It is a cliché by this point that once a movie star achieves a certain degree of success, they begin telling everyone that what they'd really like to do is direct. Sometimes it works out. Kevin Costner won Best Picture and Best Director for his 1990 feature debut with "Dances with Wolves," and then you've got Charles Laughton, whose only directorial effort, "Night of the Hunter," is considered one of the greatest movies ever made. On the other end of the spectrum, there's Dan Ayrkroyd and the inexplicable horror-comedy debacle that is "Nothing But Trouble" (once titled "Valkenvania"). This was a passion project for Ayrkroyd (he wrote and directed it), and he's only now beginning to make sense of its wreckage (most recently via a wide-ranging Q&A quoted at Stereogum ).

Directing can

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