Michael Oblowitz/Don Michael Paul-:Who Is the Better Director?

MMCK2

New Member
I just wanted to know what peoples opinions of these two directors are. Having watched "Half Past Dead" the other night on region one DVD, I have to say that, although the fights were'nt as good, I thought on the whole that Don Michael Paul orchestrated the mayhem quite well for a first-time director. He also can tell a story well without all these editing gimmicks that Michael Oblowitz heavily relies on. I also felt he got a very easy going performance out of Seagal, and his chemistry with JaRule worked very well.

Having watched both "The Foreigner" and "Out For A Kill" as well this week I would say Oblowitz is the weaker director. The films themselves I thought were better than a lot of other STV films I've saw in my time but he cannot tell a story. His relience on flashy camera work and speed ups makes him look, as GlimmerMan said, like a Guy Ritchie wannabe. I still commend him for getting Seagal to as many fights as he did in "Out For A Kill" himself.

I actually feel that "Half Past Dead" is a little underrated and if it had Seagal doing more of his own fights, I think it could have been one of his best since "Under Siege".

What do the rest of you think of these two directors?

Peace.

MMCK2
 
Don Michael Paul is one hundred percent BETTER than Oblo****s. At least Paul can shoot a movie and give it coherence and pacing.
 

TDWoj

Administrator
Staff member
I think both tend to rely too much on visual tricks and they don't let the story tell itself. I actually liked the Foreigner better than HPD - there are fewer scenes in it that I fast-forward through than in HPD.

HPD needed a better writer than Paul, or at least someone to fix the script. I cringed in so many places for the bad, amateurish writing contained in it. I can't help it; I'm a writer (actually, probably a better editor than a writer) and whenever I hear really awful dialogue in a movie, I keep asking myself, "don't the actors and the director HEAR how bad this is? Why don't they stop and say THIS IS CRAPPY DIALOGUE?" (Probably because they'll be scolded, or something.)

The bit I liked about HPD was the very beginning (flashy car chase notwithstanding). I liked the character of the ersatz car thief Sascha, and the relationship between Sascha and Nick, which pretty much evaporated after they both ended up in Alcatraz. The story just flopped about like a landed fish after that and Morris Chestnut was just plain silly, not scary. (Nia Peeples, on the other hand, really WAS scary.)

At least Oblowitz is not directing a film he wrote.... Was it the same writer for OFAK as for TF? I think that Oblowitz probably left the bits of the story that would have made these films make sense on the cutting room floor.

I wouldn't give either of them an Instamatic camera to shoot with, let alone a whole movie.

-TD, being grumpy again
 

GlimmerMan

Huge Member
Although all three films (Half Past Dead, The Foreigner and Out For A Kill) have been pretty apalling efforts, the simple reason why Half Past Dead got a cinematic release and didn't (deservedly) go STV was not because of Steven Seagal, but because of the sheer marketing power of Ja Rule and the considerable demographic to which he would appeal.

It's pretty depressing really, as all three movies had a lot of potential, but I just feel as if three relatively good (if not entirely original) ideas have gone to waste. I admit that any Seagal film is better than no Seagal film, but I would much rather he had done one big budget critically acclaimed blockbuster (such as Under Siege 3) than three amateur-looking, badly directed, shoddily produced low-budget STV style movies.

I feel that Don Michael Paul directed Half Past Dead better than Oblowitz directed Foreigner and Out For A Kill (i.e. at least Don Michael could tell a coherent story) and in that respect I prefer Half Past Dead, but all the films had their good and bad points - the fight sequences were good in Out For A Kill, but it lacked depth and a decent story and was lackadaisically put together with several glaring errors in the final cut. The Foreigner at least looked slightly more professionally put together and was probably a better movie in terms of quality, but it was high on bland intrigue and is ultimately nothing more than a poor man's version of Ronin or The Transporter.

Basically, all three films are lacklustre and are low on exciting action and pretty useless additions to Seagal's resume. If you take them at face-value for what they actually are (STV movies) then they are decent enough, but there is simply no comparison to Seagal's earlier work.

Glimmer
 

GlimmerMan

Huge Member
Nobody has any comment to make on this, huh? Or are you all too disgusted by yet another negative post by the great GlimmerMan?!

Amos - cheers once again for editing my work mate (have to watch for those naughty words), but I deleted your advertisement for it, as it got on my nerves.

Glimmer
 

Amos Stevens

New Member
Not a problem Gman..just wanted you to know I wasn't trying to be sneaky...

I think any movie should be made with more of a working relationship between the actors & the directors..just pointing & go do this..gets a bad shot.If an comprimise can be made(two heads better than one attitude) bet the scene can come out a whole lot better.
 

TDWoj

Administrator
Staff member
Sure. A director has to direct his actors, to get the performance required out of them that will show up well on a screen. Actors who are left to direct themselves will generally contribute to a lacklustre (at best) film.

I don't agree with Glimmer about Don Michael Paul, though; I think he's utterly abysmal as a director because, while he appeared to tell a story coherently, he wasn't really sure what the story was about (yes, I know he wrote the story, but I know from experience that sometimes writers have no idea what their own stories are about and end up making the wrong choices). This is what I feel that Paul did, with HPD.

Oblowitz suffers from the same problem, but with a different slant. I think he does know what the story is about, but is not able to tell the story in the limited time he has available, hence the short scenes and choppy cuts. Instead, he tries to put every element of the story into the film, but ends up leaving out crucial details that would make the story hang together better.

I think Paul has a slight edge over Oblowitz, though, in directing Steven. I think Steven's performance in HPD was marginally better than in TF. The problem is, of course, that Paul did not exploit that since he didn't pursue what the story was really about, and that was the complex relationships between the 'good' bad guys in defending their turf against intruders. And the movie suffered from some really, really bad writing that made me cringe (my thought was: if HPD had been submitted to the workshop as an audition piece, it would have been summarily rejected as "not being up to standard".)

I think the biggest problem with TF was that none of the characters in it were sympathetic, Jonathon Cold included. Oblowitz simply didn't have the insight to make Cold into a sympathetic character despite Cold's obvious, well, cold-bloodedness, shall we say. There was too much time spent focusing on the child, for example (made me think Cold was into child porn or something, for the amount of time he spent taking photos of the kid), which was pretty much irrelevant to the story.

So, no. I don't think one director is better than the other. One might have a slight edge over the other in different areas, but taken altogether they are both abysmal directors and should never be allowed to make another movie ever again.

-TD, also known as SWMBO (for those of you who have seen Rumpole of the Bailey, will know what that acronym stands for. The rest of you will just have to guess.)

:)
 

GlimmerMan

Huge Member
SWMBO(!) - I can assure you, I also think that Paul is an abysmal director, but like you, I feel he has a slight edge over Oblohalfwitz (Amos - you are just no fun, matey!). However, I think that at best, both director's will be confined to doing STV movies for the rest of their probably short careers, or at worst, they will both sink without trace.

Glimmer
 

rastafari

Well-Known Member
oblowitz is doing highlander 5 for dimension pictures this year which is going to cinemas.........i bet you cant wait for that glimmmer man....
 
GlimmerMan said:
Nobody has any comment to make on this, huh? Or are you all too disgusted by yet another negative post by the great GlimmerMan?!

Amos - cheers once again for editing my work mate (have to watch for those naughty words), but I deleted your advertisement for it, as it got on my nerves.

Glimmer

Meh I went to bed early. :D
 
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