Tony Scott

June 21, 1944 - August 19, 2012

The news of Tony Scott's death is quite a shock. He truly left us much earlier than he should have. I know it's probably silly talking about movies when someone dies since their death is a big loss for many other reasons, but I think he had a lot of movies left in him that will never be made now. I like several of his movies, but there's one in particular that really affected me.

The movie True Romance is easily one of my favorites of all time. It was directed by Tony Scott. There are definitely other movies I love more, but I first saw that movie when I was a teenager and really fell in love with it. Those later teen years are a time of discovery and development where I think things have a greater chance of affecting you, and like so many other pieces of art have done, that movie made an indelible mark on me. As indelible as the tattoos that the characters Alabama and Clarence got in the movie.

Now I'll leave you with these somewhat relevant words from those characters:

                    ALABAMA

          I kept asking Clarence why our world seemed to be collapsing and
          everything seemed so shitty, and he'd say, "That's the way it goes.
          But don't forget, it goes the other way too."

"A Conversation With My 12 Year Old Self"

When Jeremiah McDonald was 12 years old, he filmed himself having one side of a conversation with his future self. Now, twenty years later, he finishes the conversation.

I'm writing some of my thoughts about the film below the embedded player. If you'd rather just let the film speak for itself, feel free to skip reading the rest of this post after you watch. I won't be offended.



I couldn't possibly love this short film more than I do. I can relate pretty easily to the themes explored, and I love it from a filmmaking point of view as well. The way Jeremiah used the twenty year old video (certain parts of which I'm sure were taken out of their original context) to create this conversation is inspiring. He has used the footage a few times before, but I think this time he really met the potential of the whole concept and made something truly special with it. It's funny, charming, and even incredibly touching and thought provoking. Especially for being only 3 minutes and 47 seconds long. I love the contrast in personality between the 32 year old and 12 year old Jeremiah. It perfectly illustrates the kind of change one goes through as they leave childhood and enter adulthood. The 32 year old Jeremiah's performance is also brilliant. I love the way he seems so impatient and even slightly bitter toward his younger self for being responsible for how he turned out. My favorite part and easily the most poignant part is when the 12 year old Jeremiah holds up a piece of artwork he did of a cartoon rabbit named Roy (that seems to be inspired by Roger Rabbit) and asks his older self if he still draws Roy. It's kind of heartbreaking.

"135 Shots That Will Restore Your Faith In Cinema"

Vimeo user Flavorwire uploaded a video a few weeks back with that title. I appreciate that the title isn't "The 135 Best Shots In Cinema" or something like that, but I still don't know if the title is that great because I definitely didn't need my faith in cinema restored. I did really like this video though. There are so many shots here from movies I've never seen or in some cases never even heard of, but I was proud of the fact that I knew as many as I did, and that several of them were from movies I really deeply love. The shots are shown without their audio, and instead a piece of Clint Mansell's score for the movie Moon is used.



If you're like me and wanted to know what the shots you didn't recognize were from, Flavorwire also recently uploaded an annotated version of the video that shows the title of the movie each shot is from and the name of the cinematographer who worked on the movie.