Simon's Movie Reviews

  If there is a university course that explores the possible correlation between movies and real-life crimes, Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971) is probably on the curriculum. Despite the fact the movie never endorses the horrible crimes perpetrated by the protagonist, it inspired copycat crimes to the point Kubrick supported the decision to pull the movie from theaters. The question of if this should be done every time a criminal is inspired by a movie could be debated for hours. As for the movie itself, I think it has a lot of artistic merit, great performances, and poses very thought-provoking questions. I just wish those questions had been better explored by the time the movie ends. I first became aware of A Clockwork Orange in the early 2000s when Stanley Kubrick movies were airing on a movie channel. Given the explicit content of most of Kubrick’s movies, they were airing slightly after most bedtime hours. However, some kids at my school clearly did not care becau...

  Heat (1995) is a crime movie in which screen legends Al Pacino and Robert De Niro shared the screen for the first time. That alone should be good enough to guarantee near perfection. Fortunately, this is also a Michael Mann movie featuring some crackling dialogue and action choreography that makes the audience feel like they are right in the streets amid the gunfight. The result is a movie so good it influenced a slew of other crime movies in its wake, including Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight . My first viewing of Heat was sometime in the mid-2000s when I watched it the old-fashioned way by renting it from the video store. I did not know much about it other than it was a crime movie starring Pacino and DeNiro, and upon first viewing I thought there were a few lengthy moments in between the action scenes. Having recently viewed it again, I have more appreciation for the scenes when the bullets aren’t flying because those quieter scenes do a good job of establishing the cha...