Ridley Scott
A king has his reign, and then he dies – it’s inevitable. ~ Prometheus
After months of teasing and taunting, Ridley Scott’s latest film, Prometheus, lands in theaters this week. The legendary filmmaker has been directing features for over 30 years, but his recent output has been less than stellar.
Is Prometheus a return to form for Sir Ridley?
Charlize Theron as perhaps the hottest evil queen ever.
By Late Night
Unlike most of the directors featured on Visionary or Hack, not much is known about first-time director Rupert Sanders. He is one of the latest television commercial specialists to make the crossover into features, and his debut film, Snow White and the Huntsman, is a dark, action version of the famous fairy tale. Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth star in the title roles, backed-up by Academy Award-winner Charlize Theron as Ravenna, the Evil Queen. Snow White opens wide on June 1st.
Rupert Sanders, in a photo taken by Gage Skidmore
According to the data on IMDB, Sanders was nominated for a DGA award in 2009 for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in commercials, for spots promoting Monster, Travelers Insurance and Brand Jordan. Okay then, if the Director’s Guild of America likes him, perhaps we should take a look:
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David Cronenberg
1983 – there was no cell phone, no DVD or Blu-ray, and no Internet.
1983 was also the year of David Cronenberg’s first fully realized masterpiece, the prophetic Videodrome.
This is part two of a four-part series on the oeuvre of visionary filmmaker David Cronenberg.
By Late Night
All of the spectacular action sequences we’ll enjoy this summer at the movies are made possible by the same computerized image manipulation that make the most popular videogames possible. Check out this mix of 3D game action versus feature film super hero action, served up by trailer-slicer supreme Crispafull (the “live action” stuff starts about halfway through, featuring clips from The Avengers, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and many, many more):
Is it possible we may be witnessing the birth of a new artform?
Before he directed Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, which was recently released on video, acclaimed director Brad Bird made his name in the world of animation by directing award-winning films such as The Iron Giant (1999), The Incredibles (2004) and Ratatouille (2007). Is Bird deserving of a place in VOH’s Hall of Visionaries?
By most accounts, Tim Burton is one of the most accomplished directors working in Hollywood today. And this weekend, he releases his latest, Dark Shadows, an adaptation of the 1970’s gothic television soap opera. Starring Burton’s ace in the hole, Johnny Depp, as the patriarchal vampire Barnabas Collins, and featuring sexpot Eva Green as the witch who done him wrong, this film can’t help but be entertaining.
But will it qualify Burton as a visionary?
David Cronenberg
He’s been called the “King of Venereal Horror” and the “Baron of Blood.” And while his films have not always been understood upon their initial theatrical release, he has stayed his course, building an oeuvre of artistic integrity and visionary endeavors, until audiences finally realized the error of their ways.
Due to his marked departure from the explicit horror genre in more recent fare, some purists believe that Cronenberg has wandered off the ranch and betrayed his earlier successes in the horror genre.
Next month at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, all eyes will be watching for critical reaction to Cronenberg’s latest – his adaption of Don DeLillo’s 2003 novel Cosmopolis. Is this a return to horror for Cronenberg or an intriguing new direction in his ever-expanding artistic capacity?
Cosmopolis
No matter – regardless of the reception for Cosmopolis, Cronenberg is a true visionary.
This is part one of a four-part series on the oeuvre of visionary filmmaker David Cronenberg.
by HakSnider
Titanic, one of the the most successful films of all-time, was re-released in 3D earlier this month. The respectable box office receipts thus far are a testament to the enduring appeal of director James Cameron‘s passion project. A technical marvel that pushed the limits of special effects technology of its day, the film also catapulted star Leonardo DiCaprio into super-stardom and established Cameron as a filmmaker who could continue to create big budget blockbusters, while operating with relative autonomy. However, Titanic, like Cameron’s most recent film Avatar, succeeded despite a relatively clunky and cliche-ridden screenplay. Which begs the question, can we really consider a writer/director with a tin ear for dialogue a visionary filmmaker?
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Now that Kevin Smith‘s latest production, the atrocious AMC reality series Comic Book Men, is no longer airing, we have decided to take a closer look at Kevin Smith as a director. Despite a filmography that includes spectacular critical and financial failures such as Jersey Girl, Mallrats, and Zach and Miri Make a Porno, Smith still retains a cult-like following due to his gregarious personality, self-deprecating sense of humor, and of course the impact of Clerks, one of the pioneering films of the low budget American indie film movement of the 1990’s.
Is Kevin Smith a visionary or a hack?
Writer/director Rian Johnson with Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz, star of Johnson's 2008 film The Brothers Bloom (photo by Adam Bielawski)
For most new directors, merely getting their first film made and distributed is a significant accomplishment in of itself. Having that debut warmly received with festival awards and critical acclaim takes that achievement up another notch, and is usually a good sign of promising talent. With the September release of his third film, Looper, writer/director Rian Johnson looks to be delivering on his early promise.
Johnson’s debut film, Brick, was a smart film-noir mystery staged in the unlikely setting of a modern-day, sun-washed California high school. Brick was nominated for Grand Jury prizes at Sundance and the Deauville Festival in 2005, and won the Sundance Special Jury award, as well as the San Francisco Film Critics Circle award for Best Original Screenplay. Johnson also went on to win the Most Promising Director award from the Chicago Film Critics Association, and Best First Film from the Austin Film Critics Association, among many other awards. Here’s the trailer:
VOH 
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