I miss the Coen Brothers so much. That whole generation of auteurs, with their playfulness and humor and self-aware toying with cinematic conventions was tremendous fun.
Dark Knight may be my favorite comic movie of all time, but I honestly don’t fully understand the infatuation with Nolan. There’s a chilly, distant, impersonal feel to his films reminiscent of Kubrick, another auteur I’ve always found alienating. Honestly, a lot of his appeal seems to be that he makes viewers feel smart without asking very much of them. A lot of the current generation of big name directors - Villanueva springs to mind - have that same self-serious coldness. It’s a long way from the impish cineaste approach, the wink and nod, of the Coens or Raimi or even earlier filmmakers like Lynch. Where’s the fun?
PS: Just thinking of more from that disappearing generation - Tarantino, Burton, Wes Anderson… Kids who got the keys to the candy store.
Paul Thomas Anderson is fascinating because his initial sprawling epics were very much of the postmodern giddy era (the Sundance era?) but he quickly shifted into one of the leading representatives of modern Kubrickian coldness with his recent character studies. When modern PTA tried to make an old-school PTA film, Inherent Vice, it was the worst film of his career.
I suppose Lanthimos, Bong Joon Ho, and Del Toro still have some of the old spirit - although the latter two are arguably slightly later members of the earlier generation.
Didn’t want to take a bath after. 
