Simon's Movie Reviews

In a world in which cameras and microphones are everywhere, from the street corners to our very own computers, The Conversation (1974) seems like a quaint and outdated thriller. It focuses on a man whose job is to spy on people, but at the same time said man is very protective of his own privacy and lives in constant fear of someone tapping his phone lines. However a major lesson of Francis Ford Coppola’s film, which still applies today, is that having a recording of someone’s private conversations is one thing, but knowing what to do with that information is whole other ball game. When I first watched The Conversation it was probably about one year after Edward Snowden leaked classified information regarding the United States’ ability to spy on practically anyone not living in a cave. If you have a cell phone, a tablet, a laptop, or just a good old landline, they will find a way to listen to what you are saying. In 1998 Gene Hackman starred in Enemy of the State , a spiritual s...

When it comes to trilogies, usually the first one is good, the second raises the bar, and the third falls short of the second one. There are of course exceptions (The Bourne trilogy, the Indiana Jones series), but that’s usually the way it goes. When The Godfather Part III came out in 1990, the universal consensus was that the first two were masterpieces and the third one was nowhere near as good. There are indeed problems in Michael Corleone’s swan song. The story is a bit hard to follow, Robert Duvall is no longer there as family lawyer Tom Hagan, and Sofia Coppola was probably not experienced enough as an actress to play Michael’s daughter. That being said, it does have its moments of greatness, including the uttering of the line “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” I am going to end up repeating this part two other times as I move up Empire’s list, but the first time I saw The Godfather trilogy was when my parents, my brother and I rented it from ye old v...