ridley scott | the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On Letting Ridley Scott Be a Grumpy Old Man…

Posted on November 26, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of House of Gucci, Ridley Scott has had a chance to talk about the financial failure of The Last Duel, blaming “millennian” audiences.

Scott’s comments have generated considerable online outrage, fueling more than a few clickbaity headlines designed to stoke anger. It’s a familiar process, which is why so many interviews seem to consist of asking really great directors what they think about superhero movies so that the outlet might be able to go viral with a spicy headline. In truth, Scott’s a filmmaker who has been working for well over half a decade. He’s an 84-year-old man who made two movies in the middle of the pandemic – one of which is actively good, and both are at least interesting. Maybe he can be a grumpy old man.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: house of gucci, on the frame, ridley scott, the last duel | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: House of Gucci

Posted on November 25, 2021 by Darren

At its core, House of Gucci is the story of how the handbag is made.

Trying to convince his nephew Maurizio to take the reigns on the family business, Aldo Gucci explains that the cows that provide the leather for the company’s products are part of a long dynasty. Much like Aldo and his brother Rodolfo inherited the company from their own father Guccio Gucci, these cows are the direct descendents of the animals upon which the brand was established. To Aldo, Gucci is a fmaily business, right down to the cows that are fattened for slaughter. Aldo insists that the cows deserve praise for what they have given their owners. However, the cows still inevitably get skinned.

Where there’s smoke…

House of Gucci returns time and again to this animal imagery. “Gucci is a rare animal,” Domenico De Sole warns Patrizia Reggiani at one point, as the family consider how best to maintain the brand. “It must be protected.” It’s no coincidence that, towards the climax of the movie, the investors debating the future of the family’s ownership of the brand enjoy delicious cuts of steak. It’s rare, of course, the blood visible as they cut into it. The imagery is hardly subtle. Perhaps Aldo and his family have more in common with the cows than they’d like to acknowledge.

House of Gucci feels like something of a companion piece to two other recent Ridley Scott films, The Counsellor and All the Money in the World. Both feel like extrapolations of themes that have bubbled across the director’s filmography, from his earliest work on movies like Alien and Blade Runner. They are cautionary tales about the terrible things that people will do to one another for money, shaped by the ironic understanding that even after all these terrible things are done, nobody really wins. House of Gucci is not a particularly subtle movie, but it doesn’t need to be.

Glass act.

House of Gucci is similar to The Counsellor and All the Money in the World in other ways, as a movie that feels significantly less than the sum of its parts. Then again, what parts they are. House of Gucci doesn’t really hang together cohesively as a movie, often feeling like several smaller movies wrestling for control of the narrative. Every major member of the cast feels like they are the star of their own movie, but not necessarily an essential part of this movie. House of Gucci puts Howard Hawks’ “three great scenes” hypothesis to the test, compiling a number of compelling individual scenes that rarely add to something greater.

House of Gucci is an interesting, disjointed, uneven but strangely compelling study of what wealth does to people – particularly when it no longer needs them.

A familiar ring to it.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: capitalism, film, gucci, house of gucci, Lady Gaga, Movie, non-review review, review, ridley scott | Leave a comment »

261. Gladiator (#44)

Posted on November 20, 2021 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, with special guests Stacy Grouden and Joe Griffin, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.

This time, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator.

As Rome extends its dominion over the rest of the world, General Maximus Decimus Meridius dreams only of returning home to his family. However, fate has other plans. When Maximus winds up accidentally involved in a sinister conspiracy surrounding the beloved Emperor Marcus Aurelius, his entire life is thrown into chaos. Maximus finds himself abandoned and left for dead. Recovered by a slave trader, Maximus is sold to an older entertainment manager Proximo, who sees a lot of potential in “the Spaniard.”

At time of recording, it was ranked 44th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: academy awards, america, best picture, brutality, Commodus, emperor, empire, epics, films, hollywood, joe griffin, masculinity, maximus, Movies, myth, Oscars, podcast, politics, ridley scott, rome, russell crowe, spectacle, stacy grouden, The 250, the end of history, violence | Leave a comment »

259. Alien – Halloween 2021 (#52)

Posted on October 30, 2021 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Doctor Bernice Murphy and Joey Keogh, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

So this week, a Halloween treat: Ridley Scott’s Alien.

A mysterious signal from deep space awakens the crew of the shipping vessel Nostromo. Following standing orders to respond, the crew find themselves drawn to a hostile and barren world. They track the signal to the wreckage of a strange and mysterious craft. However, there might just be something sinister stirring deep within that wreckage.

