Judging from the reaction a couple weeks back to my Happy Birthday open thread, there aren’t many Big Hollywood readers out there who share my hero worship of Muhammad Ali. When Breitbart starts Big Boxing, I’ll explain all of that but know that one of the most heartbreaking moments of my life occurred on October 2nd, 1980, as I watched my 38 year-old idol and shadow of his former self come out of a two-year retirement and take a terrible and humiliating beating at the hands of Heavyweight Champ Larry Holmes.

At that point Ali was beyond past his prime and had absolutely no business being in the ring with any heavyweight much less the Champion of the World. It was hubris and the lure of a quick payday and believing in his own press that caused The Greatest to embarrass himself in front of millions – which brings me to what it feels like to watch the latest theatrical releases* from these five (in order of my personal disappointment).

5. Barry Levinson: Between 1982 and 1991 this Academy Award winner enjoyed one helluva run: Diner, The Natural, Young Sherlock Holmes, Tin Men, Good Morning Vietnam, Rain Man, Avalon, and Bugsy. Not a single miss in the bunch … and then something went terribly wrong, and that something was titled, Toys. Ever since, other than a couple of not-embarrassments like Disclosure and Bandits, Levinson never recovered. Envy, Man of the Year, and Sphere all represent three of the worst films released in their respective years, and nobody cared about any of the others.

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4. Lawrence Kasdan: It’s almost impossible to believe that in the space of just a couple years this Academy Award-nominee penned the screenplays for Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Body Heat – which would mark his directing debut. Two hands-down masterpieces and what is probably the last true classic noir film to come out of Hollywood.

Kasdan would quickly follow Body Heat up with The Big Chill, Silverado, The Accidental Tourist, I Love You to Death, and Grand Canyon – all of which vary from very good to good. Then the wheels came off with the bloated Wyatt Earp, and then the wagon completely burned down with Kasdan’s dreadfully scripted and directed Dreamcatcher. That was seven years ago and no one’s heard from him since.

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Sucked.

3. Martin Scorsese: I don’t care what anybody says, The Departed sucks. You can bury the film in all the golden statues you can lay your hands on and line up every water-carrying film critic within 500 miles of Hollywood & Vine and it won’t change the fact that The Departed sucks, or that Scorsese hasn’t made a good film since Casino in 1996 — and a great film since The Age of Innocence in 1993.

Oh, Marty will be back with ‘Shutter Island.’ Well, I’ve been hearing that Marty will be back with this and that for forever now and all we’ve gotten instead of “back” is the dull Kundun, overblown Gangs of New York (worst third-act of the decade), Bringing Out the Dead (which I hardly remember) and the uninspired but always tedious Aviator.

Maybe Shutter Island will mark a comeback. No one wants that more than I do, and it would certainly prove my theory wrong that the first step of a Scorsese comeback must be unhitching his wagon from Leo.

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2. Steven Spielberg: There is nothing Spielberg can do to undermine his rightful place among the all-time great directors. Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, Schindler’s List, and Jurassic Park are astounding achievements that represent one of the best twenty-year runs in directorial history. There are some clunkers in there like Hook, Always and 1941 (which is currently going through what is sure to be another failed attempt at a revival), but there’s also the under-appreciated Color Purple and hugely entertaining Indiana Jones’ sequels.

The argument after 1993 is over Saving Private Ryan (which falls flatter and flatter after that unforgettable opening), and Artificial Intelligent: A.I. (a near-masterpiece). But is there an argument over what remains? Jurassic Park 2, Amistad, Minority Report, Catch Me if You Can, The Terminal, War of the Worlds, and Munich? The best of this lot, which ranges from fair to average, have their moments, but the magic is clearly gone.

Then there’s the latest from this two-time Oscar winner, the ghastly Indian Jones 4. And you can’t blame George Lucas alone for that travesty. Yes, the script and story were a disaster, but so was the direction, and that’s all on Spielberg.

Nothing would make me happier than a Spielberg comeback. I miss watching Steven Spielberg movies. His early films haven’t aged a day and still fuel the imagination. But the decline is undeniable.

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1. Oliver Stone: From 1986’s Salvador straight through to Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the 4th of July, JFK, The Doors, and Natural Born Killers, Stone never once helmed a film that didn’t offend something I believe to be true or good or both. But what a run of provocative, enthralling and compelling masterpieces that seized the conversation of an entire nation just as brilliantly as they seized all five of your senses while watching.

JFK is a pack of lies, but what lies! What brilliant, audacious, ambitious lies brought to life, constructed and presented by a genius and fevered filmmaker desperate to put them across. And in that respect the movie failed with a loud and clarifying backfire. (The interest Stone ginned up in the assassination came at exactly the right time in our technological world to prove once and for all that Oswald worked alone.) But what Stone didn’t fail at was making what might be the best film of its decade. As a pure piece of cinema, JFK is as masterful as it gets.

Stone’s fall, however, has been further than seemed possible. Nixon and U-Turn are both good films helped enormously by excellent performances but Alexander was the beginning of a creative free fall, a humiliating embarrassment — and there have been HBO movies that feel more like theatrical film than World Trade Center. Finally, politics aside, W. was most certainly Oliver Stone’s Indy 4.

Unfortunately, the future doesn’t look very bright for this two-time Oscar winner. His decision to ape his own past with Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps isn’t even an interesting choice.

Stone used to provoke, madden and anger me — especially because his talent was so damned undeniable. These days…

[*I’m focusing on narrative theatrical films. Not documentaries, what they might have produced or shepherded on television.]