Discuss: Peter Berg Has Never Made a Bad Film

i agree with you completely. Peter Berg has yet to disappoint me.

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Friday Night Lights WAS surprisingly good, but the only surprising thing about Hancock was that I managed to sit through the whole thing. That was an awful movie.

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While I definitely disagree on Hancock, Berg is a very fine director. The studios are trusting him with Dune, I'm sure he could've handled Foundation.

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I like Berg a lot too, but he disappointed me with Hancock. But I actually think it was the studio who pressured Berg and his producers in doing bad stuff. But until I know that certain, I blame Berg. Hope his next one is a good one.

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As a contrary opinion the only good movie I think Berg has made is Friday Night Lights (saying a lot when I don't care much for sports).

Frankly I'd rather him wreck the Foundation series than Dune. I just do not feel he's smart enough for the material.

It is funny though how you can refer to a movie in a positive light when you call it a time-waster...

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The best thing that Berg has been involved with is getting screwed over by Linda Fiorentino in 'The Last Seduction."

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'Hancock' was my personal worrse movie of last year, That movie fell completely apart during the opening theme of 'Move Bitch'

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hancock? the rundown?

so bad... so...very...bad

seriously? there is litterally no way that any self respecting movie fan could have liked hancock

doesn't cinematical screen it's employees to make sure that they're not idiots?

Friday night lights is the only good movie on that list. The rest are mediocre to awful

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There was nothing wrong with Hancock other than people wanting and/or expecting it to be The Dark Knight. You're a fool if that's what you were wanting out of it. It's a totally unique film that deserves many sequels.

My personal favorite of Berg's is 2007's The Kingdom, featuring one of the best car crashes ever filmed (It's a work of art on the magnitude of Grindhouse. It is the ONLY modern war/terrorism film released thus far that does NOT suck. Quit ignoring it, and see the freaking movie.

To the moron that said: "Peter Berg? F off.", make sure you watch all of someone's movies before making a sweeping statement about EVERYTHING they have made. I'm willing to bet he has either seen 1 or none of Berg's films, and is basing his hate on what he has heard about them.

This is a common problem with people... I'll admit I recently said Vanessa Hudgens is the last person in the world I would choose for a movie role, without having seen any of her movies, but frankly, just look at her. She is a whore, and we don't need to see a slut prostitute herself onscreen unless she works for Vivid Entertainment (Wait, she probably already does).

Thank YOU Scott for stating the obvious, Peter Berg is a true talent that is completely in a different league than Michael Bay and other blockbuster action genre filmmakers.

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I really feel like you're giving a bit too much merit to Roland Emmerich by dubbing him the "next Irwin Allen".

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I agree, while not all of his movies are blockbusters or amazing pieces of work he has yet to direct one that I consider a bad movie and will tell people to just stay away from.

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hancock is not a good movie, there's no way around it, it was a gimmick (bum/drunk superhero) but it had no story

and the kingdom is not "excellent" unless the version I saw was extended and on the regular one the scene where a goy gets off the hook because of sweat marks on three unused for more than a day uniforms

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"One of the most unexpectedly fine football flicks I've ever seen". "Time-waster". "A fine job" I'm not sure if labeling Berg's work as surprisingly not so bad and great if you have nothing better to do is really going to win over the haters.

He reminds me a bit of Brett Ratner without a tripod. Ratner was looking promising until he bobbled the ball with Red Dragon and dropped it completely with X3. Berg's grip on Hancock was tentative at best so he might want to do something more in his reach before extending himself again.

But the key, of course, is the screenwriter. A guy like Michael Bay is a great action director IF you have a screenwriter and strong producer who keeps Bay from screwing with the script. (But I'm not sure even Bruckheimer can manage Bay's ego anymore)

Berg is capable but hardly someone who'll inspire confidence like Chris Nolan, Alfonso Cuaron, Paul Greengrass, etc.

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Peter Berg had never made a bad film until Hancock and that movie is helpless. I'm fine with the script, specifically what kills it for me is the direction. It has no unique style of its own, instead aping, heavily, the over the shoulder, pseduo-documentarian improv style of Friday Night Lights the TV show (yes, I know Berg helmed it), which is just aping the style of fellow Universal property Battlestar Galactica.

If I were to go on Hancock alone, I'd think Berg had no ability whatsoever to block a shot. Every time I see a bobbing and weaving closeup that uses another person's out of focus head to opaque half the screen it makes me want to punch a director in their spinal column. That style works wonderfully in Battlestar Galactica, where it was so praised, because the context of the show is the tight confinements of bulkheads, a place the cinematographer in all of us knows would have no freedom for camera movement. That style does not work when an entire city is your playground.

Watch that dinner scene with Smith, Bateman and Theron again, Scott. That's not intimacy, that is the lazy absence of style. And those action scenes are sloppy, marginally comprehensible, sup-par effects work. If you're a multi-million dollar major studio tentpole hopeful, your green screen work damn well better be better than the flying CGI mosquito cars in the commercial preceding the film.

Peter Berg was really coming into his own until Hancock, when he fell into the safe zone commercial groove everyone had expected from him three films back. The only thing unique about Hancock is the script and even that was better in Ngo's first script before Berg got involved.

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After his seeing his first 2 horrible films (you really want to defend The Rundown? REALLY?) I stopped going to his movies. You can only fool me twice before I stop coming back for more. From what I've read above, I probably made the right choice.

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You folks do realize that The Foundation Trilogy is three novels full of nothing but people sitting around talking?

Why does everyone seem to think an "action director" should be in charge?

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