As bad artists always will, the film-buff directors have tried to erect opportunism into a virtue.
In the extras on the new edition, it's heartening to hear Spielberg and his fans (including buffs and directors as diverse as Bryan Singer, M. Night Shyamalan, Kevin Smith, and Eli Roth) take all the right lessons from this film's success.
A 52-year-old film buff-turned-director from Knoxville, Tennessee named Quentin Tarantino.
A military history buff, he was Director of the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, CT; involved in the preservation of the Intrepid Aircraft Carrier; and contributed to the Robert A. Lovett Professorship of Military History at Yale University.
Thomas Gladysz is an arts journalist and early film buff, and the Director of the Louise Brooks Society, an internet-based archive and international fan club devoted to the silent film star.
But, after all, you don't have to be a film buff to be a director.
Many country stars, including Ms. Yearwood and Ms. Mattea, worked at the museum in its old location; the reference books, magazines and CD's that the museum's foundation produces are essential for any country music buff; and its longtime director, William Ivey, is now head of the National Endowment for the Arts.
The extras on the "Spartacus" DVD come almost wholly from the original laser disc (released after the film's 1991 restoration), including the informative audio commentary from Mr. Douglas, Mr. Ustinov and the restorer Robert Harris as well as newsreels, interviews, deleted scenes, the designer Saul Bass's storyboards and -- the lone item for Kubrick buffs -- the director's original scene sketches.
SINCE its disastrous premiere at the Paris Opera in 1838, Berlioz's "Benvenuto Cellini" has continued to confound many directors and opera buffs.
"We've focused on the efficacy of the drug and not on beautiful, buff people," said Mike Devlin, creative director at CCA. "This is a tough disease, with tough choices," he added, and the campaign is intended to offer Viracept as "a choice, not the answer".
Here's one poll you can trust: whenever film buffs vote on the best directors of all time, Alfred Hitchcock will score highly.
