Best Director Decades

60 years ago today, Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train premiered, the second movie he made in what would be an incredible 1950’s for him, and his first great movie of the decade (Sorry, Stage Fright).  Indeed, Hitchcock’s work in the 50’s will go down as one of the best decades a director has ever had, but has anyone since outdone him?  Starting in the 50’s, I picked one director from each decade who had the most impressive overall collection of work, and then sorted them from worst to best.  Some of the calls were harder than others, as I’m sure some of them will be more disputed than others, but overall, it’s a pretty good list of directors.

6: 1990’s Terry Gilliam

Let’s just get this one out of the way first, since I know this is going to be the least popular of any of my picks, and probably deserves to be.  Honestly, the 90’s were an excellent decade for movies, maybe the best, but no single director stood out.  As I looked through my options, all I could see were director’s who had two very good or great movies, but dropped off after that.  Don’t believe me?  Check this out:  Spielberg had Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan, Cameron had Terminator 2 and Titanic, Scorsese had Goodfellas and Casino, Tarantino had Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, Darabont had The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, The Coen brothers had Fargo and The Big Lebowski, Fincher had Se7en and Fight Club, you could even make an argument for Paul Thomas Anderson with Boogie Nights and Magnolia.  So why did I pick Gilliam?  Why not?  I really think his 12 Monkeys is as good as any other movie of the 90’s.  He only made two other movies in the 90’s: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a cult classic, and The Fisher King, an overlooked movie that’s definitely better than it has gotten credit for.  His movies haven’t been commercially popular; they’re hard to watch, not because they have particularly dark or disturbing content, but because they seem a little unpolished, a feeling that sometimes makes them feel a little too unreal and other times makes them feel far too real.  As far as I’m concerned, a good argument could be made for a lot of these directors, and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, but I’m making mine for Gilliam.

5: 1980’s Steven Spielberg

Spielberg, along with the next entry on our list, almost befell the same fate as Martin Scorsese: a great life’s work pretty evenly divided between several decades, with no single one being impressive enough to earn a spot on the list.  Luckily for Spielberg, there wasn’t a whole lot of competition in the 80’s, so he’s able to sneak in here with a solid decade of work in the 80’s.  His best work came at the beginning of the decade with Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981 and E.T. in 1982.  The next several years were very solid, though certainly not legendary.  His two follow-ups in the Indiana Jones’ series were good but not as great as the original, and Empire of the Sun and The Color Purple were not a bad way to fill out the decade.  He did have the less than impressive Always, but that premiered 9 days before the end of the decade, so maybe we’ll just let that slide.

4: 1960’s Stanley Kubrick

In my opinion, the 1960’s really came down to Kubrick and Sergio Leone.  They both had two very good movies (Spartacus and Lolita for Kubrick and Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More for Leone), and two classics (Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey and Leone’s The Good the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West).  Quite frankly, I think of those eight, Leone’s are probably better, but Kubrick gets big points for versatility, which I think gives him the edge.  All of Leone’s movies fit the epic “spaghetti” western mold, and three of the four are from the “Man with No Name Trilogy.”  Kubrick’s movies, on the other hand, include a science fiction classic, a dark comedy, a  novel adaptation, and a historical action adventure film.  In the end I think both would be good picks, but I’m glad Kubrick made it on here, because in my opinion his four best movies spanned four different decades.  His two most influential movies, however, may both have come out of the 60’s.

3: 2000’s Christopher Nolan

There’s no present-day director who’s consistently turning out mind-blowing movies like Christopher Nolan.  His worst movie of the decade was the very watchable Insomnia.  Other than that, he’s succeeded in somehow resurrecting the Batman franchise that 1997’s Batman & Robin buried deep underground.  He also crafted his breakout masterpiece Memento, which in my mind is still the best movie of the decade.  Finally, he brought us The Prestige, which despite largely being overlooked in its time, (probably due to its unfortunate release a few weeks after the much less impressive The Illusionist) is perhaps the most profound of any of his works.  Forget about the magic and the plot twists: is there any better movie in recent history that depicts the dangers of obsession? (Okay, maybe There Will Be Blood, but can you name a second?)  Nolan is also the only director on this list who’s under 60 (he’s only 40) and presumably has a long life of directing in front of him.  Recently, he’s turned his attention more towards summer blockbusters, which may make his fans wonder if he risks one day becoming a sellout. Although his most recent movie, Inception, certainly doesn’t put him in that category, once you get past the incredible premise, it really doesn’t hold together as strongly as any of his other movies.  Hopefully Nolan still has another decade or two left in him like the 2000’s.

