Daredevil - horrid.

[Joel Kaye]

I would prefer if people who critic films and filmmakers have some idea of what they are talking about.

I think it's fair to argue that by the time you're one of a handful of directors making an $80 million dollar movie you ought to be really, really damned good.

It's the producer who hired him's fault. OTOH some executive green lit a project that was so commercial that it could be made horribly and STILL make a profit.

So I say the studio exec gets a raise and the director doesn't get hired for the next one.

In fact, if I was a studio I'd never rate my directors on profits. Profits are largely the result of the concept and marketing chosen. Many brilliant movies don't make money.

I'd rate directors on viewer ratings.

So... say Terminator or Transformers is rated really poorly by the viewing public - I'd fire those directors despite the movies being profitable. Those movies were profitable because of the studio and in SPITE of the directors.

OTOH if a movie was 4 stars and didn't make money I'd fire the VP that approved such a crappy idea that even perfect execution couldn't save it. But I'd sure as hell keep that director happy if he kept making 4 star movies.

I'd say Cameron and Nolan are rightfully safe for the rest of their lives.

 

[Matthew Bennett]

Wow, daredevil is still inspiring the same disgust today as I experienced when I first had the misfortune to view it.

There's a bizarre scenario halfway through when ben affleck is just starting to get rowdy with his new self, and he is in his shower when he finds that he has lost a tooth. Sort of the same type of scene as in 'Fight Club' when Ed Norton loosens an injured tooth, pulls it out, and gleefully tosses it into the drain of a sink, where it disappears down a dark hole, forever.

You could almost see them on the daredevil set, conceptualizing the scene, and telling themselves "yes we'll just try and make that the same emotion as Fight Club', very powerful."
Except that during Daredevil, Affleck wrenches out the tooth (probably a molar which I assuming is more difficult to knock out than a front tooth but ...)... sorry, he wrenches out the tooth, has an existential look of 'whatever man' and tosses the tooth downwards. Then we cut to the drain of the shower, which has a fine grill over it. And the tooth just sort of sticks in the drain grill and sits there.

This whole scene completely took me out of any interest in the movie, because instantly, so many questions had to be asked via this one little botched detail - it didn't go down the drain and disappear.

-Did the tooth just sit there for the rest of the shower?
-Did he forget about the tooth during his existential self-loathing and then accidentally step on it when exiting the shower? Did he say to himself 'serves me right' upon stepping on the sharp broken tooth?
-Is the tooth still there in his shower?
-How come he isn't toothless in the later scenes?
-Did he keep the tooth?
-Did he reach down afterward, take the tooth and put it somewhere - what was he thinking while he did that? Where did he put it?
Aaaargh!!!

Anyway, lesson learned from this filmmaking mistake which still mysteriously haunts me - bury those detail shots and resolve them!!!! Please!