This year, we've seen plenty of fantastic debuts (Craig Brewer with 'Hustle and Flow,' Judd Apatow with 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin,' Joe Wright with 'Pride and Prejudice,' the list goes on), but the inconsistent output from many revered directors was especially striking. There were some surprising comebacks, both huge and minor, but also quite a few astounding letdowns from some of our most highly esteemed auteurs. Here's my list of directors that need to come back.
Rob Marshall, Jim Sheridan, Terry Gilliam, Cameron Crowe and Gus Van Sant are all great directors, and all were responsible for some of the worst films of the year. Marshall followed up his Best Picture-winning 'Chicago' (one of the few musicals I enjoy wholeheartedly) with the hollow and simplistic 'Memoirs of a Geisha.' Sheridan exchanged compelling Irish stories ('In America,' 'My Left Foot,' 'In the Name of the Father') for a turgid 50 Cent melodrama ('Get Rich or Die Tryin''). And Gilliam's 'The Brothers Grimm' showed that studio tinkering can sully even the vision of America's most surreal fantasist ('Brazil,' '12 Monkeys,' 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas').
Yet as bad as those films were, nobody screwed the pooch quite as badly as Cameron Crowe and Gus Van Sant, each of whom helmed the worst films of both their careers and the year. I don't know how or why Crowe wanted to make 'Elizabethtown,' an obscenely disingenuous slice of Americana that would have Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder turning in their graves, but it's bad enough to make me hesitant to see any future Crowe movies (this is coming from a guy who watches 'Almost Famous' religiously). This world needs more classic rock and less Orlando Bloom, and the same goes for Crowe's future films.
The worst film of the year, though, has to be 'Last Days,' the Kurt Cobain biopic directed by Gus Van Sant. Van Sant has been involved in everything from great formula pictures ('Good Will Hunting,' 'Drugstore Cowboy') to a pointless remake of 'Psycho,' but lately he's been boldly experimenting with an extremely minimalist style. The documentary-realist, voyeuristic style worked smashingly in 'Elephant,' a devastating look at a high school before a Columbine-esque massacre, but fails miserably in 'Last Days.'
If you want to gain any insight into Cobain's life or if you desire an unconventional look at a tortured soul, avoid this film. If you want to spend 97 minutes watching Michael Pitt stumble around the woods muttering to himself and random visitors, by all means rent it. These directors can do better, and hopefully they will follow these stinkers with films on par with their previous work.
