Veteran director Ridley Scott didn’t mince words when asked to describe the state of modern filmmaking. In fact, he needed just four letters: “s**t.”

The ornery 87-year-old — the force behind iconic movies like “Alien,” “Black Hawk Down,” and “Gladiator” — brought down the hammer of justice during a public Q and A with his son Luke in London this week.

‘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.’

“Well, right now I’m finding mediocrity, we’re drowning in mediocrity,” he responded when asked about his own moviegoing habits, according to Yahoo.

Smurfy’s law

Pretentious? Maybe, but it becomes more understandable if you consider the recent crop of multiplex mistakes foisted on the public, suggested the Guardian. The newspaper cited the recent “Smurfs” movie as well as the widely criticized live-action “Snow White” remake — which used “CGI dwarves [that] looked like semi-melted CGI gonks” — as evidence for the prosecution.

Director Ridley Scott on the set of the movie ‘Alien,’ 1979. Photo by Stanley Bielecki Movie Collection/Getty Images

During the sit-down at the British Film Institute Southbank, Scott said that this mediocrity prevails despite more movies being made than ever.

“The quantity of movies that are made today, literally globally, millions. There’s not thousands, there’s millions, and most of it is s**t,” he declared.

Numbers game

The “Blade Runner” director then shared the math behind that determination.

“Eighty to 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,” he explained, as if writing on a chalkboard. “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.”

Harrison Ford and Ridley Scott on the set of ‘Blade Runner.’ Photo by Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images

Man in the mirror

Still, there is at least one talented director still working today, affirmed Sir Scott.

“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.”

Scott continued his rave review, admitting that he was shocked by the quality of his own work.

“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.”

RELATED: ‘Gladiator II’ is a MAGA metaphor

Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

Scott then turned to a trend currently irritating moviegoers of all ages: directors attempting to save bad scripts with excessive CGI.

“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,” he said.

RELATED: Father-Son Movie Bucket List

‘Hood’ rich

Not everyone is ready to embrace this curmudgeonly view — even coming from a legend like Scott.

While Scott makes “a few” good points, his rant is “really rich coming from the director of ‘Robin Hood,'” entertainment writer Natasha Biase told Align.

“He must have amnesia about some of his own movies,” the writer added.

As for Hollywood, it seems to have forgotten how to get butts in seats.

A decrease in movie quality seems to be at least part of the reason about half the amount of tickets were sold in 2024 compared to 2004.

Scott told the audience that his favorite meal is yogurt and blueberries, because he “got over food years ago.”

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President Donald Trump pinpointed two main areas of focus when criticizing the NFL’s Super Bowl LX plans for February.

During an appearance on Newsmax with host Greg Kelly on Monday, Trump was asked about the NFL’s decision to have Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny perform at the annual halftime show.

‘I never heard of him. I don’t know who he is.’

Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny, has been accused of being an odd choice for football fans given the simple fact that he performs mostly in Spanish. This is coupled with the artist’s criticisms of the president — which include mocking him in a music video — and previous statements about avoiding U.S. cities on his tour because he fears immigration enforcement may occur outside of his concerts.

In a clip from Newsmax, Trump admitted to never having heard of the singer.

“I never heard of him. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know why they’re doing it. It’s, like, crazy,” the president said. “And then they blame it on some promoter that they hired to pick up entertainment. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous.”

In the NFL’s Super Bowl announcement, the league explained exactly who is in charge of the halftime performance.

RELATED: Bad Bunny: Learn Spanish if you want to understand my Super Bowl performance

Bad Bunny. Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for GLAAD

“Apple Music, the NFL, and Roc Nation announced that 3x Grammy Award-winning global recording artist Bad Bunny will perform at the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. on Sunday, February 8, 2026, airing on NBC,” the NFL wrote in a press release.

Apple Music’s key figure is listed as Oliver Schusser, vice president of Apple Music and international content.

Roc Nation, the company founded by rapper Jay-Z, has been involved with Super Bowl halftime shows since 2019. In the same press release, Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter said Bad Bunny’s “unique ability to bridge genres, languages, and audiences makes him an exciting and natural choice to take the Super Bowl halftime stage.”

