Simon's Movie Reviews

Whereas Blood Simple demonstrated how the Coen Brothers could handle gritty violence, their sophomore effort Raising Arizona (1987) showed what they could do with cartoonish violence. Even though the movie revolves around the kidnapping of a baby, armed robberies, and a Lone Biker of the Apocalypse, it is madcap fun from beginning to end. Nicolas Cage, nowadays known for throwing everything including the kitchen sink in his performances, makes for a great lead in the pantheon of Coen characters even if this has been their only collaboration so far. This was another instance of being able to mix work with pleasure, since back when I was at the Université de Sherbrooke I took a Scriptwriting course and part of our homework included doing an analysis of Raising Arizona. It is hard to dispute the educational component of such an assignment, since this is one of the Coen Brothers’ lesser successful films, at least financially, and we certainly all learned a lot watching it for the ve...

Despite being a commercial failure when it was first released, Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous (2000) is the kind of movie that can easily please every audience member with its humour and performances. That being said you might find a lot more to enjoy or indentify with if you are either a fan of rock music or have an interest in journalism because the movie focuses on a young reporter imbedded with an up-and-coming rock band in the early 1970s. Since the movie is based on Crowe’s own experiences touring with big name bands in his youth it gives a very accurate behind the scenes look at that unique, entertaining, and sometimes damaging world. The first time I tried to watch the movie was during movie night when I was still living in my mom’s place and it was my older brother’s turn to pick the movie. Unfortunately this was still the days of renting DVDs and some nimrod had scratched the disc so about ten minutes into the movie we gave up because the image kept screwing up. Fast fo...