Simon's Movie Reviews

And you thought your prom night was bad. Had it happened in real life, the tale of Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) and what she did after a horrible prank during her big moment at her prom would have become an urban legend to scare high school students for generations. Fortunately it is only a work of fiction envisioned by horror master Stephen King and first brought to the big screen by Brian De Palma in 1976. It is an undoubtedly scary film, but also one that deals with important themes such as bullying, kindness, and acceptance. This is one of those stories where I really did my homework. I have given myself the goal to read all of Stephen Kings’ oeuvre and Carrie is one of his earliest novels. In addition to seeing De Palma’s adaptation on Netflix have also seen the 2013 remake directed by Kimberly Peirce with Chloe Grace Moretz in the Carrie role. Both movies tell pretty much the same story with different budgets, but I must conclude the original is bleaker and much more in the...

American high schools were fertile ground for John Hughes as a writer and director. They provided the setting for the classic The Breakfast Club (1985), which featured five typical characters from that world, and the following year Hughes struck gold again with Ferris Bueller’s Day Off . That movie featured a character who is in a way the king of a Chicago high school and who is so confident he skilfully skips school with his best friend and girlfriend by his side. Ferris is a bit like James Bond for high school: girls want him and boys want to be him. For many people this was a movie that defined their generation, especially if they saw it while still in high school. However since it came out the year I was born that was impossible for me. It’s a shame, because the high school movie that was the big hit during my formative years was American Pie (1999). Generation X people got to see Matthew Broderick sing Twist and Shout at a parade, while Millenials got to see Jason Biggs st...

There is an age-old question regarding whether single men and women can be just friends. In real life the answer is obviously “yes,” but in movies and TV the answer always has to be that at some point two single characters will get attracted to each other and move beyond friendship. On TV I find this to be contrived and overused, but some movies can have a lot of fun with the concept, most notably Rob Reiner’s comedy classic When Harry Met Sally …(1989). It may not change your view on love and friendship, but it forever changed the meaning of the phrase “I’ll have what she’s having.” On paper this film’s premise sounds like another rom-com, but seen by oneself during an evening of Netflix binging it does make you think about deep stuff like the long-term impact of your decisions on your life. A person you meet during a tense trip might turn up again sometime later down the road in the most unexpected ways. If there is one thing I believe in it is infinite possibilities, and Nora...