In response to the announcement, Trump administration adviser Corey Lewandowski said there is “nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people in this country illegally. Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else.”

According to Variety, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called it “a terrible decision” for the NFL to have Bad Bunny perform.

Meanwhile, when hosting “Saturday Night Live” last weekend, Bad Bunny responded to criticisms in a lighthearted manner but also noted in Spanish that the booking was “an achievement” for himself and Puerto Ricans.

He concluded by saying in English: “And if you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn.”

RELATED: Super Bowl platforms anti-ICE DRAG QUEEN rapper Bad Bunny to troll MAGA

Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

On Newsmax, the president aired another grievance with the NFL, saying, “While we’re at it, I’d like them to change the kickoff rule, which looks ridiculous, where the ball is kicked and the ball is floating in the air, and everyone’s standing there watching it. It’s ridiculous.”

The president claimed the new kickoff formation is “not any safer” than the previous format, which the league abandoned before the 2024 season.

The NFL claimed in January, however, that concussions in 2024 were down 43% when compared to the 2021-2023 average.

“I think it just looks so terrible,” Trump continued. “I think it really demeans football, to be honest with you. It’s a great game, but it demeans football. Do you know what I mean by that? The kickoff rule, the new kickoff rule, it’s ridiculous.”

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Virginia attorney general nominee Jay Jones (D) continues to face a public relations crisis as calls grow for him to end his campaign following leaked text messages in which he wished death upon a Republican lawmaker and his children.

Jones had scheduled a fundraiser for Thursday, but his campaign abruptly canceled the event, according to Axios. The fundraiser was reportedly set to be held at novelist David Baldacci’s home that evening.

‘With hundreds of thousands of Virginians already having voted, it’s up to Virginians to decide.’

The news outlet noted that Jones has not held a public event since Friday, the same day that the National Review shared a text message conversation he had with Republican House Delegate Carrie Coyner in 2022. In the exchange, Jones presented a hypothetical scenario in which he would shoot then-House Speaker Todd Gilbert twice if he only had “two bullets” and had to choose between shooting “Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot.”

Jones also accused Gilbert and his wife of “breeding little fascists,” wishing harm on their children in hopes that the “pain” would motivate Gilbert to change his policies.

Jones did not deny sending the text messages, but he did issue an apology.

His texts immediately prompted Republican lawmakers to call for him to withdraw from the race for state attorney general.

RELATED: Democrats stand by their man despite vicious texts wishing death on GOP rival and his kids

Democratic Nominee for attorney general Jay Jones, Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger, and Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor Ghazala Hashmi. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

While some of Jones’ fellow Democrats condemned the comments in his text messages, none of them stated he should end his campaign.

“After learning of these comments earlier today, I spoke frankly with Jay about my disgust with what he had said and texted,” Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger stated. “I made clear to Jay that he must fully take responsibility for his words. What I have also made clear is that as a candidate — and the next governor of our commonwealth, I will always condemn violent language in our politics.”

While Jones’ Thursday fundraising event seems to be canceled, Spanberger’s website lists several upcoming events — including canvassing, community virtual chats, and message training — organized by the campaigns of Spanberger, Jones, and lieutenant governor candidate Ghazala Hashmi (D).

RELATED: Virginia AG candidate implodes after ‘two bullets’ text scandal

Jay Jones. Trevor Metcalfe/The Virginian-Pilot/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

It is unclear whether Spanberger or Hashmi had planned to attend the Thursday evening fundraiser. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) was scheduled to be there, according to Axios.

When asked whether he had any plans to call on Jones to withdraw from the race, Kaine previously told Blaze News, “There is nothing that can justify these indefensible words, and they are contrary to all I’ve known about Jay Jones for decades. With hundreds of thousands of Virginians already having voted, it’s up to Virginians to decide.”

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The federal government on Wednesday announced the arrest of a 29-year-old male in connection with the origin of the devastating Palisades Fire in Los Angeles.

Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli announced on X the arrest of Jonathan Rinderknecht “on a criminal complaint charging him with maliciously starting what became the Palisades Fire in January.”

‘True disaster.’

Essayli said the criminal complaint alleges that Rinderknecht “started a fire in Pacific Palisades on New Year’s Day — a blaze that eventually turned into one of the most destructive fires in Los Angeles history, causing death and widespread destruction.”

RELATED: LA approves only handful of building permits 75 days after fire devastation

Jonathan Rinderknecht. Image source: Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli on X

Fire crews extinguished the initial fire, but it continued to smolder underground before reigniting during high winds, Essayli said at a news conference, according to the Associated Press.

The acting U.S. attorney noted that among the evidence collected from Rinderknecht’s digital devices “was an image he generated on ChatGPT depicting a burning city.”

RELATED: Woke, tearful Jimmy Kimmel rips Trump as ‘our alleged future president,’ blasts ‘his gaggle of scumbags’ over LA fire remarks

Image source: Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli on X

Rinderknecht fled the scene of the original fire but returned to the same trail to watch it burn, Essayli said, according to the AP: “He left as soon as he saw the fire trucks were headed to the location. He turned around and went back up there. And he took some video … and watched them fight the fire.”

What’s more, the outlet — citing the criminal complaint — said Rinderknecht not only made several 911 calls to report the fire but also during a Jan. 24 interview told investigators where the fire began, which was “information not yet public and that he would not have known if he hadn’t witnessed it.”

The outlet said the fire erupted Jan. 7, killed 12 people, and destroyed more than 6,000 homes and buildings in the wealthy Pacific Palisades coastal neighborhood of Los Angeles.

RELATED: LA Times owner regrets his paper’s endorsement of Karen Bass: ‘That’s a mistake’

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

Rinderknecht’s initial appearance was scheduled for 1:30 p.m. ET Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Orlando, Essayli also noted.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi praised the “great work by @USAttyEssayli and our federal agents to make this crucial arrest.” Bondi added that the Department of Justice “will deliver justice for the Palisades Fire and keep Californians safe — even if California leadership won’t.”

Donald Trump — who was president-elect at the time the fire erupted — blasted California Gov. Gavin Newsom, calling the Democrat’s handling of the fires a “true disaster” while citing lack of proper infrastructure and leadership.

Democrat Mayor Karen Bass also was criticized, given she was in Africa attending a presidential inauguration in Ghana at the time the fire was spreading. In fact, Bass reportedly was at one point living it up at a cocktail party in Ghana while the fire burned. The Los Angeles Times said Bass was hobnobbing and posing for photos at a Jan. 7 embassy shindig.

In February, Bass fired the chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department, who had blamed officials’ incompetence for a disastrous response to the wildfires.

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President Donald Trump said that music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs asked for a pardon.

Combs was convicted of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution but was cleared of sex trafficking and racketeering charges by the eight-person jury in a Manhattan federal courtroom earlier this year. In October he was sentenced to four years and two months in prison.

‘I was very friendly with him. I get along with him great and seemed like a nice guy. I didn’t know him well. But when I ran for office, he was very hostile.’

The president told reporters at the Oval Office on Monday about the request while being questioned about the possibility of a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, the accomplice to financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“I have a lot of people [who] have asked me for pardons,” the president said. “I call him Puff Daddy, has asked me for a pardon.”

He had previously said in August in an interview with Newsmax that he was unlikely to pardon Combs because of comments Combs made in the past about him.

“He was essentially, I guess, sort of half-innocent,” Trump said.

“I was very friendly with him. I got along with him great and seemed like a nice guy. I didn’t know him well. But when I ran for office, he was very hostile. And it’s hard. Like you, we’re human beings, and we don’t like to have things cloud our judgment. But when you knew someone and you were fine, and then you run for office and he made some terrible statements.”

Trump added, “I don’t know. … I’m being honest: It makes it more difficult to do.”

