Simon's Movie Reviews

Lawrence of Arabia (1962), directed by the much-lauded David Lean, is an old-school cinema epic in every sense of the word. It features magnificent wide shots of the sprawling desert, thousands of extras simulating the carnage of war, and a cast of stellar actors all at the top of their games. This is also the first big-screen role for the legendary Peter O’Toole, who commands the screen throughout and got his first of eight Academy Award nominations for the role. Not bad for a young man who, so I’ve read, drank a bottle of champagne every night during the shoot. To everyone who was worried about sitting through Avengers: Endgame earlier this year because it has a running time of 181 minutes, I challenge you to watch the restored version of Lawrence of Arabia currently available on Netflix. Running time: 220 minutes. To be fair, part of that running time includes an overture and an intermission, but we are still talking about over three hours of story here. Both Avengers and

After watching The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) I came up with a theory: it is partly responsible for the modern veganism movement. Here is a movie that not only takes time to describe the horror of a slaughterhouse where no one has ever heard the term "humane treatment", but then also lets the victims know exactly how those slaughtered animals feel. Although there is only a total of four deaths in Tobe Hooper's highly influential horror movie, they all suffer in very graphic ways much like the cows that end up in hamburgers. Some are impaled on a meat hook, some have their skulls cracked with a hammer and of course, as the title clearly states, some meet their end at the end of a chainsaw.  I am fortunate to be in a relationship with someone who also appreciates horror movies ( It chapters 1 and 2 were two of our dates) so last weekend when we saw that the original chainsaw massacre was available on Netflix this close to Halloween that seemed like a good w

I so wish a movie like American History X (1998) was not relevant at all today. Instead it feels like but a short prologue to the madness that was to come. The movie's director, Tony Kaye, apparently wanted to disavow the movie but fortunately star Edward Norton helped bring a finished cut to the screen. The result is a story about white nationalism, neo-Nazis, hatred, racial division, and a war of ideas that couldn't feel timelier in today's political climate. When a neo-Nazi proudly talks about the advances they have made with the Internet I got chills. I had been vaguely aware of the movie ever since it came out, never being very interested in watching it given the heaviness of the subject matter. It became available on Netflix recently so I thought I may as well scratch another Greatest Movies off my list. The short plot description also told me this could sadly have been shot last year as a possible companion piece to Spike Lee's Blackkklansman. As I wat