyder, not having seen enough of his oeuvre, but Armond White, one of our greatest living film critics, goes into some more detail here: www.nationalreview.com/article/433246/batman-v-superman-culture-war-gets-mythichere www.nationalreview.com/article/453824/justice-league-triumphs-zack-snyder-masterpieceand especially here www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/12/superheroic-testimonies |
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Post by sostie on Jan 29, 2018 11:53:14 GMT
I think he was a great director - Dawn Of The Dead, 300 and Watchmen were great, but with the exception of a few moments of nice imagery his work on DCEU has been disappointing (though his decline had started before that with Sucker Punch)
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Post by politicidal on Jan 29, 2018 17:21:35 GMT
I think he's decent but he is like Michael Bay in that he can go way overboard if unrestrained. The man has an eye for visuals. Give me the threat posed by that Knightmare sequence any day over Steppenwolf who looked like a reject for a final boss on some PS2 game.
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Post by Skaathar on Jan 29, 2018 18:38:20 GMT
I think his style is very unique which unfortunately is one of those styles that can easily get tiresome once you've seen a few of his movies. I also think his style doesn't work for more light-hearted characters like Superman and the greater world of DC. I'm not even sure it fits Batman. As dark as Batman is he's still a hero. Snyder's style would fit a full anti-hero like Punisher better. Now that I think of it, Suicide Squad might have been better off with Snyder at the wheel. But JL is the wrong property to give to him.
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Post by moviebuffbrad on Jan 30, 2018 3:51:30 GMT
It's like if someone gave that guy in the gym with the bat signal tattoo who's always spouting things he got off Nietzsche's wikiquote page the helm of the DCEU. His films are stupid yet pretentious, which makes people feel smart for getting them.
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Post by dazz on Jan 30, 2018 4:10:33 GMT
I think he's decent but he is like Michael Bay in that he can go way overboard if unrestrained. The man has an eye for visuals. Give me the threat posed by that Knightmare sequence any day over Steppenwolf who looked like a reject for a final boss on some PS2 game. He's Michael Bay with class, sure his stuff is more visual rather than story but atleast his films aren't offensive, there aren't atrocious racial stereotypes, treating women as nothing more than sex objects, needless underage creepiness, and outright sophomoric humour.
Which is kind of the funny thing about the OP, comparing Snyder to Bay is one thing but to label Bay as the more sophisticated version of the two is ridiculous.
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Post by hobowar on Jan 30, 2018 4:16:21 GMT
It's like if someone gave that guy in the gym with the bat signal tattoo who's always spouting things he got off Nietzsche's wikiquote page the helm of the DCEU. His films are stupid yet pretentious, which makes people feel smart for getting them. Oh my God I want to kiss every word you typed. |
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Post by Tristan's Journal on Jan 30, 2018 11:08:10 GMT
Good is a point of view, dullard.
- Synder - unlike most of his peers - already made an excellent and outstanding genere film with Watchmen, which is the thematically deepest and most mature CBM so far. A source material claimed to be unfilmable - he did it. Kudos. - He made good and interesting films with Days of the Dead, a solid remake. And his DCEU films. MoS, BvS and JL have a nice trilogy build up and are all very different and artistically deeper than the usual kiddy CBM. Duller minds will naturally call it "pretentious" (the new dumb people's "hipster"), but monkeys find toilet paper pretentious - it's more about their personal incredulity. - And he made medicocre to bad movies like with 300 and Sucker Punch.
And also he is revered craftsman in terms of cinematography who has his unique visual style and signature. All sound elements for finding a director good. |
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Post by Hauntedknight87 on Jan 30, 2018 11:37:14 GMT
I actually liked Sucker Punch, but could see why someone wouldn't. 300 was a lot of fun and the half naked men was a bonus (for me).
I like Snyder as a director, but he isn't a great writer and I would like to see him do other films that aren't comic book related.
Hell I wouldn't have minded if he directed Episode 9!
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Post by formersamhmd on Jan 30, 2018 14:20:23 GMT
No, it can be an objective fact. Case in point, The Room or Neverending Story 3 cannot be considered good.
Snyder is style and no substance. His Watchmen movie is a great example, as anything good there is from the source material.