RELATED: Blaze News exclusive: ‘I’ve attended these parties’: Former Diddy protégé recalls ‘dark hours’ with ‘extra activities’

Combs’ lead attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said his office had nothing to do with any request for a pardon, according to Breitbart News.

“I am not involved in that in the least,” said Agnifilo. “I have literally no idea. There are times I think there’s nothing to it, and there are times I think it’s just rumor mill stuff. But I do not purport to know the president’s mind. I really don’t know.”

Before his conviction, Combs addressed his victims and apologized to them for his behavior.

“I want to personally apologize again to Cassie Ventura for any harm or hurt that I caused to her, emotionally or physically. My actions were disgusting, shameful, and sick,” he said.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Combs said to another accuser known only as “Jane.”

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Former FBI Director James Comey pled not guilty at his arraignment on Wednesday.

He faces federal charges from the Department of Justice for obstructing a congressional proceeding and making false statements. The charges are related to his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on 30, 2020, where he addressed the FBI’s role in the Russia collusion investigation related to the 2016 election.

‘No one is above the law.’

Comey was indicted on September 25 of this year. The indictment alleges that Comey lied about his role in authorizing FBI contacts to serve as anonymous media sources during the investigation and that he deliberately withheld information about the investigation from the Judiciary Committee. The case is scheduled to go to trial in January.

“No one is above the law. Today’s indictment reflects this Department of Justice’s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people. We will follow the facts in this case,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X following the announcement of Comey’s indictment.

RELATED: ‘Ultimate hypocrisy’: Murkowski, now whining about Comey indictment, sang a different tune when Dems went after Trump

Photo by Mark Reinstein/Corbis via Getty Images

Comey has denied the accusations and said that he looks forward to a trial. His legal team also claimed the indictment amounts to vindictive persecution and that they plan to request a dismissal, according to the AP.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly referred to Comey as a “dirty cop” as well as a “slimeball.”

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Entrepreneur and investor Alexis Ohanian made a bold assertion to the internet about the founding of his website Reddit.

The online forum is known for having a discussion page about nearly every topic — and often implementing extremely left-wing moderation and rules enforcement across its many pages.

‘[Border security] shouldn’t come at the cost of crushing lives.’

Ohanian invented Reddit in 2005 as an online bulletin board dubbed “the front page of the internet.”

He ended up resigning from the site’s board of directors in 2020, at which point he urged the company to replace him with a black candidate in honor of George Floyd.

Now, the entrepreneur has said the site would have never existed had federal immigration law been enforced before he was born. Ohanian was born in New York City in 1983 to an American father and a German mother, whose immigration status was not legal.

Responding to programmer Paul Graham’s X post about “masked thugs” who are “dragging people off the street at gunpoint” — referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — Ohanian revealed that his mother overstayed her welcome in the United States.

“As the son of an undocumented immigrant (my mom overstayed an au pair visa for years before marrying my dad, a U.S. citizen), it’s deeply personal: Reddit wouldn’t exist if ICE had come for her,” he wrote. The Au Pair visa permits bringing in a foreigner for childcare services.

Insisting that he did “think border security matters,” Ohanian then advocated for mass amnesty of illegal immigrants.

Border security “shouldn’t come at the cost of crushing lives,” Ohanian claimed. “A sensible amnesty / legalization policy (like what Reagan offered in 1986!!) could strike a better balance: Path to citizenship for law-abiding, hard-working undocumented immigrants <>.”

RELATED: MAGA hat triggers woke cardplayers into allegedly banning champion from entering tournament

— (@)

Adding nuance to his proposal, Ohanian said that those who do not come forward to a pathway for citizenship should “face enforcement under due process.”

“This isn’t open borders, it’s smart borders + humane immigration reform. The guys up at the crack of dawn in the Home Depot parking lot <> or the women hustling their home-made food on the corner are <> the men & women we want contributing to this great nation. We shouldn’t be rounding them up at gunpoint.”

Former Republican candidate Blake Masters, who ran for Senate in Arizona, mocked Ohanian in his replies.

