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MY TOP 10 BEST RIDLEY SCOTT MOVIES

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Now Prometheus is finally out, I thought I'd take a quick look back at visionary director Ridley Scott's career and outline which of his films I've personally enjoyed the most so far. Here goes... 10 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE Well aware that this isn't THE most popular choice out there but I'm putting it in the list because of how... weird of a project this actually is. It's Ridley Scott basically making a Werner Herzog film with Gerard Depardieu playing Christopher Columbus and Sigourney Weaver as Queen Isabella I. The film itself is a dark, atmospheric, brutal mess with a lot going for it despite being a million hours long (I'm exaggerating). Underrated. 9  AMERICAN GANGSTER Did not expect to like this one. By the time the film was released I'd pretty much given up on seeing another good Ridley Scott movie ever again (walked out of the unforgivably irritating A Good Year ) but I gave it a shot and found myself weirdly getti

AMERICAN REUNION - REVIEW

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Some jokes never get old. Then again some do. Sadly, the whole American Pie thing started getting old with American Pie: The Wedding , and that was before all those straight-to-DVD ones. So yeah, a reunion I guess could have been a good way to update the franchise a little bit and maybe do something epic with those characters for once... Unfortunately, studios went for the safer route: American Reunion is the typical comedy sequel with everyone having a bit of a mid-life crisis before all growing up and settling down like good little human puppets. YAWN. Now I suppose they can take comfort in the knowledge that American Reunion is the best American Pie film since the second one but it's a pretty big drop-off in between and with all the cast back for a full-on reunion, they could have put a tad bit more effort into telling some kind of memorable and different story. You know the drill: everyone shows up, Stifler screws up their lives after a (mildly) crazy week-end, ever

AMERICAN PSYCHO 2 - REVIEW

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  You know how some sequels really aren't sequels at all but in fact entirely different creations with a familiar title tacked on? Like Halloween III or Exorcist II ? Well, this is one of those movies. Oh sure Brett Easton Ellis' Patrick Bateman appears briefly as part of Mila Kunis' backstory but really, this "All American Girl" sequel to American Psycho is another monster altogether. Actually, this feels much more like another Cruel Intentions sequel or a really, really twisted version of Alexander Payne's Election . I guess there's a serial killer theme to the proceedings but were the killings themselves really the whole point of the American Psycho story? Whatever depth the original had to it is reduced to a very predictable and straight-forward teen movie/thriller/black comedy. So if you can ignore the film's unfortunate attachment to American Psycho, this isn't a bad film. It's not GOOD but as a dark teen movie, it's ok: styli

THE AMERICAN - REVIEW

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Or, as it should be called: "Look Ma I'm in a European Movie!", The American is an odd creation in that it feels like a French or German thriller produced by Steven Soderbergh with Clooney in the middle of it all. Which is not to say it has no value: it's actually surprisingly tense and gripping even if not much at all actually happens. Clooney once again gives a fair but hardly earth-shattering dramatic performance and makes me wish, once again, that I was watching him in another gloriously wacky Coen Brothers movie. That said, he does well here and clearly enjoys the quirks of being in a European movie (Violante Placido is pretty much naked the entire time). Story-wise: he makes a weapon for some ominous hit-woman, falls in love with a prostitute, speaks to a priest for some reason...and a whole bunch of inevitable yet perplexing stuff happens right at the end. The American won't change your life but occasionally it does surprise you with a nea

AMERICAN PSYCHO - REVIEW

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Strangely underrated adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis' grim and gory novel, American Psycho is a stylish black comedy with a welcome touch of twisted madness. Christian Bale has never been better than as Patrick Bateman: the smooth yet rotten and, ultimately, criminally demented Wall Street Genesis fan is a complex character to pull off but he does so effortlessly. The film itself looks super-slick and feels just as classy and wicked as its main protagonist. Bateman's restrained fits of jealousy and meticulous approach to serial killing, not to mention his interactions with fellow yuppies being highlights. More of a black comedy with blood than a straight-up slasher film, American Psycho is still an unpleasant enough tale to qualify as a horror. Even if the film is considerably less gruesome than the novel, the right atmosphere and overall spirit of the book is brilliantly captured here. All in all, well worth seeing if only to see Christian Bale's tour d