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Post by Tristan's Journal on Jan 30, 2018 14:30:23 GMT
No, it can be an objective fact. Case in point, The Room or Neverending Story 3 cannot be considered good.
you should really learn to differnciate between objective and subjective. The Room, Plan 9 etc are so bad that they are good again, but that is purely subjective .
Says you because you do not get the substance that is there, also the director's job profile is not to add bnarratiev substance but to direct. And what suddenly happened to the MCU fan narrative of "pretentious" anyway? |
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Post by formersamhmd on Jan 30, 2018 14:43:00 GMT
you should really learn to differnciate between objective and subjective. The Room, Plan 9 etc are so bad that they are good again, but that is purely subjective . No, there's objectiveness to their badness. He is style with no substance, bottom line. |
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Post by Tristan's Journal on Jan 30, 2018 14:53:31 GMT
you should really learn to differnciate between objective and subjective. The Room, Plan 9 etc are so bad that they are good again, but that is purely subjective . No, there's objectiveness to their badness. there is objectiveness to your debating fallacies but not to a movie's good- or badness as this is subjective opinion.
sounds more like one of your bottom line self-descriptions than Snyder, who besides his directing is known to add a lot of Schoppenhauer, Nietsche and, allegedly, even Ayn Rand into his work - substance you usually dismiss as pretentious archetypes and bankrupt-grounded-approach-ashamed-of-comic-books. |
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Post by formersamhmd on Jan 30, 2018 15:06:38 GMT
there is objectiveness to Some films and their directors just not being good, at all.
Poorly, in part because he probably doesn't really understand them in the first place and just wants to seem profound.
Guy has delusions of eloquence.
I mean, most people who bring up Nietzsche don't even realize that when they use the Ubermensch concept they keep forgetting to bring in the "Last Man" idea as well so they're only getting half of his idea.
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Post by PreachCaleb on Jan 30, 2018 17:16:06 GMT
No, it can be an objective fact. Case in point, The Room or Neverending Story 3 cannot be considered good.
Snyder is style and no substance. His Watchmen movie is a great example, as anything good there is from the source material.
Fully agree. Some people seem to think just because they like something, it means it's completely subjective. There's plenty to make something objectively good and bad. "So bad, it's good" translates to entertaining. It doesn't mean the movie was actually good. Snyder was the right guy for 300, but the wrong guy for Watchmen or anything else that requires actual characters. Snyder's directing of Watchmen proved he didn't understand the story. |
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Post by Nalkarj on Jan 30, 2018 17:34:06 GMT
you should really learn to differnciate between objective and subjective. The Room, Plan 9 etc are so bad that they are good again, but that is purely subjective .
… Leaving aside any discussion of Snyder for a minute (as I’ve noted above, I don’t think I’m qualified to evaluate the quality of his work), I can’t understand this argument for the life of me. How are we possibly supposed to derive absolute objectivity in something as suffocatingly subjective as film analysis? There are, naturally, widely-agreed principles, but even they are subjective: take, for example, shot choice and camera movement. Is Melford’s Spanish-language Drácula superior to Browning’s English-language version because Melford uses fancier camera movements? If we had some objective principle here, there would be a single, undeniable answer to this question, but there isn’t. Most critics say “yes”; I and several critics I know would say “no,” for other reasons. I think The Room is lousy; I’m sure that a majority of critics agree with me. But there’s no diktat or revelation from on-high that states, absolutely, positively, and objectively, that it is bad; it is our judgment in response to it. Moses did not come down from Sinai with the 11th Commandment proclaiming the goodness or badness of motion-pictures. Hypothetically, you can find someone who thinks any work is good. Even more realistically, the majority of critics think Congo (1995) is bad; I love it for a number of reasons. Who’s right? (The answer is simpler than may first appear: “In the long run, we are all dead.”) About other subjects, we may aim for objectivity; I happen to believe, philosophically, in an objective right and wrong. But this is film criticism, not moral philosophy. It’s subjective, guys. |
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Post by PreachCaleb on Jan 30, 2018 17:49:04 GMT
No, there's objectiveness to their badness.