2: 1950’s Alfred Hitchcock

It’s hard to keep Hitchcock from the number one spot on this list, but I’ll save why he’s not quite number one for the next entry and instead focus on why he is up this high.  For one thing, he turned out three indisputable classics in Rear Window, Vertigo, and North by Northwest.   Add to that two great movies in Strangers on a Train and Dial M for Murder, and 6 other movies, not all of which I can admit to have watched, but none of which I can describe as anything less than good.  If more of this list’s emphasis was placed on quantity, Hitchcock would be an easy number one, and even on quality, he has a very good argument for it.  I’ll be the first to admit that I tend not to be impressed by older movies, and certainly don’t give them the respect they may receive from a source like AFI (Notice how this list only goes back to the 50’s), but even I can appreciate the genius of Hitchcock’s works from decades before my birth.  Certainly a decade for the ages.

1: 1970’s Francis Ford Coppola

Coppola’s run in the 1970’s is so interesting for so many different reasons.  It’s true, Hitchcock had more movies that I would consider great in the 50’s than Coppola had in total in the 70’s, but I could honestly argue for any of three of Coppola’s movies (The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, and Apocalypse Now) as the greatest film ever made.  Could I argue that about any of Hitchcock’s?  Maybe Vertigo, but I’m not sure I’d be able to convince anyone, including myself.  The Godfather really doesn’t require me to make an argument on its behalf, considering how many different times and by how many different sources it has already been declared the greatest movie of all time, or close to it.  It’s sequel requires a little more defense, but considering how many people truly believe it’s better than the first, all that’s needed is a little transitivity and the argument makes itself.  Then there’s Apocalypse Now, with its entirely unique combination of unparalleled cinematographic magnificence and deeply haunting look into the human condition.  It somehow manages to take the concept of Heart of Darkness to an entirely new realm that’s even darker and more disturbing, but at the same time upsettingly relatable and understandable.  Coppola made one other movie in the decade, The Conversation, which was no slouch, having won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and having been nominated for best picture, which it lost to pretty good movie called The Godfather: Part II.  Coppola’s run in the 70’s was so impressive that he’s often mentioned as one of the greatest directors of all time despite never having made a particularly good movie in any other decade.  No one can say the Coppola never reached his potential, but it is a little sad how short his reign was.

If Only They Knew How to Market

Today in why the fuck didn't anyone tell me earlier: apparently they have no-nose saddles for bicycles now.  I was reading yesterday's New York Times article on the subject, when I realized these have existed for years, and apparently they're more comfortable and better for you.  I haven't been suffering from erectile dysfunction or any other problems stemming from riding on a standard bicycle seat, but god damn are they uncomfortable, and if no-nose saddles can help out my genitals a bit while making my ride a lot more comfortable, that's a benefit I'm willing to take in addition.  But one of the leading manufacturers of these saddles has apparently had trouble selling them.  Bike shops don't want to shelf them because no one is going to want a bike that "screams out: I've got a problem." Personally, I don't blame them.  Assuming I'm not the only one that finds sitting on a bicycle for long periods of time far more uncomfortable than sitting on just about any other seating surface I can imagine, this product should be able to move on its comfort alone.  The problem (which is only being exacerbated by this article) is that the saddle is being sold as a cure for bicycle-seat-related erectile dysfunction, and is going to have this unfortunate correlation in people's mind.  I can't claim to speak for the ED crowd out there, but I suspect that a fair number of them would be less willing to use cures like Viagra if they had they had to put a Viagra bumper sticker on their car.  Shit, if there are still people out there that don't think they need helmets, how are you going to sell them on no-nose saddles?

