SCFZ

I agree with @Monsieur Arkadin. I too think that Barry Sonnenfeld is more talented and creative director who made one of the best Elmore Leonard adaptation Get Shorty and probably the best Hollywood blockbuster sequel with Men in Black 3. Not to mention his great work as cinematographer on films like Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Misery.

Barry Sonnenfeld, eh? Are you serious?
I mean, I enjoy his stuff as a director, and he was a decent cinematographer.
But honest, he's much closer to Ron Howard than to a genius like Hyams.

I'd concede that he might be more interesting as a director than the Coens, though.

Coens? They are in a totally different league than Hyams OR Sonnenfeld. Coens might just be the most accomplished director(s) of their generation in the US.

Ok, now I get it, you're pulling my leg.

Can ppl stop pretending their artistic preferences are at all correlated with any sort of objective measure of merit? Kthxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

If we can't even agree on something as simple as Hyams > Sonnenfeld > Coens, then what can we agree on!?

Nah, just kidding. People obviously like what they like (even if I sometimes can't comprehend others aesthetic preferences - at all).

Seen 8

1. Capricorn One
2. Outland
3. Time Cop
4. Running Scared

Watched Timecop and Sudden Death. I found Timecop to be difficult viewing, too violent for this tender viewer. But Sudden Death, though comparably violent, grew on me and by the end I maybe loved it. Alongside well-composed action scenes, it's also a '90s movie about NHL hockey, and when I was a kid in the '90s I was a huge hockey fan, so it's very neat to see that period/locale on screen. Can't say it made me see Hyams as a genius, but watching JCVD fight a woman in a silly Penguins mascot outfit was sheer delight.

1. Sudden Death

hyams has made four films this century, and none got a vote. meanwhile every feature film he made in the 80s and 90s got some support.

results

1. Capricorn One (1977) -- 20 pts
2. Outland (1981) -- 10 pts
3. Narrow Margin (1990) -- 9 pts
4. Running Scared (1986) -- 8 pts
5. Timecop (1994) -- 7 pts
5. Sudden Death (1995) -- 7 pts
7. Busting (1974) -- 5 pts
7. 2010 (1984) -- 5 pts
9. Stay Tuned (1992) -- 3 pts
9. The Relic (1997) -- 3 pts
11. The Star Chamber (1983) -- 2 pts
11. Goodnight, My Love (1972) -- 2 pts
11. The Presidio (1988) -- 2 pts
11. End of Days (1999) -- 2 pts

More of a craftsman than an artist, but I thought his lighting was quite risky at times, esp in The Relic and End of Days. His better films have a real sense of scale too.

up at letterboxd:
https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-129/