Director Debate No. 7: Ron Howard

Manchegan

Let's get one thing straight - Ron Howard is the Antichrist. He bears sole responsibility for the rise of the abomination known as The Oscar Movie, the purpose of which is to apply a rigid formula of schmaltz, histrionics and condescension to nab the gong. Watching his films you get the impression that your opinion doesn't count, because you don't have an Academy vote - all that gurning is for someone else's benefit.

I submit to the jury a movie by Howard, and one not by him.

Cinderella Man
Basically Seabiscuit with boxing gloves, but it takes a special talent to reduce Paul Giamatti to playing the coach as an unintended Burgess Meredith/"one-two-uniflu" parody. The extra special treatment is saved for Renée Zellweger, an actor of no small ability (viz Cold Mountain). Eg. there's a scene where they feel the need to portray her concern that The Champ's next fight will be his last, that his brains will be pummelled to mush. So there's daddy playing with kids and Renée's in the kitchen with her head bowed. Then out of nowhere there's a cack-handed imagined scene of her in mourning at a grave. This is Ed Wood quality directing here - all you're lacking is Bela Lugosi wailing "puulll de schtring!". She's an ACTRESS, goddamit Ron! - she's paid to convey emotions, or didn't they teach you that on whatever correspondence course you got your directing creds from.

Inside Man
Howard passed on this script to do Cinderella Man - clearly there wasn't scope in it for him to bag a statue with. And he's right - it's a workmanlike script, heist movie, twist, bada-bing bada-boom. It fell to Spike Lee, who'd hate to be told that he comes into his own when directing a movie that doesn't have race at its heart (Summer of Sam, 25th Hour). But look what he does with it. Eg. throughout the movie there are interviews with suspects, which were all unscripted, just the actors responding to each other in character. Simples. But you get the spunky kid, when asked if he was scared, saying "nope, ahm from BROOKlyn!" You get Ejiofor and Washington winding up the old lady, you get the patter between the two of them. It's riveting!

Ron, you couldn't do riveting if it came in a sealed packaged marked "For Your Consideration".

Phony Scott

Best: Excuse the pun, but choosing between Apollo 13 and Frost/Nixon is tricky, but I have to go with Apollo 13.

Apollo 13 - for me this film proved you could make a film in which everyone knows the outcome to, yet make it hugely exciting and dramatic. James Cameron, take Titanic sized note.

It's also got a great cast, but Ed Harris completely steals the show and got a well deserved Oscar nod for his efforts.

Worst: Far and away the worst of his films is...Far and away. Trite, horribly overlong, dated and showcases some of the worst performances ever from its two capable leads. Avoid like a potato famine.

krudler

He narrates Arrested Development, that made up for Far and Away a billion times over. :cool:

Skerries

as stated above his 2 best films have to be Apollo 13 and Frost/Nixon
The tension in A13 was just brilliant and the dynamic interplay between Langella and Sheen was mesmerising
Backdraft was also a decent film and one of DeNiros better acting roles

the worst films he has put to celluloid has to be the DaVinci code and Angels and Demons
what a complete sellout with no redeeming features at all except maybe how ridiculous Tom Hanks wig looks

quickbeam

Off Topic - I didn't know he has the opportunity to direct Inside Man. That's one of my favourite movies of its type, and can't fault a thing that Lee did with it.

As for Howard himself, I think in latter years he certainly has done some awful film, which I've not even bothered to see - and checking out his credits, I realise that I've actually seen nothing of his made after 1996. But barring Far And Away, there are a handful of decent, and sometimes really good movies in the bunch - decent like Splash, The Paper, Willow and above average like Backdraft, Apollo 13, Ransom. My personal favourite though is probably an unsual choice, but it's Parenthood, which IMO is a great family drama with sparks of comedy without ever becoming too scmaltzy.

Skerries

i don't know whether he will do a good or bad job with The Dark Tower but i still would love to see it on the big screen

Sad Professor

I completely disagree with the OP's assessment of Howard. He's an extremely capable director with a pretty diverse filmography. Some of his recent work hasn't been the best, particularly the two dreadful Dan Brown adaptations. And A Beautiful Mind is a disjointed mess, how it ever won Best Picture is beyond me.

However, Apollo 13, Frost/Nixon, Cinderella Man and Ransom are all very good to excellent films imo. And I have positive memories of Cocoon, Parenthood and The Paper as well. Fair enough, there's nothing particularly amazing about Howard as a director, and his choice of material is sometimes very poor, but with the right script he can do very good work.

I don't feel he's the he's the right person for The Dark Tower, though, but we'll see.

johnny_ultimate

Dare I suggest the one definable thing about Ron Howard is how undefinable he is? Looking at his filmography, it's an eclectic mix, and some decent films in there for sure. He's just... bland.

Take every director we've discussed here recently - from Lynch to Jeunet to - hell - Michael Bay. I feel like I could take their filmography and discuss it as a whole. True, the best of them tend to be rather versatile, but still have a career of sort which can be examined in retrospect as a whole as well as on an individual film basis. Less so with Howard. What exactly makes a Ron Howard film?

I liked Frost Nixon a lot for example, but I question how much of that was the pacy script or the damn fine performances as opposed to any particularly inventive direction from Howard. He seems a bit like a director on hire, and rarely imposes any auteuristic flair on proceedings. At worst, he'll accept straight-up cack. I despised Angels & Demons, but again was that just the inanity of the source material as opposed to any particular crime against cinema on Howard's side?

As said, some decent films on his IMDB page. I liked Willow as a kid, remember thinking the Missing was pretty good too. But I haven't seen enough of his films recently to evaluate - Apollo 13 I was way too young to make anything of when I watched it, for example. What I have seen has rarely been obnoxiously bad (OK, even when I was relatively young I hated the Grinch), but neither has it been what I consider 'good'. And sometimes I think mediocrity is worse than outright awfulness - a lot of the time, a Ron Howard film is just another Hollywood / award bait film, and the good elements - fine acting, dynamic scripts - aren't his doing.

bonerm

He's good at telling a straight biographical story and that's about all. I have Apollo 13, Cinderella Man and A Beautiful Mind but that's more because I'm interested in the protagonists/subject matter than I am in Howard's ability as a director. He's basically no more than a very capable jobber as far as I'm concerned who can push the right on-screen buttons at the right time. I'm sure he'll make future movies that I'll enjoy but I doubt he'll ever too anything too innovative, jaw-dropping or far from centre, the sort of things that might put him up there with the top tier of celebrated directors.

mike65

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Dare I suggest the one definable thing about Ron Howard is how undefinable he is? Looking at his filmography, it's an eclectic mix, and some decent films in there for sure. He's just... bland.

This is indeed the crux of Howard, his CV is as bland as his name Ron Howard and he even looks bland and speaks bland, the mans career is an unfortunate reflection of himself. Nice, safe, boring. You can show his films to pretty much any audience (in general terms) and everyone/no-one will be pleased/dissapointed to the same degree. Your mother likes Ron Howard.

Best film? Dunno, even Apollo 13 isn't that great really. Its technical versimilitude is strong but thats what one expects these days. I haven't seen the DeVinci Code/sequel so can't comment. Night Shift might be his most interesting film with its outré plot about a morgue attendent having a bright idea regarding the oldest profession and the facilitation of same. A few more Night Shifts and few less Beautiful Minds would have been better for cinema.

Skerries

Night Shifts was the first thing i saw Henry Winkler in apart from Happy Days and it was bit of a shock as the character was so meek

Renn

*verisimilitude

mike65

mike65 wrote: »

versimilitude

Renn wrote: »

*verisimilitude

I was close! :pac: