Who Are “The Terrible Auteurs?”

We get it: people hate Michael Bay. With a passion. And he knows it, too.

After Michael Bay tried serious with a serious movie that was seriously awful (Pearl Harbor), he followed up the criticism with two fingers in the air (and it wasn’t a peace sign) with Bad Boys II. Bad Boys II featured explosions, shorter skirts, homophobia, a pudgy Martin Lawrence and a cop copping a feel from a dead woman. Bay even has a scene in the newest Transformers movie (out now) where his characters complain in an old abandoned theater about Hollywood and sequels and consumerism. If 22 Jump Street can get mega-love for satirizing sequelitis all the way to the bank, surely Bay can, too! He knows people will be back. And we do, too.

Michael Bay was born in Los Angeles. That’s a bit of trivia that seems to excuse his extra (almost satirical) level of movie-flexing. He makes movies that Dutch action satirist Paul Verhoeven (Robocop, Starship Troopers, Total Recall) would’ve made fake trailers for to put into his own movies. His movies are so over the top, a clip could be placed in front of every “everything that’s wrong with _______” segment in media. He’s all gunshots, explosions and cleavage (male and female). Worse, he has homophobic fears running through a number of his films (his muscle-bound men who are afraid of advances from less muscle-bound – read: less manly – men). 

Look, we don’t necessarily like Michael Bay either. But the chief reason why Bay is on the Rushmore of hated directors is because his movies make so much money. If they didn’t no one would care. He’d be in a Simon West dustbin. And Simon West probably hopes he’ll join him in there because he was basically hired by Jerry Bruckheimer (Michael Bay’s #1 bro) to direct Con Air exactly like Michael Bay did for Bad Boys and The Rock. 

But let’s give Bay his due. There’s a reason why West and others who’ve attempted a seemingly simple formula — fluid camera, low-cut blouses, dude wisecracks plus explosions = mega-bucks — and fail at making a long career out of it. For Bay it’s his attachment to his toys that drive the story (and not the other way around). That includes cars, robots and Megan Fox. His extra attention of accentuating ownership over these things is distinct. The shiny metal of his cars, motorcycles and robots reflect the sun that always seems to be setting in a Bay movie, as if capitalism itself is just a reflection of the natural world. And that’s what a Michael Bay really movie is and what it is very unsettling to some people: it’s throbbing capitalism at the expense of standard storytelling.

But that authentic tramp-stamp also places Bay in an auteur category. Right now, as we speak, that snobby region of filmdom is going through a reformation. It was once an area reserved for only the most agreed upon great and important filmmakers. But now the word is now going back to its roots. The roots come from the French word for “author.” It deems that if simply by watching a movie you can tell who directed it without knowing who it was beforehand, then that is a director in full control of the story and is indeed the author. The reason why the term “auteur” has often been so snooty is that it comes from a European copyright law that gives the true author the actual copyright ownership to their films. Or at least a part of it.

If being an auteur is akin to having a corporate trademark, then Michael Bay might be the most modern of auteurs. And if Michael Bay, one of the most reviled filmmakers, can be an auteur, then all bets are off. Stand by the phone because the auteur membership drive is taking donations! And in honor of Bay, who’s never shied away from product placement, corporate sponsors are welcome.

In true hyper-capitalist fashion, what makes Michael Bay an auteur, however, is similar to a child throwing a fit in an attempt to get everything that they want. In parenting they call that “the terrible twos.” So that got us thinking, in a twist for a pun, what would the “terrible auteurs” be? Not necessarily the worst directors, but the directors whose authorship comes from either something really jittery, excessively dramatic or could be traced back to a stunted fixation on female body parts.

Well, that was the criteria we had for 10 directors other than Bay, who’ve also put their own “terrible” stamp to use. Whether it’s ego, misogyny, overuse of shutter edits, overblown colors, robust fetishism or simple childish lack of attention to detail — the below directors are certainly auteurs. We imagine that there are a few included that might annoy or upset, and please feel free to comment, just don’t throw a fit. Again, this list is for the recognizably over-indulgent, over-fixated, cinematic authors.  

You can call me terrible, too. I’m the author.

Slideshow: The “Terrible Auteurs”

Brian Formo is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel. You can follow him on Twitter at @BrianEmilFormo.