Twitch-O-Meter: Peter’s MEGA-ToM! (Twitch-O-Meter turns 50, part eight)

The first director I knew by name was Alfred Hitchcock, then John Ford, then Frank Capra, then Steven Spielberg. Oh, and John Carpenter. I have no earthly idea who my “favorites” are, I just know that the five I’ve listed are five that have consistently surprised and/or pleased and/or delighted and/or fascinated me, five directors who make me want to see everything they’ve ever done.


Kinji Fukasaku

My introduction was ass-backwards. I saw his last film first: Battle Royale on a crappy-looking VCD, before I had a region-free DVD player. I threw it on, post-midnight, just to watch a few minutes before going to bed, probably six years ago. Two hours later I sat stunned in my living room, shell-shocked, chills running down my spine. Even when the subject matter is not sensational, he lights the screen on fire: ordinary joes fighting to make lives for themselves (If You Were Young: Rage), bizarre and moody shenanigans (Black Rose), epic stories of yakuza dynasties (The Yakuza Papers), tiny tales of fierce yakuza carving our lives for themselves (Sympathy for the Underdog, Street Mobster). And now that I think about, I always thought the Japanese sequences in Tora! Tora! Tora! were far more compelling than the American scenes, so I guess that was my real introduction to a director I always want to know better.


Walter Hill

I’m happy I got to experience seven of Walter Hill’s first eight directorial efforts on the big screen, because he has a fascinating ability to use only part of the screen to tell the story; the rest of the canvas provides the atmosphere, so you always feel drawn into the world that he’s created. Six of those films stand up incredibly well (The Driver, The Warriors, The Long Riders, Southern Comfort, 48 Hrs., Streets of Fire), as far as I’m concerned: tough, lean and mean. Like junkyard dogs, they may not always be pretty or sophisticated, but they dare you not to pay attention. Johnny Handsome belongs in any cinephile’s collection, too, and Hill rewrote the book on Westerns with his unofficial 90s trilogy (Geronimo, Wild Bill, Last Man Standing) before setting a new standard by directing the pilot episode for David Milch’s Deadwood. Hill is the ultimate Man in any kind of Man Vs. Man Or Beast film.


Joe Dante

Dante always seems like Spielberg’s much poorer, ratty-dressing cousin, but I always pull for the underdog, and Dante edged ahead of Spielberg long ago in making popular genre entertainment: Piranha, The Howling, his segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie, Gremlins, Innerspace, The ‘burbs, Gremlins 2, Matinee (!), Small Soldiers, Homecoming (his episode from the first season of Masters of Horror). These are films that match the sensibility of my geeky inner child, the one that’s self-aware and self-referential, mostly respectful of my elders yet ready to poke fun and have a laugh.
I wish he could make every movie he wanted to make, because I would happily watch pretty much anything he directed. It’s one of life’s great frustrations that he doesn’t have complete freedom to do what he wants.



Anthony Mann

If you’re allergic to Westerns, then you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. You really have to watch Bend of the River or The Naked Spur or The Far Country or The Man From Laramie before you can open your mouth in protest that Westerns are too dry or hokey or sentimental or whatever your objection, because Mann’s Westerns are none of those things.
And if you keep resisting, well then I must insist you watch his slate of deliciously evil film noir, titles like T-Men and Raw Deal and Border Incident and Side Street amply demonstrate Mann’s consummate skill with actors and angles and pacing, delivering tiny little powder kegs of entertainment sure to go pop! crackle! pop! in your brain.




Johnny To

Some directors stick intensely to their personal vision while others take on a much broader scope of projects that are more hit or miss. Johnny To falls into the latter category; some of his work is distressingly commercial (by which I mean it’s been bleached of any strain of originality or personality).
Yet I refuse to turn completely against a man that made above average flicks like The Big Heat, All About Ah-Long and The Heroic Trio early in his career before scorching eyeballs with an incredible run in the late 90s that included Lifeline, A Hero Never Dies, Running Out of Time and The Mission. Those are films that are so good, so close to the surface, so skin-scratchingly honest, that they bring tears to my eyes.
And he’s been more than willing to play against type, play against his strengths, and try to stretch himself (Fulltime Killer, PTU). We all know he hasn’t always been successful, but his ability to churn out, in quick order, Election, Election 2 and Exiled, means I will never count him out.

Related Links

• Joey's MEGA-ToM (part one)
• Todd's MEGA-ToM (part two)
• Ardvark's MEGA-ToM (part three)
• Collin's MEGA-ToM (part four)
• Kurt's MEGA-ToM (part five)
• Stefan's MEGA-ToM (part six)
• Timo's MEGA-ToM (part seven)
• Swarez's MEGA-ToM (part nine)
• JMaruyama's MEGA-ToM Aftershock (late submission)