Simon's Movie Reviews

Now this is a tough movie to review in the post #MeToo era. Luc Besson’s Léon (1994) is a terrific action movie that launched Natalie Portman’s career, introduced French actor Jean Reno to American audiences and gave us another great villain performance from Gary Oldman. The problem is it suggests at times a romantic relationship between an underage girl and a grown man, which was apparently based on Besson’s relationship with his first wife who was 15 when they began dating. Making matters much, much worse, this year Besson has been accused of rape, sexual assault, harassment and workplace abuse ( https://bit.ly/2JHi5he ).   I still want to get through this list of greatest films, and then possibly move on to another one, so I can’t just strike off a movie because one person who helped get it to the screen has been accused of a crime. Sadly, that would mean I would have to take at least 100 out of 500 movies off the list. Alfred Hitchcock alone would negate a bunch of movie...

True Romance (1993) is probably as close as we are ever going to get to a comic book movie from Quentin Tarantino. Directed by the late great Tony Scott and based on the first script Tarantino wrote for a major motion picture, it is set in the real world with real human beings, but everything they do and accomplish seems to be straight out of comic book panels. The protagonist starts off as an ordinary young man with a love of Elvis Presley and martial arts movies, and ends up being the hero of his own blood-soaked tale of improbable romance, drug deals, and greed in Hollywood. Also, the movie is pretty damn romantic in its own way.   Oddly enough I sort of read this movie before actually seeing it. Back in 2005 I went on a school trip from Quebec City to New York City by bus and while in the Big Apple I of course got a few souvenirs. Some people buy postcards or snowglobes, I bought a book called Quintessential Tarantino by Edwin Page, which chronicles Tarantino’s work fro...