1. Kurosawa
2. Scorsese
3. Alexander Payne
4. Welles
5. Coen Brothers

Honorable Mention:

6. Francis Ford Coppola - Sure, his later work sucked, but anyone who made The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, AND Apocalypse Now deserves at least some sort of recognition, for crying out loud.

7. Sergio Leone - How could no one mention him? He did The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Once Upon a Time in The West, and Once Upon a Time in America. Show a little respect, capisce?

8. Steven Spielberg - Some people hate him, but he's given us a lot of good films.

9. John Waters - Hello? Why am I the only one to mention this genius?

10. Hitchcock - No explanation necessary.

1-Hitchcock
2-Spielberg
3-Scorsese
4-Bay
5-Kubrick

I'm going to make my list more difficult (or maybe easier, depending on your point of view) by limiting myself to current, contemporary, living persons. This removes obvious picks like Kubrick, Welles, Kurosawa and Hitchcock who would otherwise be at the top. Here's my list, in no particular order:

1) The Coens - plural I know, but you can't have one without the other. These brothers have produced masterpieces in every genre they've attempted. Crime, drama, comedy, mobsters, whatever. Always entertaining and very deserving of their recent Oscar.
2) Paul Thomas Anderson. A not terribly prolific director, but a thoughtful one. One of the few whose movies you must attend in the theatre simply because HE made it!
3) Wes Anderson- You can count on Wes for taking you to a place you've never been before, and no matter how fucked up your family may seem to you, the families portrayed in a Wes Anderson film are more disturbed and dysfunctional. Not to say that they're not loving and well-intentioned, just misguided.
4) Clint Eastwood- He has become a master of his craft. Few others will take the time to luxuriate in a scene like Eastwood. His long cuts and deliberate pacing show a respect for the intelligence and attention span of his audience.
5) Martin Scorsese- of all the great Directors born in the new Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1970s, only Scorsese remains at the top of his game. Others such as Spielberg, Lucas (ugh), Coppola, Friedkin etcetera have left their best work in the distant past.

I just read this before seeing Lucky's new feature, and read "point" as something to make, as opposed to something to spend. Good laughs.

In reply to this comment by Sarzy:
Whoops, thought I had a point. I'll be back!

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
No one wants to defend the Oscar noms?

Hmmm, well since no one else will do it, I guess I'll have to.

-Babel

While this was almost certainly Alejandro González Iñárritu's weakest film, considering the fact that I find Amores Perros and 21 Grams to be near-masterpieces (Amores Perros in particular), that was pretty much a forgone conclusion. The stories don't tie together quite as nicely as you'd hope, and it felt a tad long long, but it was really well made and superbly acted.

-Crash

Yes, it's heavy-handed; there's no denying that subtlety isn't a word in this film's vocabulary. But there were some surprisingly powerful moments, and it featured (mostly) very good performances.

-The Aviator

This was definitely one of Scorsese's weaker films, but there were a lot of things I liked about it. I liked the visual style, and how it tried to mimic the look of movies of the various eras. Cate Blanchett was really good. Ummm... well look, it wasn't a great film, but it certainly wasn't so bad as to be a waste of celluloid.

-A Beautiful Mind

Again, not great, but not awful, either. It was a competently made, entertaining Hollywood film. No more, no less.

-Titanic

I'm going to admit that I really liked this one. Though this isn't exactly the kind of thing James Cameron became famous for, I still think he's at his best here. This film manages to be a very good romance, and a good disaster movie, without one element ever eclipsing the other. Yes, it is schmaltzy, but I think an unabashed romance like this is allowed to have a bit of schmaltz. I still remember seeing this opening weekend, when the only buzz around it was "how hard is this film going to FLOP??" and walking out completely stunned. I know it isn't "cool" to like this film because of the way it was embraced by teenage girls, but you know what? I don't care. I think it's great, old-fashioned movie-making. Also: if you can remain dry-eyed during the sequence in which the string quartet plays while various passengers make their final preparations, then you sir are made of stone.

-The English Patient

I can't defend this one too vigourously, as I thought it was horribly overrated, but I will admit that it wasn't terrible. I honestly don't remember much about it... Ralph Fiennes was very good, though, as he always is (and go see In Bruges if you want to see a very different, and very hilarious, performance from him).

Oh well, that's the way things work sometimes. It made it out so that's better than nothing

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
I can't believe the "scorsese/hitchcock" video didn't get more votes. Wow, only 19? Oh well, sometimes internet gold gets overlooked on the sift.

I can't believe the "scorsese/hitchcock" video didn't get more votes. Wow, only 19? Oh well, sometimes internet gold gets overlooked on the sift.

while i think the sift would tear it up, sure why not ? it might be fun to see the response it gets.

but i think any of these would do much better

fight club (creative spoiler)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=J2EMFU3fAiY

HINDSIGHT
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=4333855

THINK ABOUT YOU
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=4332946

PANDORA'S BOX
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=4312519

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
By the way, would you mind if I posted your short film when I get a free spot in my queue? I'm sure the other sifters would enjoy seeing your work outside of the sift.

Also, have you seen the video Zifnab posted here: http://www.videosift.com/video/A-Scorsese-Directed-Short-Scripted-by-Hitchcock

I thought you may like it.

-bf

In reply to this comment by qruel:
wow, very cool. a feature is a helluva lot of work.

are you in post now ? if so where at ?

tell me about the film (story and techinical info) and your hopes for it when done.



In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Haha, you are so right. I just shot a feature out here, and I swore never to shoot another one in LA. It's not friendly to indie filmmakers. I decided early on to go guerilla and shoot without permits, so we were constantly ducking cops. We only got kicked out of one area, which was by a Ranger up on a canyon trail overlooking the cityscape. So, we just packed everything up, made the hike down, and a week later we went back to get the rest of the shots.

