Quote Originally Posted by A-Tex Devil View Post
My thoughts on director:

- Agree to an extent with Bigelow and Affleck. But just because they are "faux" documentary doesn't make the directing any less difficult

- I think Hooper's style (weird angles, close ups) was off-putting to a lot of folks based on reviews I've read. Even those who enjoyed the movie otherwise. I disagree, but it is what it is.

- Frankly, as good as SLP may be, that doesn't seem like a "directors" movie. That's and actors and screenplay movie.

- I saw and like Beasts of the Southern Wild, but I think the director and best picture nominations there was overcorrecting on the Academy's part trying not to seem too ensconced in the mainstream. I am fine with Wallis getting the Best Actress nomination, though, and thought that + a screenplay would have adequately honored a nice first film.

So in that category, I'd have removed Russell and Zeitlin and added in 2 of the 3 of Hooper, Affleck and Bigelow.

I think there is a Paul Thomas Anderson backlash. I haven't seen the Master yet, but I've heard it's really hard to watch, as good as it is.
I believe Hooper deserves a Razzie, to be honest. I believe that qualifies as the opposite of Best Director. He didn't just do a bad job. He took an almost certain best picture winner of a Top 5 musical of all time - and ruined it. At some point, as the Director, he had to realize that the choices HE was making were essentially eliminating the power of the musical from the power of the film. I meant to post this in the Les Miz thread, but I was crestfallen with how BAD the "musical" turned out. As we discussed there, it's not like he was going to be able to truly capture the book - so he did neither. I didn't think things could worse than the Gerard Phantom - but they did.

As an experiment to understand the power of having real singers sing a musical, attend a stage production of Tommy. After you see it, you will never be able to watch the movie with a straight face again - live singing for powerful orchestration just blows away the alternative.