What happened to Robert Rodriguez?

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The dude came out hot. Desperado was a hell of an introduction to the mainstream moviegoer and From Dusk Til Dawn was a great follow-up. He and his buddy Quentin Tarantino seemed to be taking the film world by storm.

But whereas Quentin just continued to climb higher and higher, I feel like Rodriguez went off in some weird directions that lead to him ultimately spiraling farther and farther into irrelevance until he's gotten to where he is today, which is basically a non-factor in the world of directors.

Sin City was obviously a big hit for him. But he spent way too much time and effort on countless Spy Kids sequels, Sharkboy and Lava Girl, and films like Machete and Machete Kills which, while perhaps fun, are not substantial in any way. And today he seems to just be a guy who occasionally makes a movie that no one cares about.

Or maybe I'm wrong? Am I on point here or am I being too hard on the guy?
 


he sold Grindhouse to Weinstein even though he knew he raped his girlfriend.
 
He's pretty much where he always has been. Making schlocky genre pictures with deeply-entrenched roots in the grindhouse, exploitation fare. It's just the factor of how well-made they are that has been oscillating through his films.

Except the Spy Kids shit, that's just him entertaining his kids and fattening his own pockets.

See, I think the difference between him and Tarantino is that he didn't have Tarantino's artistic drive. He's comfortable being on about exact same wavelength through his career, making pictures that are largely true to their genre-tradition. They're both dudes heavily influenced by the same shlock but Tarantino just has a greater (and better) instincts on how to expand upon and appropriate it for his own uses, leading to more memorable and creative work.
 
Sad to say, he's directing the remake of Escape from New York. I hate typing those words. Leave Escape from New York alone.

He's also directing the live action version of Alita Battle Angel.

But really, look at his lineup. A whole bunch of Spy Kids movies for his kids, the El Mariachi Trilogy, and pictures like Planet Terror and Machete. He's all over the map, easily one of the least consistent directors I can think of, but likes to stick to genre films.
 
europe1 said:
See, I think the difference between him and Tarantino is that he didn't have Tarantino's artistic drive. He's comfortable being on about exact same wavelength through his career, making pictures that are largely true to their genre-tradition. They're both dudes heavily influenced by the same shlock but Tarantino just has a greater (and better) instincts on how to expand upon and appropriate it for his own uses, leading to more memorable and creative work.
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It seems that his movies have gotten worse though.

Desperado, From Dusk Til Dawn, Once Upon a Time in Mexico > Planet Terror, Machete, Machete Kills
 
jeicex said:
Sad to say, he's directing the remake of Escape from New York. I hate typing those words. Leave Escape from New York alone.
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I think this may have been canceled. I also remember hearing about it but it's no longer listed on his IMDB page.

jeicex said:
But really, look at his lineup. A whole bunch of Spy Kids movies for his kids, the El Mariachi Trilogy, and pictures like Planet Terror and Machete. He's all over the map, easily one of the least consistent directors I can think of, but likes to stick to genre films.
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Yeah, I think this is what really inspired this thread. I looked at his filmography and was just kind of like WTF?

The dude seemed to show a lot of promise and have a ton of potential and in the mid-90s I thought he would go on to big things. But 20 years later, when you really take a look at what he's done, he doesn't have a lot to show for his efforts.
 
shadow_priest_x said:
I think this may have been canceled. I also remember hearing about it but it's no longer listed on his IMDB page.
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God I hope so.

Yeah, I think this is what really inspired this thread. I looked at his filmography and was just kind of like WTF?

The dude seemed to show a lot of promise and have a ton of potential and in the mid-90s I thought he would go on to big things. But 20 years later, when you really take a look at what he's done, he doesn't have a lot to show for his efforts.
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You can kind of lump his filmmaking saga into small little eras - the Spy Kid era, the Mexico Era, the Sin City Era, the Grindhouse era, etc. I mean his last good movie was Sin City 12 years ago, although Machete and Planet Terror have their charms.

It also seems like when he makes a continuation of one of his films, the subsequent result is not nearly as good. You can debate about whether El Mariachi or Desperado is better (El Mariachi for me), but both are superior to the third. The first Sin City is better than its sequel, the first Machete superior as well, and I think the Spy Kids films (I worked in a movie theater as a projectionist for several years and have younger siblings so it happened) got worse as they progressed.
 