Way too expensive out here to shoot. Next feature I do, I'm taking it back to North Carolina, which is where I'm from originally.

In reply to this comment by qruel:
Hey, thanks for the compliment. we shot the film here in the midwest (along with all the other films on that site).

i've got a few friends in La nd they talk about how expensive it is and all the permits they have to get before shooting and it makes me wonder how any indie projects get done there


In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Hey, that's really well done. I wasn't expecting the spiders at the end. And, I loved the nod to Audition with her wardrobe at the end. Where did you shoot that? Out here in LA, or are you somewhere else? Great job.

-bf

In reply to this comment by qruel:
I was posting to Farhad when i saw your comment about AUDTION. It was DEFINATELY creepy as hell. so here is a short movie I thought you might dig called THE EVIL INSIDE (forgive me if I already sent this to you). I edited this film and the director was a HUGE audition fan (you'll tell from the short) This is the 10 minute version (down from 30 minutes)

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=4333376

edit: oh yea, thanks for the props on the gold !

QRUEL

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Farhad2000, I know you're a bit of the cinephile, and I've seen the video you posted of Audition in Bravo's 100 Most Scariest Movies. You may find this video I posted recently interesting: http://www.videosift.com/video/Clip-form-one-of-the-creepiest-horror-movies-ever-AUDITION

I'm not sure if you saw this already, but Zifnab posted an amazing Scorsese short film giving homage to the old Hitchcock films. It's pretty fantastic. You can see it here: http://www.videosift.com/video/A-Scorsese-Directed-Short-Scripted-by-Hitchcock

Scorsese's quote is out of context for me, so I may be missing something important, but the notion that Blues is somehow purely derived from west African music is ludicrous. It completely ignores the influence of Scottish/Irish ballads sung throughout Appalachia, stride piano and ragtime, and numerous other "American" influences. Of course they are related, and the notion of them as cousins seems appropriate - they evolved simultaneously, and more recently have fed upon each other wonderfully. Listen to any Taj Mahal recordings and this should be clear.

All f*ckings aside, loved the slice of life style the plot was presented in, done in typical Scorsese fashion. Captured the essence of the Boston PD and it's estranged/oddball Bostonian mob. Accents/mannerisms of the typical hardcore Masshole are dead on too...Fun movie overall.

Here are these films in order...

(It starts with the back-end of The Terminator titles)

13 Superman (1978) Directed by Richard Donner Title Design by: Sheldon Elbourne
14 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) Directed by Stanley Kubrick, Title Design: Pablo Ferro
15 The Virgin Suicides (1999) Directed by Sofia Coppola, Title Designer: Geoff McFetridge
16 Our Latin Thing (1972) Directed by Leon Gast, Title Design by: Unknown
17 Delicatessen (1991)Directed by Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet Title Design by: Marc Bruckert
18 Pi (1998) Directed by Darren Aronofsky, Title Design by: Jeremy Dawson
19 Se7en (1995) Directed by David Fincher, Title Design by: Kyle Cooper
20 Hollow Man (2000) Directed by Paul Verhoeven, Title Design by: The Picture Mill
21 Casino (1995) Directed by Martin Scorsese, Title Design by: Saul Bass
22 Alien (1979) Directed by Ridley Scott, Title Design by: Saul Bass
23 Matzes (2004) Directed by Margien Rogaar, Title Design by: Karst-Janneke Rogaar & Roel Wouters.
24 North by Northwest North by Northwest (1959) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock Title Design by: Saul Bass
25 Panic Room (2002) Directed by David Fincher, Title Design by: The Picture Mill

The other 12 chosen can be seen here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7p1v6NWnhw

Nobody in the audience is seen booing
Well, we only really see Scorsese and Adrian Brody, and no , they arent booing, but no matter who it was, its pretty damn unacceptable behavior IMO, And it shows how crazy the whole USA was back then, the American people were so drugged on lies and fear they did not check to see what the whole world outside KNEW. Even to me, hey, I'm no Iraq expert, but we all knew saddam was no threat to the US, how the hell could he be?? All reports that came out of Iraq, Except for the stars and stripes colored ones, showed quite clearly there were no WMD's there. It was no "oops, Mistake, sorry!" these were LIES.. just lies, there is no other way of describing what Bush, Cheney,Rumsfeld,Rove and Powell did Pre-war. They Lied. And the sooner you americans figure that out and get these assholes impeached, the better.

Ali Ibrahim "Farka" Touré (October 31, 1939 in Timbuktu, Mali - March 6, 2006 in Bamako, Mali) was a Malian singer and guitarist, and one of the African continent's most internationally renowned musicians. His music is widely regarded as representing a point of intersection of traditional Malian music and its North American cousin, the blues. The belief that the latter is in fact historically derived from the former is reflected in Martin Scorsese's often quoted characterization of Touré's tradition as constituting "the DNA of the blues."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Farka_Toure

So lucky to have seen this recently, thanks to PM and James. I uploaded the video and James sifted it.

I am Cuba (Spanish: Soy Cuba; Russian: Я Куба, Ya Kuba) is a Cuban/Soviet film produced in 1964 by director Mikhail Kalatozov at Mosfilm.The movie was not received well by either the Russian or Cuban public and was almost completely forgotten until it was re-discovered by filmmakers in the United States 30 years later. The movie's acrobatic tracking shots and idiosyncratic mise en scene prompted Hollywood directors like Martin Scorsese to begin a campaign to restore the movie in the early 1990s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soy_Cuba