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Awards || ||

Mash-Ups, 'Moonrise,' And 'Miami' Connections: Jen Yamato's Top 10 Movie Moments of 2012

Mash-Ups, 'Moonrise,' And 'Miami' Connections: Jen Yamato's Top 10 Movie Moments of 2012

You can have your Top 10 lists stuffed with cold and corny prestige pics and all those “respectable” “films” headed for Oscar gold, but when I think back on 2012 I remember the movies that wrapped themselves around my heart and brain like a warm blanket made of light and sound and kick-ass jammin' electric guitars and made me feel excited to be alive, dammit!

(I can also pinpoint with a wistful pang the precise moment when Tyler Perry broke my heart. Still love you, TP.)

These are the films, big and small, ambitious and soulful, heart-rending and bone-crunching, about lovers, fighters, time-travelers, masters, closet-dwellers, hermaphrodite basketball players and friends (forever) that made my year at the movies. Join me in celebrating these magical movie moments and let's hope 2013 delivers even more awesomeness.
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Director's Cut || ||

Remembering Tony Scott: Five Movies By The Late Director That You Must See

Remembering Tony Scott:  Five Movies By The Late Director That You Must See

As Hollywood processes the apparent suicide of filmmaker Tony Scott  reports — included a report that he jumped to his death wearing the lucky (faded) red baseball cap that he first donned on the set of his blockbuster his Top Gun — I prefer to dwell, not on Scott's tragic death, but his life in movies. In Roger Ebert's review of Scott's essential True Romance, the critic wrote: "This is the kind of movie that creates its own universe, and glories in it." I actually think that assessment applies to most of Scott's work and is what made him special as a filmmaker. Even when his movies weren't cohesive — Domino or The Hunger come to mind— they were still worth watching and impossible to dismiss because they were filled with provocative ideas, images and themes that amounted to something more than a collection of scenes, acts and dialogue. Below, my list of Scott's best movies.  If you have a different list in mind, check out our Movieline poll where you can vote for your favorite Scott movie.   more »