“Reddit not existing had we enforced immigration law is a great argument for enforcing immigration law,” Masters wrote, echoing criticism from other detractors.

Ohanian made additional arguments in response to his original post. For example, he bragged that his “$38B Market Cap” was evidence that “undocumented immigrants can have some pretty productive kids.”

RELATED: YouTube admits to secretly manipulating videos with AI

— (@)

While the majority of the replies sarcastically mocked the website guru for providing a great reason to enforce existing laws, Ohanian was not without some support.

Marko Stankovic, vice president of cloud computing company Zenlayer, similarly claimed that if he “came to the US in today’s climate, I don’t think we would have been able to stay.”

He added, “Ironic that a lot of the tech entrepreneurs and CEOs (including many Trump supporters) came over on H1B or student visas.”

However, one X user’s rebuff of Ohanian’s logic seemingly captivated the sentiment of those who disagreed with him:

“I can’t even comprehend the level of entitlement to stay here knowing you’re not permitted, then demand citizenship because you stayed so long that it would be inconvenient to leave,” the user wrote.

As for what web surfers may be using if Reddit never existed, tech and education expert Josh Centers told Blaze News, “I think we would still have a lot of independent forums and the web would be a lot healthier.”

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Two new bombshell reports have somehow made Joe Biden’s already horrendous legacy even worse. Recent declassified documents reveal that when he was vice president, Biden blocked the sharing of intelligence reports showing Ukrainian officials’ concerns about his family’s corrupt business deals.

Another shocking report exposes Biden’s weaponized FBI for allegedly spying on private calls and texts of eight Republican senators who backed Donald Trump. Former special counsel Jack Smith was named as the key figure who oversaw the tracking of those private communications during the January 6 Arctic Frost probe.

“Think about all the things that [leftists] say that President Trump does that makes him a fascist, a dictator, an authoritarian. … And meanwhile, Joe Biden is spying on Republican senators,” says Sara Gonzales, BlazeTV host of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

It wasn’t enough that the Biden DOJ raided Mar-a-Lago and hit Trump with 91 indictments and 34 felony counts, she says. “They had to spy on Donald Trump’s friends as well.”

She highlights that this latest revelation adds to the growing list of egregious actions taken by Biden during his presidency — actions like aggressively targeting pro-lifers for nonviolent protests, imprisoning hundreds of innocent January 6 participants, and using federal power to force people to take the experimental COVID-19 vaccine.

“And they have the audacity to look at you and say Donald Trump is literally Hitler?” Sara scoffs. “Well, guess what? I got news for them. This is what dictatorships actually do.”

And if not for President Trump’s incredible victory, we would’ve been stuck in this dictatorship for another four years. “If they had won, I don’t know if we would be able to pull this whole experiment that we call America back together,” Sara says.

But it didn’t take the presidency for Biden to start acting like a dictator. He was doing that back when he was Barack Obama’s vice president.

As shown in the recently declassified report, “Joe Biden was out there lecturing other governments to clean up their act, while, of course, Hunter raked in the millions from Daddy’s business dealings,” Sara says.

Biden then carried this knack for making undesirable information vanish into his presidency.

“Anything that he didn’t want disseminated just got censored. X under Jack Dorsey — you’d get kicked off the platform if you wanted to talk about Hunter Biden’s laptop or any of the other corruption that was happening with the Biden family,” Sara recalls.

And all the while, he was projecting his own deception onto Donald Trump with the Russiagate hoax.

“It is stunning to me how the Biden regime crossed every single line. … He was covering up for his family members; he was pardoning them; he was spying on political opponents; and he was silencing and burying anyone who wanted to criticize him,” and yet Democrats still try to push the narrative that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, Sara says.

She urges Attorney General Pam Bondi and the DOJ to keep digging and declassifying: “If there is this, there is more. We need all of it. … Let us see the information. And then, by the way, let us find out if we can bring Joe Biden in for some testimony because there are some people who need to be held accountable, and Joe Biden is just the tip of the iceberg.”

To hear more of Sara’s analysis and commentary, watch the episode above.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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