How much of this [link] is hyperbole, and how much can be believed?

They didn't even include what I consider the most infamous abuse, which was Dreyer's abuse of the actress Rene Falconetti in The Passion of Saint Joan.

Many consider it one of the greatest film performances ever, but she also never acted again.

Also, that scream that Karen Allen gives when a snake drops on her in Indian Jones? She didn't know they were going to drop a live snake on her.

Directors are assholes, though David O. Russell seems to be the assholiest one since Hitchcock.

From what I'd read previously, the shooting of Cannibal Holocaust was alleged to have filmed actual rape and brutalization of some of the native extras, not simulated. Don't know if that's true, or how the filmmaker escaped conviction if so.

IIRC, there were such allegations, and the director had to produce the extras (alive and well) that he was accused of having killed in order to escape being charged.

Well balanced directors seem to be a rarity. While I've heard some odd stories about him and things he's said to the cast, I think the most stable director I've ever heard stories about (at least in terms of being an asshole on the set) is David Cronenberg. Go figure.

Well balanced directors seem to be a rarity

Uh, there are tonnes, because there are a metric shitload of directors? I get that they can be annoying, because their job is to tell people what to do, but if I take my actor friends at their word, some bosses suck, most are unremarkable for any sort of insanity.

Cronenberg puts it in his art!

Though The Brood was basically about his divorce.

My feeling is that it's a miracle that any movie gets made and it often takes extraordinary will (frequently unbounded by kindness) to make a movie happen.

I think of the outtake in Punch Drunk Love where Phillip Seymour Hoffman jumps off the second story of a warehouse to land on a huge stack of mattresses which flex and jetison off very painfully to the ground wherepon he groans mightily in significant pain and then gasps, "Did you get it on film?"

As long as you "get it on film" seems to be the only ethic at times.

Uh, there are tonnes, because there are a metric shitload of directors? I get that they can be annoying, because their job is to tell people what to do, but if I take my actor friends at their word, some bosses suck, most are unremarkable for any sort of insanity.

Big name-above-the-title directors? Apart from ones who were actors?

Big name-above-the-title directors?

You'll probably get more fierce directors throwing their weight around, but everybody ups the game. Directing's not the tainted art--it's the level in focus and dismissal of some of the normal niceties some people have to make to get and stay at the top, because they don't know how to act like decent human beings.

But, if you're a director that audiences have heard of, you're a rarified pool right there. There just a big bunch more directors doing movies were the stars are more famous than they are tons and tons. Let's not even count TV directors, because that's not the point, but they do feed the silver screen with non-raging-douchebag material also.

I'm very fond of the 80/20 rule these days. It's supplanted Sturgeon's Law for for explaining shit.

I still haven't seen Hunger Games, but I was in the store today and overheard a woman and the cashier talking about it, the cashier and the person she went with had read the books and did not like the movie at all. The woman who hadn't read the books loved the movie and started reading the books because of the movie.

The cashier and her friend hated the movie because of all the background stuff that was cut/changed. They did not like that Rue barely got any screen time or how the introduction of the pin was handled.

I can't believe Cabin In The Woods is finally coming out.

And also that there was an American Pie sequel in the works, and I'd heard nothing about it. I loved the first one and didn't like the second. Anyone here know any deets about this?

It's about a high school reunion, per the ads.