… Leaving aside any discussion of Snyder for a minute (as I’ve noted above, I don’t think I’m qualified to evaluate the quality of his work), I can’t understand this argument for the life of me. How are we possibly supposed to derive absolute objectivity in something as suffocatingly subjective as film analysis? There are, naturally, widely-agreed principles, but even they are subjective: take, for example, shot choice and camera movement. Is Melford’s Spanish-language Drácula superior to Browning’s English-language version because Melford uses fancier camera movements? If we had some objective principle here, there would be a single, undeniable answer to this question, but there isn’t. Most critics say “yes”; I and several critics I know would say “no,” for other reasons. I think The Room is lousy; I’m sure that a majority of critics agree with me. But there’s no diktat or revelation from on-high that states, absolutely, positively, and objectively, that it is bad; it is our judgment in response to it. Moses did not come down from Sinai with the 11th Commandment proclaiming the goodness or badness of motion-pictures. Hypothetically, you can find someone who thinks anything’s good. Even more realistically, the majority of critics think Congo (1995) is bad; I love it for a number of reasons. Who’s right? (The answer is simpler than may first appear: “In the long run, we are all dead.”) About other subjects, we may aim for objectivity; I happen to believe, philosophically, in an objective right and wrong. But this is film criticism, not moral philosophy. It’s subjective, guys. One simple way is to analyze the movie for what it's trying to be. An example is Man of Steel. The movie and characters go on about hope. Hope this, hope that. The movie proports to be about hope. Yet, the entire film is full of drab images, death, destruction, secrets, etc. It did not accomplish what it attempted. The Room bringing up and dropping story elements and characters are objective points for it being bad. The atrocious green screen effects is also an objective point. The distracting ADR as well. I want to reiterate what I said earlier: just because something is enjoyable to some people, does not make it good. The Room may be enjoyable or entertaining on a "It's so bad, it's good" level, but it is not a good movie by any stretch. And I too love Congo. It's one of my favorite movies to watch. The cast is obviously having a ball. The dialogue is hilarious, and Ernie Hudson is a bad ass. But I don't think it's an exceptional movie. Nor would I tout it as being good to someone who's never seen it. You can subjectively enjoy something for any reason, or for no reason. But that does not mean there are no objective metrics for measuring how good or bad it is. |
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Post by Nalkarj on Jan 30, 2018 18:12:17 GMT
PreachCalebThanks for the reply. Good points, fairly argued. (And happy that you too love Congo!) With that said…  I just cannot agree with this. There have been many, many movies that have dropped story elements and characters in it—and that are often considered “good.” Both versions of Dracula, which I noted above, for example. Or Cat People. Or The Big Sleep. Or 2001: A Space Odyssey (though I dislike it). Ad infinitum, ad nauseam. You will argue (and I think you would be correct) that this approach is purposive (in most cases—probably not the Dracs)—but that’s the point. As you and I cannot guess the creator’s (or creators’) intent with 100% absolute certainty, it’s an opinion—a logical one, a well-reasoned one, but an opinion nonetheless. We also think that The Room is bad. I agree. But that is also a logical, well-reasoned opinion. Hypothetically, and probably counterfactually, Wiseau could have had some secret intent or wider purpose. Is that ridiculous? Absolutely. But it’s possible, and (in light of the “good” movies noted above) leaves room for reasonable doubt. I am willing to concede objectivity on how well-done, say, an effect is, yet there is doubt even here. According to the crew, James Whale, in Bride of Frankenstein, purposely made the back-effects look fake to emphasize the unreality of the world. Now, you can respond that I’m contradicting myself here, as I’ve previously argued that we cannot guess the creator’s purpose with absolute certainty—yes, but I’m not arguing for the statement’s validity (though I think it valid), merely that we thus cannot know for absolute certainty if he intended it. It’s an opinion. I also dislike Man of Steel, but I cannot fathom how we can suppose “what the movie is supposed to be.” Because the characters talk about hope? But what if Snyder’s purpose were to emphasize the disconnect between perceived hope and reality? Sarris argued that one of the most challenging and intriguing problems in film as an art form was the bridge between the director and his material, and how the former works with the latter is mise-en-scène. (Heaven help us, I’m beginning to sound like Justice Breyer with all these “what ifs.”) I don’t want to go too far on this; I should note that I use, in criticism, many of the principles that many other critics and reviewers use, leading to something that is close, I admit, to objectivity. But it is not objectivity ipso facto, and that is the point.
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