...at the Dairy Queen.

It's not the hubris of casting yourself that bothers me--it's how you cast yourself that counts, and from all the telling of it, it's a thinly veiled Mary Sue.

Being the misunderstood guy that gets the marvellous girl is more palatable a wish fulfillment scenario for me than the writer who's of tremendous importance to world peace and whatever.

the rest of the list were performers before they became directors.

Does that make a difference? If it's okay to use your success as an actor to try directing, why isn't it okay to use your success as a director to try acting?

Even if you limit it to people who were directors "first", are Shymalan's acting indulgences that notable? Because I feel like he's taken a disproportionate amount of flak for it.

(Thank you for adding Tarantino, I don't know how he slipped my mind.)

I think ita's hit the nail on the head as far as I can see. Messianic complex plus persecution complex minus talent equals douchebag.

Does that make a difference? If it's okay to use your success as an actor to try directing, why isn't it okay to use your success as a director to try acting?

Probably because a director has the power to cast himself as an actor, and not the reverse.

Even if you limit it to people who were directors "first", are Shymalan's acting indulgences that notable? Because I feel like he's taken a disproportionate amount of flak for it.

I think it may be disproportionate. Signs bugged me because it was such a huge jump from his small cameos in the first two movies, and it seemed unnecessary. And then, for the hell of it, he went the other way and only made a vocal cameo in The Village. I actually like all his movies for the most part, though.

Frankly, I think Renoir's The Rules of the Game proves that a director with no history of acting can successfully cast himself in a major role in a major movie (one of the best ever created, in fact) and make it even better.

But Shyamalan is no Renoir.

I despise Tarantino's casting of himself (and anyone else casting him too) because he's a hugely awful actor. That's the other reason that sucks.

I think ita's hit the nail on the head as far as I can see. Messianic complex plus persecution complex minus talent equals douchebag.

...for freedom.

No, wait, that's Bob Novak.

t /gratiutous wingnut pundit bashing

I wouldn't say MNS is without talent (unless you're referring strictly to acting here) but I do think he is a much, much better director than he is a writer, and it wouldn't surprise me if he felt just the opposite.

I despise Tarantino's casting of himself (and anyone else casting him too) because he's a hugely awful actor. That's the other reason that sucks.

The irony there is, if he's to be believed, is that he got into writing/directing because he really wanted to act. He started writing scripts and thinking about directing them so that someone would cast him in a movie. I actually find him enjoyable in small doses, like the TOP GUN riff in SLEEP WITH ME, and even the slightly larger one on ALIAS, but he seems at his worst in his own movies.