Simon's Movie Reviews

In the gangster genre, it is an unwritten rule that the bad guy must fall by the end. That was certainly true in the Howard Hawks film Scarface from 1932 in which gangster Tony Montana pleads for his life before making a run for it and getting mowed down by the police. In Brian De Palma’s 1983 remake however, there is no begging for mercy and Tony does most of the mowing down, with the classic line “Say hello to my little friend!” In terms of general plotting, the two films are very similar, but you could say the remake is the same story “on steroid,” or more accurately “on cocaine” as Montana spends most of the third act abusing his product as he nears his downfall. There are movies you have seen before actually seeing them and that was certainly the case with Scarface . Like Pulp Fiction and Fight Club , it has had a major impact on pop culture, and even crime culture. Would-be rappers want to emulate Tony Montana’s rags-to-riches tale, while would-be gangsters want to imita...

Tim Burton seems to have a strange relationship with Christmas. In 1993 he released “A Nightmare Before Christmas” his stop-motion animated opus in which Jack Skellington of Halloween Town takes over Christmas, scaring children everywhere. The year before he released “Batman Returns” his second foray in bringing the Dark Knight to the big screen. This time Batman (Michael Keaton) is fighting the maniacal Penguin (Danny DeVito), the whip-snapping Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer), and the greedy Max Schreck (Christopher Walken). During their battles, children are kidnapped from their homes in the middle of the night, henchmen are burned alive, a character is pushed out of a window, and another one is electrocuted, leaving his face with a grotesque expression of pain. This funfest takes place, of course, during the Holiday season. Despite the dark and gothic tone, the movie has achieved somewhat of a cult status, even taking advantage of the Christmas setting. The first time I saw it ...