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I've never been a fan Tony Scott--I largely find him glitzy and hollow--but his later period, especially Man on Fire and Domino, is full of bold, distinctive films. His style become so rich and unconventional, and seemingly unconcerned with commercial appeal, that it feels like the films are trying to wriggle free of their genres and become something else. In those films he resembles no one else.

beamish14 wrote: Wed Dec 04, 2024 12:22 am

flyonthewall2983 wrote: Tue Dec 03, 2024 11:56 pm I subscribe to the theory this is the author’s best work.

It’s absolutely Tarantino’s best. Scott’s 3-film run of Revenge (which he stupidly reedited for the Blu-Ray era), The Last Boy Scout, and this are easily his 3 finest IMO

He also did a really bad cut of Crimson Tide for DVD, which I believe Disney took out of print in rather short order. It aired on cable once and some of the scenes were embarrassing to watch, one in particular with Gandolfini's character.

Mr Sausage wrote: Wed Dec 04, 2024 12:43 am I've never been a fan Tony Scott--I largely find him glitzy and hollow--but his later period, especially Man on Fire and Domino, is full of bold, distinctive films. His style become so rich and unconventional, and seemingly unconcerned with commercial appeal, that it feels like the films are trying to wriggle free of their genres and become something else. In those films he resembles no one else.

On Scott’s episode of the Starz cable series The Directors, Anthony Quinn has a great moment where he says, in reference to Revenge, something along the lines of “I wish he would go back to making a film with substance.”

I love Tony Scott, particularly that 2000s shift, which makes up all my favorites of his except The Hunger. But I rewatched this (on the 4K, which really made Patricia Arquette's sunglasses sparkle) last year and was surprised by how much I no longer vibed with it. It's fun as a character actor jamboree but it really couldn't escape its trappings as a movie-nerd boy fantasy, and it's so much harder for me to take all of Tarantino's tics when they'll coming from such an obvious author wish-fulfillment surrogate. It's the empty, violent, and needlessly cruel provocation that so many other of Scott and Tarantino's movies have been (wrongfully, imo) pegged as.

imho, Oliver Stone made the more blunt example of what you’re talking about. That at least Tarantino's rambling style winds up with a happy ending in this has always made it more palatable to me. It’s something cathartic about the resolutions of movies that sometimes throw logic aside, and let the heart out.

I watched Natural Born Killers on my 12th birthday. I respect Stone for the great movies he has done but looking back it’s kind of clear he began to lose his own plot a little there.

John Cope wrote: Wed Dec 04, 2024 12:28 am I give it to The Hunger at one end of the spectrum and Domino at the other, though I also love Last Boy Scout.

Ironically, I could take your statement either way, that The Hunger is his worst or best and that Domino is his best or worst. Both kind of work for me, it depends on the criteria.

Matt wrote: Thu Dec 05, 2024 3:27 am

John Cope wrote: Wed Dec 04, 2024 12:28 am I give it to The Hunger at one end of the spectrum and Domino at the other, though I also love Last Boy Scout.

Ironically, I could take your statement either way, that The Hunger is his worst or best and that Domino is his best or worst. Both kind of work for me, it depends on the criteria.

LOL. No, actually what I meant was that they exist, more or less, at either end of his filmography and represent entirely different peak visions for his style. They are also my two favorite of his films.

Spy Game is one I like a lot. Much more walk and talk than bullets flying, but with plenty of suspense and believable performances from especially Robert Redford.