  To be honest, I wish this article was never written, because in my mind I imagined the saddle as a cure for discomfort, not ED, and I would have much rather taken my time to hear about this elsewhere and taken it at face value instead of learning about it earlier with the unfortunate side effect of having it forever associated with ED in however many people’s minds.  In my opinion, if they want no-nose saddles to reach their potential, they have to go about marketing it in a different way, although at this point, it may be too late.  Perhaps the biggest benefit of these saddles is the positive health effects, but its biggest drawback is most certainly its correlation in people’s minds with the negative health effects.  This then makes it a rare case where the manufacturer would be better off downplaying its best attribute (rather than mentioning ED multiple times on their front page, as the BiSaddle website does), in order to allow people that want it for this purpose not to have the world know why they’re using it.  People who are too embarrassed to use it to help with ED need others to adopt using a no-nose saddle for the purpose of comfort.  Only then will they be safe to ride without others assuming that their issue is a penile one.  Of course, at this point those who are simply seeking comfort aren’t going to want to use the new saddles either: people thinking you have ED when you don’t is almost as bad as people knowing that you actually have it.  If they had played up the seat’s comfort to begin with, they wouldn’t be stuck in this conundrum, and they’d probably have a decent consumer constituent solely for comfort, while at the same time attracting those who are looking for a cure.  Instead, they’ve opened themselves up solely to a small demographic of suffering bikers with ED, who either don’t care what others think or are suffering enough to take a hit to their pride.  Personally, I wouldn’t judge someone I saw riding on a no-nose saddle; maybe nobody would.  But as long as the perception that people will judge is there, I suspect these bike seats will exist more on unseen private exercise bikes than real bikes out on the street.  At this point the damage may already be done, but I’m rooting for them to turn it around.  It would be nice to take a long bike ride free of both discomfort and judgment some time.

BV

Marijuana as a Gateway Drug

                Last week former President Carter wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about the United States’ failed war on drugs, and the Global Commission on Drug Policy’s new initiative.[1]  Carter cited statistics that showed that global drug use from 1998 to 2008 actually increased, something I don’t think many people would find surprising.  What caught my eye, though, was that the increase in consumption of the harder drugs cocaine (27%) and opiates (34.5%) were respectively more than threefold and fourfold the increase in marijuana (8.5%) consumption.  This stat reminded me of one of the often cited explanations for the illegality of marijuana: that it is a gateway drug, meaning that once used, it will lead the user to initiate the use of other, harder, drugs.  Now this statistic on its own doesn’t necessarily indicate that the increase in hard drug consumption is a result of people moving on from marijuana, but from what I’ve seen, read, and observed in real life, I think that the gateway drug claim has merit, and I do believe that people who try marijuana and enjoy it are more likely to try harder drugs.  Thus, even to those who argue (correctly) that marijuana is less harmful than certain legal drugs (think alcohol), the fact still remains that marijuana’s real danger lies in tempting people to try harder, indisputably dangerous drugs.  Thus, it’s logical to discourage marijuana use in order to prevent people from trying truly dangerous drugs, right?  Wrong.

                The logic above is tempting, but it takes for granted the fact that marijuana is inherently a gateway drug, when in fact it doesn’t need to be.  I’m sure many people upon first trying marijuana remember in health class in middle school being warned about the dangers of marijuana.  I’m sure they regularly see anti-marijuana PSAs on TV and in print.  And I’m sure they know that in every state marijuana possession is illegal, and in most states it is considered a criminal act.  So in many people’s minds, marijuana is a hard drug, and for some, this fact may prevent them from ever trying it.  For many, however, that do decide to try it, they may realize a few things: that they like it, that they feel fine afterwards, and that it isn’t as bad as they’ve been warned.  For those who feel this and haven’t had proper drug education, what is to stop them from trying something harder?  In many people’s minds, cocaine is simply a step up from marijuana, something to move onto once one is ready for the next step.  If one’s drug education consists entirely of the anti-drug crusade’s information that more or less equates all illegal drugs, how are they to know that cocaine or heroin is in fact orders of magnitude harder than a drug like marijuana?  They can’t, and using the logic conveniently provided to them by the anti-drug sources combined with their own experiences with marijuana, they’re naturally going to believe that hard drugs simply aren’t that bad.

                The problem with the gateway drug theory isn’t a fault with the theory, so much as a fault with the initiatives that it has led to.  Currently, anti-drug activists attempt to keep people away from harder drugs by keeping them away from marijuana, when instead, they should work to break down the link between marijuana and harder drugs.  Instead of grouping marijuana with cocaine and opiates, to stop people from trying marijuana, marijuana should be distinguished from harder drugs, to keep people from feeling that if they can handle marijuana it’s safe to move on up the ladder.  Clearly the former approach hasn’t worked, as we’ve seen increases in consumption across all drugs, so maybe it’s time now to try something new.  This isn’t an issue of whether marijuana should be legal or not, nor is that what I’m calling for, but rather, I’d simply like to see an acknowledgement that not all illicit drugs were created equal, because a good portion of people are going to try them either way, and when they do, they should have the information they need to make good decisions.

