The director of some of the greatest modern films of all time including Top Gun, Enemy of the State and True Romance committed suicide yesterday lunchtime aged 68 in San Pedro, Los Angeles. Apparently he jumped from the Thomas Vincent Bridge which spans San Pedro and Terminal Island at around 12:30pm. His body was recovered at around 4:30pm from the water thanks to the police who decided to use sonar technology to track it down. Apparently a suicide note was left in his Toyota Prius (nice car guy) that was left abandoned on the bridge, so it seems pretty clear he wasn’t pushed or anything. The contents of the note haven’t been revealed yet but it’s probably safe to say it had something to do with the fact that everyone hates living in LA and everyone in the movie industry seems to hate it and want to kill themselves. I’m not trying to make fun of that (for once) but it does seem to be the way it is with these things.

I was never really a fan of Tony Scott because I only realised who he was on his later works. People might say that movies like Unstoppable and Man on Fire are modern day classics but I just wasn’t really a fan of the flashy MTV style direction, kinda hi res/bright/murky colours and shaky camerawork that gets so much acclaim these days. I didn’t really enjoy the work of his brother Ridley either. I thought they both sucked but I found out today that before the 2000’s started Tony Scott actually made some kickass films that I really love like True Romance and Enemy of The State and Crimson Tide. Crimson Tide is so good but nobody has ever seen it – it’s got Denzil Washington (obviously) and Gene Hackman in it and is about some nuclear submarine that has to make the decision whether or not to fire on the Russians and start World War III. Real high tension. It’s a pity he didn’t make more movies like that.

All his movies did really well at the box office too I think so I guess you can’t begrudge Tony Scott movies too much because of that either, I really didn’t like Man on Fire though even though everyone absolutely bums over it. There were just too many stupid scenes, like why the hell was he jumping in the swimming pool and floating around in between all his fights with the bad guys? It wasn’t arty it was just dumb and I guess that’s how I felt about a lot of his movies. Anyway, his record speaks for itself and he was a British director that made it in Hollywood so you gotta give him mad props, even if he did decide to kill himself which sucks. Here’s a few of the best scenes from his best movies (and Man On Fire, which illustrates the flashy MTV direction I was talking about in this article) for you to enjoy:

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