šŸŽ¬ And... ACTION! #2: Ridley Scott

Thelma and Louise is genuinely great, Gladiator as well I reckon, plus heā€™s from South Shields or something so 5/5 for that.

Also, A Good Year is one of the most bafflingly awful films you could ever wish to see, I adore it.

2 Likes

Now, of course, @AQOS has to do Tony Scott to see how they match up.

Someone I need to make a conscious effort to delve into more of their filmography tbh.

Thelma & Louise and Blade Runner are both incredible films but a lot of his recent output has been pretty fucking dire really tbf.

It was the transformation of Hannibal Lecter into a supervillain, then making him the good guy, then having Starling fall in love with him and run off into the sunset, even though he had kidnapped her and fed her human brains that did it.

Probably made too many films imo

2 Likes

Just looked up Kingdom of Heaven to remember about it and its three hours and fourteen minutes long. What the fuck was he thinking and why did they let him get away with that!?

The Martian is a good and fun film

8 Likes

Technically they didnā€™t, they just let him do a directorā€™s cut after

Running time
144 minutes
194 minutes (Directorā€™s cut)

Supposedly the Directorā€™s Cut is a lot better.

3 Likes

Like alien, not seen blade runner. Saw gladiator and black hawk down to know if theyā€™re any good.

Probably go a 2 idk

1 Like

Alien and Blade Runner - excellent
Thelma and Louise - nearly as good
Have a soft spot for black rain even though I know itā€™s very much not good. Ditto for the martian
Hannibal is atrocious
Gladiator is rubbish
The rest (that Iā€™ve seen) suck

5/5

actually finding it very hard to score him: his best films are fantastic, but thereā€™s an absolutely massive drop off after that

3 Likes

Alien is great.
The Duelist would be great with 45 minutes cut off the running time.
So long since Iā€™ve seen Thelma & Louise I canā€™t really remember but I think it was decent. Maybe I was disappointed because it didnā€™t really seem to match the hype.
Blade Runner annoys me.
Everything else barely worth mentioning/outright awful.

5 for Alien but overall a 2 maximum, feels generous tbh.

MIght watch Black Rain again soon. Havenā€™t seen it for years and I bet itā€™s aged really badly in all sorts of ways, but I have a soft spot for late 80ā€™s early 90ā€™s neo-noir type cop nonsense.

3 Likes

donā€™t think heā€™s a hackā€¦ just an absolute nothing of a director. he will assemble the film together competently but has zero bearing on whether it will be any good or not.

just look at the amount of shite heā€™s directed. can only be blind luck that the good ones turned out that way rather than because he had anything to do with it.

2 Likes

Feel Iā€™m gonna be giving out a lot of 3/5s

Saw the Duellists for the first time recently and it was pretty good

Iā€™d completely forgotten he directed Hannibal :joy:. Find it amazing that a director who made 3 or 4 all time classics managed to also make so much utter shit

I will never get bored of Alien and Blade Runner though

Find him to be quite sterile, dull and pompous really.
Maybe thatā€™s why alien and blade runner are good, they fit his natural vibe.

Hated gladiator - so boring, goes on forever, should have set it in space / the future

2 Likes

Makes me wanna revise my Nolan score upwards

1 Like

from what Iā€™ve seen

Alien - stuff of legend. Amazing. Best film
Blade Runner - this is good too
Thelma and Louise - hey I like this!
Gladiator - too long but not sure why this is getting so much hate. Thereā€™s tigers and swords and all sorts of cool shit in this one
Prometheus - guess what? I donā€™t hate this
Hannibal - yeah this is bad
The Martian - fine.
Alien Covenant - hahahahaha

1 Like

Iā€™ve seen both (Why? I donā€™t know why) and while the directorā€™s cut is better, it still doesnā€™t make it a good film.

That said, Ridley Scottā€™s directorā€™s cuts often do actually bring qualities other than just ā€˜adding back all the footage that got cut to make the film viable at the cinemaā€™ - he will go back and cut transitions and shots that he feels inversely affect the pacing in addition to putting stuff in, plus fix bits of post-production that were rushed or bodged. His directorā€™s cuts of Blade Runner all improve on each other.

He went through a period of seemingly making one good film followed by one bad film. Latterly, he doesnā€™t seem to be able to maintain this ration sadly. That said, Iā€™m going to rate these guys based on the films that Iā€™m going to revisit rather than their dross which Iā€™m never going to watch again, so itā€™s a 5 from meā€¦

1 Like

Can I shock you? I liked The Counselor.

1 Like