Gladiator and Alien director Sir Ridley Scott has never been one to beat around the bush.
The 4-time Oscar-nominated director (how has he never won?) was recently asked by a fan at a BFI event in London what his regular viewing habits were and if he had a comfort film.
The almost 88-year-old replied: “Well, right now I’m finding mediocrity, we’re drowning in mediocrity. So what I do, and it’s a horrible thing, but I’ve started to watch my own movies, and actually, they’re really good. And also, they don’t age.”
According to Yahoo, Scott said of his own movie: “I watched Black Hawk [Down] the other night and I thought, ‘How the hell did I do that?’ But I think that occasionally there’s a good one that will happen, it’s like a relief that there’s somebody out there who’s doing a good movie.” He then pressed further on his problem with modern Hollywood cinema, with its focus on CGI over practical effects.
Scott added: “The quantity of movies that are made today, literally globally, millions. There’s not thousands, there’s millions, and most of it is s***. 80-60% eh, 40% is the rest, and 25% of that 40 is not bad, and 10% is pretty good, and the top 5% is great. I’m not sure about the portion of what I’ve just said, but in the 1940s, when there were perhaps 300 movies made, 70% of them were similar, for example. I think a lot of films today are saved and made more expensive by digital effects, because what they haven’t got is a great thing on paper first. Get it on paper.”