Auteur Watch - Ridley and Tony Scott

And here they are. Daniel Benzali, the creepy bald dude from Murder One, standing next to Don Henley of the Eagles... I'm sorry, it's the mighty Brothers Scott: Tony and Ridley. I don't know if they're the exact opposite of the Coens, but close: they're British, they definitely work separately, and it's been YEARS since they wrote a script. That's all I can think of at the moment.
But let's take our usual sip of this grand drink that is their collective histories. Ridley's the older trailblazing brother, doing short films and British TV in the 60s when everyone else was tuning in, turning on and dropping out. Hard to say what his 70s were like, but he eventually cleaned up his act and got full bore into the silver screen game, first with the stylish Duellists, then with the box office smash Alien. The 80s started out promisingly enough with the now cinematic touchstone Blade Runner, but the 80s would prove to be a little tough for Ridley. During the 80s, it was the fall of Ridley and the rise of younger brother Tony, who was a little more willing to play the Hollywood game, eventually helping Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer start to become household names with such guy fare as Beverly Hills Cop II and Top Gun.
Then came the sensitive 90s. Ridley would set the tone yet again with Thelma & Louise. He always seems to start a new decade with a big hit, then putter along with a bunch of flops. Tony kept with the teenage boy-geared flicks: Days of Thunder, The Last Boy Scout, True Romance, Crimson Tide... Comet Quentin rubbed off on him as well as Oliver Stone! But then, Tony started to mature a bit with The Fan, betting on black with Wesley Snipes, and finally ending his directorial decade with what I can only assume many consider Tony's masterpiece, Enemy of the State. Lord help us if satellite technology ever gets that good, because apparently 20-something kids will be using it, treating the whole world like their own private video game.
In the 2000s, tensions between Ridley and Tony would still run high, but by the end of the decade they finally buried the hatchet, as one of their parents must've told them on their deathbed that they should do more projects together. Like The A-Team movie! Crap they themselves wouldn't touch with a 30 foot director's pole, but on the other hand, it better not suck too bad, either. What do the 2010s look like for this dynamic duo whose films cumulatively have generated over... 700 trillion dollars... I'm sorry, that's probably a little high, but given the rate of inflation these days, especially in Zimbabwe, or wherever that was. God bless you, Ridley and Tony Scott, and may your movies entertain people until the end of time, or until global warming turns the Earth into a second Venus, whichever comes first. Dick Cheney will have the last laugh then, of course, safely tucked away 5000 feet beneath the earth's surface in a bunker full of oxygen, Glenn Beck endorsed meals, and with his own private harem of young gymnasts.