Also, his 100 Year "film" feels like a total gimmick, who honestly knows what film will be like in 2115.
 
jeicex said:
It also seems like when he makes a continuation of one of his films, the subsequent result is not nearly as good. You can debate about whether El Mariachi or Desperado is better (El Mariachi for me), but both are superior to the third. The first Sin City is better than its sequel, the first Machete superior as well, and I think the Spy Kids films (I worked in a movie theater as a projectionist for several years and have younger siblings so it happened) got worse as they progressed.
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I'm surprised you'd rank Mariachi above Desperado. I think Mariachi feels like exactly what it is, a $7,000 proof of concept. Desperado feels like the final finished product.

I actually think that Desperado is still the best film he's ever done. I'm probably in the minority, but I didn't even really like Sin City. Sure, it was cool visually and had a lot of names in it, but I thought the story was dull.
 
Boomslang said:
John Malkovich and him made a movie that will be released a hundred years from now. That’s all I know. Heard about it about a year ago.
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Oh, so it's something we can't even watch?

Hmm. . . Okay.
 
shadow_priest_x said:
I'm surprised you'd rank Mariachi above Desperado. I think Mariachi feels like exactly what it is, a $7,000 proof of concept. Desperado feels like the final finished product.

I actually think that Desperado is still the best film he's ever done. I'm probably in the minority, but I didn't even really like Sin City. Sure, it was cool visually and had a lot of names in it, but I thought the story was dull.
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See, by saying El Mariachi > Desperado, it doesn't mean Desperado is bad. I enjoyed the raw and unpolished nature of El Mariachi more than the remastered version of Desperado. It didn't need baysplosions to get the point across, although I do think I liked Banderes over the guy that was in El Mariachi. Also, I'm probably in the minority, but I think Salma Hayek is overrated. Great in Frida, but look at all the other garbage she's been a part of, like the Grown Ups films and Wild Wild West.

shadow_priest_x said:
I'm not even familiar with this. What's it all about?
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It feels to me like a long advertisement for Remy Martin, although John Malkovich is in it and I would enjoy him in a website commercial if he played himself. Oh yeah.

But anyway, it's a film that will be released in 2115, it's locked in a safe until then and will be released beyond our lifetimes. Until it's leaked, that is. We know basically nothing about it.
http://people.com/celebrity/john-malkovich-explains-why-he-made-a-movie-no-one-will-see/
 
jeicex said:
Also, I'm probably in the minority, but I think Salma Hayek is overrated. Great in Frida, but look at all the other garbage she's been a part of, like the Grown Ups films and Wild Wild West.
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She is actually hilarious in The Hitman's Bodyguard. I just watched that recently and didn't even know she was in it, but there she was and she did a great job with the screen time she had to work with. She also still looks fucking amazing for a 51-year-old woman.

jeicex said:
It feels to me like a long advertisement for Remy Martin, although John Malkovich is in it and I would enjoy him in a website commercial if he played himself. Oh yeah.

But anyway, it's a film that will be released in 2115, it's locked in a safe until then and will be released beyond our lifetimes. Until it's leaked, that is. We know basically nothing about it.
http://people.com/celebrity/john-malkovich-explains-why-he-made-a-movie-no-one-will-see/
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Interesting. This quote from Malkovich is money:

The truth is if you act in a play you never see it. I’ve certainly acted in a lot of movies I’ve never seen and a number of them I wouldn’t particularly be tempted to.

Here's my question: Presumably this is a digital file. Who knows if the proper codec to play it is even going to still be around in a hundred years. Or if the proper technology to read whatever it is stored on will still be around. That's like storing something on a floppy disk and expecting a functional floppy drive to still be available in a hundred years.
 
shadow_priest_x said:
It seems that his movies have gotten worse though.

Desperado, From Dusk Til Dawn, Once Upon a Time in Mexico > Planet Terror, Machete, Machete Kills
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Those are entirely different kinds of movies, the last three being intentionally over-the-top campy. Also why not include Sin City?
 
blaseblah said:
Those are entirely different kinds of movies, the last three being intentionally over-the-top campy. Also why not include Sin City?
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They're different, yes, but that doesn't change the fact that I derived a lot more enjoyment from his earlier efforts than I have from his later ones.The Shawshank Redemption is entirely different from Freddy Got Fingered, but I know which one is the better film.

As for Sin City, I have mixed feelings about it. I think it's a well-made movie from a standpoint of craftsmanship, but at the same time I don't really like it. It looks great, the performances are excellent, but it bores me.
 
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