At time of recording, it was ranked 52nd on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: alien, bernice murphy, body horror, capitalism, Dan O'Bannon, doctor bernice murphy, Ellen Ripley, femininity, gender, halloween, horrorm, joey keogh, ridley scott, signourney weaver, space, The 250, the monstrous feminine, Veronica Cartwright, xenomorph | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! “The Last Duel Proves Ridley Scott Is Still Sharp – Review”

Posted on October 21, 2021 by Darren

I’m thrilled to be launching movie reviews on The Escapist. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be joining a set of contributors in adding these reviews to the channel. For the moment, I’m honoured to contribute a three-minute film review of The Last Duel, which released theatrically worldwide last weekend.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: 3 minute review, 3mr, adam driver, ben affleck, jodie comer, matt damon, review, ridley scott, the escapist, the last duel, three minute review | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Last Duel

Posted on October 12, 2021 by Darren

The Last Duel is a thorny and compelling medieval epic. It’s a little rough around the edges, but that’s undeniably part of the appeal.

The Last Duel is adapted from the book of the same name by historian Eric Jager. As its title implies, the film offers an account of the last judicial duel permitted by the Parlement of Paris. That duel was fought between two noblemen: Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris. The challenge was offered over allegations that Le Gris had raped de Carrouges’ wife, Maguerite. The assumption was that divine authority would ultimately determine where the truth lay in the matter, that the victor in this mortal combat would ultimately be vindicated.

Duel narratives.

Naturally, the events that inspired The Last Duel remain contentious. Historians are not entirely sure what happened, and how much of the various accounts reflect the truth of what happened or have been shaped by the convenient narratives of the victors. The film, with a screenplay from Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Nicole Holofcener, leans into this ambiguity. The film is structured similarly to Akira Kurosawa’s Roshomon, outlining three separate accounts of the events leading up to the trial from the perspective of each of the key figures: Jean, Jacques and Maguerite.

The result is a film that touches on the blurred boundaries between history and narrative, and explores the way in which these sorts of stories are shaped by wounded pride and vain ego. It’s an uncomfortable and unsettling film, occasionally a little clumsy in its execution, but which grapples with big ideas.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: adam driver, ben affleck, ego, film, Honour, jodie comer, masculinity, matt damon, Movie, non-review review, perspective, pride, review, ridley scott, the last duel, vanity | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On James Cameron’s “Aliens” as a Challenge to Ridley Scott’s “Alien”…

Posted on July 5, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. James Cameron’s Aliens is thirty-five years old this July, so it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at one of the best sequels ever made.

Aliens works in large part because it’s smart enough to avoid directly challenging Alien, in that it avoids simply recycling the original formula with a shift in location or with a new cast. Instead, it offers a very different approach to the core material. More than that, James Cameron positions Aliens as a direct challenge to Alien, deliberately and pointedly inverting some of the core themes of the original film. This choice enriches both films, turning Alien and Aliens into a conversation.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: alien, aliens, Ellen Ripley, feminism, Fox, horror, james cameron, ridley scott, Ripley, science fiction, sequel, sequels, themes | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On Ridley Scott’s Science-Fiction Sensibility in “Raised by Wolves”…

Posted on September 14, 2020 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist on Friday. With the launch of Raised by Wolves on HBO Max, I thought it was worth taking a look at the streaming science-fiction series.

The most striking thing about Raised by Wolves is the extent to which it feels like a Ridley Scott production. Scott did not write or create the show, the was Aaron Guzikowski. However, Scott directed the first two episodes, and they often feel like an extension of Scott’s work. There are obvious echoes of Scott’s iconic science-fiction work in classics like Alien and Blade Runner, but also shots and sequences that seem to have been lifted from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.

This works rather well, as Raised by Wolves delves into some of Scott’s core thematic preoccupations. Like Prometheus, Exodus: Gods and Kings and Covenant, this is a story about religion. Like Prometheus, Gods and Kings, Covenant and All the Money in the World, it is also a story about parenthood and the responsibility of caring for a younger life. However, because Raised by Wolves is not tied to any existing intellectual property, it gives Scott a lot of space to work. More than that, it suggests that Scott is a brand unto himself.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: alien, ridley scott, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On David as the Monster in “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant”…

Posted on June 7, 2020 by Darren

I published a new piece at Escapist Magazine this evening. This week, Ridley Scott explained that he wanted to “re-evolve” the central monster from the Alien franchise.

This is an interesting argument, particularly given Scott’s long-standing criticism about the xenomorph, and his argument that the creature has perhaps outlived its relevance. Indeed, one of the most interesting facets of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant is the way in which David essentially updates many of the core thematic elements of the xenomorph. David takes the creature’s threat of sexual violence, and updates it for the twenty-first century.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: alien, David, escapist, Michael Fassbender, Movie, Prometheus, ridley scott, xenomorph | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Gladiator” as a Celebration of Spectacle…

Posted on May 10, 2020 by Darren

I published a new piece at Escapist Magazine this evening. Gladiator was released twenty years ago this month, so it seemed like a good time to look back on it.

Gladiator is very obviously an example of classic Hollywood spectacle, harking back to the biblical epics of the middle of the twentieth century like Ben Hur or The Ten Commandments or Spartacus or even Cleopatra. However, there’s also a more reflective aspect to the film. Ridley Scott constructs Gladiator as a celebration of the art of spectacle, and the power of populist narratives to shape and define a larger society. Maximus does not triumph because he is a soldier or a general, he ultimately wins because he is an entertainer.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.