Simon's Movie Reviews

A characteristic of a great story is when the person listening to said story keeps asking: “And then what happened?” Throughout Rob Reiner’s classic adventure film The Princess Bride (1987) the young boy (Fred Savage) listening to the story keeps asking the story teller, in this case his grandfather (Peter Falk), not to just to keep on reading, but also to skip the gross kissing parts. What makes The Princess Bride a classic is that you are continuously interested in knowing what is going to happen next, regardless if you are so young you are disgusted by the kissing parts, or old enough to not mind at all. In a post Shrek era the film may seem somewhat quaint today since at times it almost resembles a parody of fairy tales movies. Upon first viewing when it was playing on a movie channel a few years ago, I thought it had a bit of a Mel Brooks vibe given the hero is played by Cary Elwes, also the star of Robin Hood: Men in Tights . However there is a lot more than just comedy ...

A villain you hate to love is a hard thing to come by, but a villain you just plain love is even more of a rarity. Despite being an amoral serial killer who eats his victims, Hannibal Lecter is so charismatic he has become a part of pop culture across four films and a TV show that barred his first name. Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991) was the second film to feature the character, but it is the one responsible for making him an icon of cinema thanks to award-winning performances by Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal the Cannibal and Jodie Foster as the object of what passes for his affections. I definitely did my homework on this ghoulish story, having read the book of the same name by Thomas Harris in the late 90s and used it for a book report, much to my teacher’s surprise. Over the years I have read Hannibal the book, seen that movie, watched Anthony Hopkins revisit the role one last time in Red Dragon , and seen Brian Cox first tackle the role in Michael Mann’s Man...