Simon's Movie Reviews

By all accounts The Big Lebowski (1998) shouldn't work. The plot changes almost every 15 minutes, the hero is a stoner who doesn't want to participate in the story anyway, and the humour is a bit hard to grasp upon first viewing. Yet somehow over time this Coen Brothers comedy has not only had repeat viewings from many fans of cinema around the world, it has also earned a very strong cult status. Star Wars has a Star Wars Celebration day, but The Big Lebowski has Lebowski Fest in which fans dress up as The Dude (Jeff Bridges), go bowling, and drink White Russians. I think we can agree which film has the best fans. (Before going any further I just want to remind whoever might be reading this that I'm reviewing movies based on Empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 Greatest Movies of All Time, and somehow on this list The Big Lebowski is exactly one spot above Schindler's List. Make of that what you will.)  The first time I saw this weird comedy/film no...

The 1950s in America was a very interesting decade culturally speaking. Right after World War II and right before the racial, sexual, and rock’n’roll revolutions began it was a time when on the surface everything seemed fine, but beneath the surface something was brewing. Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven (2002) jumps back to that era through the lens of Douglas Sirk and explores issues that today can be openly discussed, but back then people barely had a name for them. In order to fully appreciate this movie it really helps if you are familiar with the works of its main inspiration, the films of Douglas Sirk who is best known for his 1950s melodramas. Lucky for me I spent the summer of 2009 at the University of British Columbia where I took a course on Hollywood Cinema from 1930 to 1960 and part of the curriculum was watching Sirk’s 1955 romance All That Heaven Allows starring Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman. (What joy it is to be able to study cinema in a classroom.) As the story was ab...

Alfonso Cuaron’s “Children of Men” (2006) imagines a bleak future that is not the result of a nuclear war, a fallen meteor, or the ever-popular zombie outbreak. This possible future planet earth is going down the drain because humanity itself is slowly ebbing away after eighteen years of infertility. Set in not-so-distant future in the United Kingdom, the film shows a world overrun with pollution, corruption, massive immigration, and a totalitarian police force. You know it is the future, since all of the bright colors are gone. I first saw this movie at an art-house cinema during my first year at Sherbrooke University. The bleak future reminded me of the PC game Half-Life 2. This game, much like “Children of Men,” featured a city controlled by a totalitarian police force. Except, while the game was senseless fantasy, the movie has a much more visceral feel since it is much more grounded in reality. You just need to look at the news footage to think we are one global ca...