Simon's Movie Reviews

Natural Born Killers (1994) is not so much a movie as an American nightmare come to life. Loosely based on a story by Quentin Tarantino, starring some of the wildest actors in Hollywood at the time, and boasting a level of violence that unfortunately inspired copycat crimes, it is the textbook definition of controversial. In all fairness there are important messages amidst all the violent mayhem, but director Oliver Stone throws so much content at the screen that these messages can sometimes get lost in the carnage. Even though the movie came out more than two decades ago it still has a legendary status, which I learned about while reading a chapter in a book about Tarantino’s career. The book, Quintessential Tarantino, contained a lot of interesting facts about the making of the movie and also spoiled the ending, but reading a few words that describe a killing spree is very different than seeing it portrayed on screen. A few years ago the director’s cut became available on Net...

The phrase “like father like son” applies really well to Martin and Charlie Sheen. In 1979 Martin Sheen starred in Apocalypse Now , an intense Vietnam War movie that puts its actors through hell. Not to be outdone in 1986 Charlie Sheen was put through an actual boot camp training for Oliver Stone’s Platoon . Sadly nowadays the younger Sheen is better known for starring in sitcoms and behaving wildly offscreen, but Platoon shows there is a great actor buried beneath the tabloid fodder. Platoon can definitely be described as a guy film in the sense that it features a mostly all-male cast that spends most of its time doing very violent things. A romantic comedy this is not. So obviously I watched it when I was in my late teens with my brother. I am pretty sure we had already seen Apocalypse Now , but even so there are scenes of violence in Platoon that will rattle your cage the first time around. Oliver Stone based the film on his own experiences in Vietnam to give an accurate port...