R.I.P. Tony Scott

Just yesterday, as I am sure everyone knows now, director Tony Scott died in an apparent suicide. Tony Scott would release a movie and for better or for worse you could always tell a Tony Scott movie because if there is one thing he had, it was definitely his own style, whether it was put to the best ends was, as per usual, up to the viewer. One thing is for sure, no matter what you thought about Scott, or what you thought about his latter-day output, or even individual movies, there was at least one movie in his filmography that everyone could say they loved whether it was Top Gun or True Romance or Crimson Tide (and the list goes on). Whether that was just a guilty pleasure or whether you thought it was an action classic, was also up to the viewer, but I bet nearly everyone has that one favorite Tony Scott movie. In fact just a week ago, I was talking to my brother and Top Gun came up for some reason. He told me that when he was in graduate school when he needed some time to unwind he would go to the school's video library, take out Top Gun and watch it in the library. He said he must have watched dozens of times if not more during that time. Love or hate him, I am willing to bet that many people have at least one, if not more, Tony Scott movies they really enjoy. Obviously, it's sad when anyone dies, but it's sad when someone with a unique style, and it was definitely unique whether you always liked what he was doing or not, which he brought to something that can be so generic as the action movie genre, decides to leave this world much too early.

This entire tribute was taken from the great Kim Morgan's of Sunset Gun among many many other places, mostly because I couldn't have said it better. This is from her Facebook page:

"I'm absolutely stunned and saddened by the death of Tony Scott, a director I greatly admired and one of the most interesting filmmakers I've ever interviewed. He told me of all his pictures, his favorite movie was True Romance: "I love all 

my films, but True Romance was the best screenplay I ever had. And all that was Quentin [Tarantino]. It was so well crafted. But I did change the end. Originally in Quentin’s version, Patricia [Arquette] pulls over on the freeway and she puts a gun in her mouth. I shot the film in continuity, so by the time I got to the end of shooting the movie I had fallen in love with the two characters and it was a love story so I wanted these characters to live." Rest in peace Tony Scott."

Of course, as usual, the The AV Club has a really good obituary for him.

-Kevin