BV

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/opinion/17carter.html

Why I Won't Make You Deal with Audio and Visual

There's been a new (okay, not that new) frustrating trend on the internet in recent years that I promise neither I nor my fellow critics will make you readers suffer through on this site.  Slowly, many of my favorite and least favorite sites have been shifting from written content and articles, to more videos, podcasts, and the like.  There was a time when watching videos on the internet was a pain in the ass and required waiting five minutes for your Windows Media Player or Quicktime to load and buffer, but now that flash has become such and easy and quick way to share video content sites just assume that I'm going to want more of it.  I don't.  Now I understand that the internet is filled with illiterates and dogs who probably don't want to deal with our written language, but for those of us who made it past kindergarten, we don't want to sit and our computers and hear or watch someone drone on about some shit we can read in 1/2-1/3 the amount of time.  It's a pain in the ass.  Audiobooks are supposed to be read at 150-160 WPM, and most internet videos or podcasts are certainly spoken a lot slower than that:  I would estimate in the low 100's.  The average human, however, can read 250-300 WPM, and if you're smart enough to be reading my blog, I'm sure you're much better than an average reader.  Furthermore, it's easier to stop and start reading, read with the game on in the background, and read in public places (or at work) if you're stuck without headphones.  When you're reading an article, it doesn't take as long to load, and you don't have to suffer through the increasingly prevalent commercials that sites force you to watch before the feature video.  With all the shit coming before it, a short video can almost cost you double the amount of time as the actual video, and 4-5 times what an article would have taken to read.  And most of the time the video is going to be crap, but you're not going to know until you've finished the whole thing, because you have to wait for the advertisement and then it's much more difficult to skip around and skim through the video.  The internet allows anyone to write whatever they want; that's what makes it great, but that also means over 99% of it is a waste of your time (even more so than the sudoku or texttwist website you frequent).  Written content may not be any better than audio or visual, but at least when content is written you can figure out if it's any good or not in a matter of seconds.

I'm not saying that there's not a place for video on the internet, or that it should be done away with.  It can be helpful in things like video product reviews or sports highlights that really benefit from seeing what's being described.  But I don't need to see or hear a reporter interviewing an expert when I can just read it, and I don't need to see a 2.5 minute video of Katherine Heigl telling me her 5 favorite movies (spoiler alert: they all suck) on Rotten Tomatoes when I can just as easily make fun of her after taking a 3 second peak at it in list form (note: RT has actually started writing the list at the bottom of the articles, something they didn't do originally.  Kudos.)  Why so many websites have started doing this, I'm not sure, but there seems to be a few obvious answers.  For one thing, the already mentioned 30 second commercials before each video simply wouldn't fly for written content, so it's obviously a better way to bring in ad revenue.  In some cases, like ESPN.com, the website is just taking content directly from its television  programming which certainly saves them time and money.  I would also assume that in some cases, especially for podcasts, it's easier to speak the content than write it, since many of them don't seem entirely scripted; for those that are fully scripted, however, it would be more effort since you would have to do all the writing and then do the recording in addition.  Finally, maybe they just think people like it better, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were right, considering how dumb most people are.  You, my reader, are not dumb.  You have come here to get a higher standard of internet content, and that is what you will receive.

BV

Bort Valentine

Hello, my name is Bort Valentine.  I have always felt my purpose in life was to set people straight.  I am blessed with a great mind, and I feel I must give back to those who don't have the advantages that I do.  Most people, yourself included, don't understand this world in the way I do.  I was put on Earth to look upon our society and help it become better by critiquing it.  Until today, I focused on improving the world by going to crowded malls and shouting criticisms at imperfect passersby, but I realized no matter how much I improved those people lives, I could never spread my message far enough in such a manner.  Instead, I offer the following blog.  It is a collection of knowledge, advice, and criticisms from myself and some of my closest associates.

As for me, I grew up in New Jackson (Just 10 miles south of Old Jackson).  Upon graduating high school, I attended college, which I have yet to finish, as I went to prison for 3 years at the age of 20 for beating a man who argued with me that Thomas Jefferson was a better founding father than James Madison (he lost the argument, the fight, and all feeling from the waist down).  During my times in prison I passed the time by reading every major piece of English and American literature, studying the history of 6 of the 7 continents (Antarctica excluded), and continuing to master the board game go (I am currently a 5-dan amateur).  After emerging from prison a new man, I went on to be named the Time Magazine person of the year in 2006.  Realizing that I have both the knowledge and wisdom to change the world already, I did not return to school after my sentence.  I should be educating, not learning.  One day, I hope to open a school of my own where I can teach students not to be the mindless idiots that modern education is creating.  Until then, I consider this my school.  Welcome to class.

BV