Saturday, August 24, 2013

Weekend Weigh-in: What is Your Favorite Actor/Director Pairing?

The only thing better than a movie with people you like is a movie with people you like working together.

So what's your favorite actor/director team? For argument's sake, let's say they need to have worked together at least twice.

36 comments:

  1. There are a couple of pairings that Ive always looked at, but more in terms of how the actor performs the dialogue of a writer/director. They're pretty pedestrian, but thats me :-)

    Samuel L Jackson - Quentin Tarrantino
    Jason Lee - Kevin Smith
    Jason Statham - Guy Ritchie

    I just think these writers have a specific way of writing that never sounds better when coming out of these actors mouths.

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  2. It's been a while now, but I was always a fan of the De Niro and Scorsese team. They always seem to work really well together. Also, obviously both of these peoplr are gone now, but James Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock will always be two of my favorite collaborators. They made some amazing stuff together.

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  3. Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg/Nick Frost
    James Whale/Boris Karloff
    Orson Welles/himself
    Charlie Chaplin/himself
    Alfred Hitchcock/Jimmy Stewart
    John Ford/John Wayne
    Frank Capra/Jimmy Stewart

    Oh, I could go on all day!

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    1. Oh, I agree with Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg/Nick Frost, John Ford/John Wayne, and Frank Capra/Jimmy Stewart!

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    2. John Ford / John Wayne
      Akita Kurosawa/ Toshiro Mifine

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  5. I agree with John; Scorsese and De Niro is at the top, Scorsese and Di Caprio, Ford and Wayne, Hitchcock and Stewart are also magic.

    I think when an Actor wins an award, half of it should go to the Director, or the Director should get an award as well!

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  6. I'll add to the list:

    John Carpenter/Kurt Russell
    Akira Kurosawa/Toshiro Mifune (there's a whole book about their collaboration, called The Emperor and the Wolf)
    Yasujiro Ozu/Setsuko Hara

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  7. Wes Anderson/Bill Murray
    Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell
    Joel & Ethan Cohen/Steve Buscemi
    Judd Apatow/Paul Rudd/Seth Rogen

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  8. Love Steve's choice of Kurosawa/Mifune.

    I will add
    John Woo/Chow Yun Fat

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  9. David Cronenberg/Viggo Mortenson. They've done two great movies and one damn good one and seem to bring out the best in each other. Honorable mention to Spike Lee/Denzel Washington

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  10. James Cameron/Arnold Schwarzenegger
    Lawrence Kasdan/Kevin Kline
    Richard Donner/Mel Gibson
    David Fincher/Brad Pitt
    Tony Scott/Denzel Washington
    Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks

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  11. Paul Thomas Anderson and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

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  12. Or Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood.

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    1. I forgot about Robert Altman/Elliot Gould.

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  13. I feel like the ones I want to talk about have been mentioned. I like Akira Kurosawa & Toshiro Mifune, as well as John Woo & Chow Yun Fat. I like Scorsese with either De Niro or Di Caprio.

    Can I have Harrison Ford and George Lucas? They did their best creative work as producer and actor, but those are the works that I count as my favorites and most watchable.

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  14. John Huston / Humphrey Bogart
    Ed Wood / Bela Lugosi
    John Ford / Henry Fonda
    Neil Jordan / Stephen Rea
    Sidney Lumet / Al Pacino (only two films but both amazing ones)

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  15. A pairing from two of my favourite "older" movies that I'm disappointed didn't happen more often: Stanley Kubrick and Sterling Hayden (The Killing and Dr. Strangelove).

    Of more substantial pairings, my absolute favourite would have to be Tarantino/Jackson, but there are a lot of close runner-ups I've seen named here as well!

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    1. Indeed! Though I still haven't seen Kubrick's Lolita.

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  16. Roger Corman and Jonathan Haze.

    (well, every other pair I would have said has been mentioned already)

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  17. Jack Hill - Pam "MotherFucking" Grier

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  18. I finally thought of one that hasn't been mentioned and thats James Cameron/Michael Biehn in Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss and T2 Directors Cut (and almost Avatar which definitely would have helped the movie.) It always seems like he can get to the meat of Cameron's stories in those movies without going too overboard (okay he goes a little crazy in Abyss but I still think he plays it well) Its a damn shame Biehn never made that jump to A-list, just fell on some bad luck in the 90's I guess.

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  19. John Woo/Tony Leung. Red Cliff is an absolutely amazing pair of movies, and Hard Boiled is still an amazing movie to watch.

    Also, honorable mention to Scorsese/DiCaprio, because The Departed and Shutter Island.

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  20. I must have been having a brain-related event before as I didn't think of this pair until now....

    Tod Browning and Lon Chaney

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  21. John Ford - Ward Bond (or anyone from his stock company, really)
    Anthony Mann - James Stewart
    David Mamet - Ed O'Neill
    David Mamet - Ricky Jay
    Coen brothers - John Turturro
    Wong Kar-wai - Tony Leung
    Dardenne brothers - Jérémie Renier

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  22. Quentin Tarantino - Uma Thurman/Christoph Waltz
    David Fincher - Brad Pitt/Rooney Mara
    Ben Affleck - Ben Affleck
    Rian Johnson - JGL

    My dream is to see a Tarantino written movie directed by David Fincher starring Brad Pitt :)

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  23. John Carpenter, Kurt Russell.
    John Woo, Chow Yun Fat.
    Joe Dante, Dick Miller.

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  24. Jeff Nichols and Michael Shannon (Mud, Take Shelter, Shotgun Stories), they can do no wrong.

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  25. Micheal Winterbottom and Steve Coogan

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