Simon's Movie Reviews

The life of rock stars is very fascinating and often highly absurd. Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap (1984) captures that absurdity perfectly by going through all the tropes of the rock’n’roll world through the lens of a fake documentary. The band members are played by actors, but their mannerisms and anecdotes sometimes feel pulled from real-life rock legend. Plus, the movie popularized the expression “dial it up to 11”, which I think we can all agree is one awesome expression. It’s been a while since I first saw This Is Spinal Tap , but I remember laughing a lot while watching it with my brother. Ever since I have noticed its influence in many facets of pop culture, such as how the Defense against the Dark Arts teachers in the Harry Potter don’t last more than one year. Without it we also wouldn’t have Andy Sandberg’s comedy Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping which does for pop music what Reiner’s film did for rock and roll. Then of course we have the cast, a who’s who of ...

Another clear influence on Stranger Things , Rob Reiner’s Stand by Me (1986) portrays American kids from a lost era in which they could go on an adventure away from home. Nowadays if children go missing for more than an hour parents try to locate them using cell phone apps, but in the story written by Stephen King four boys in 1959 Oregon go walking in the woods during a long weekend to look for, of all things, a dead body. Their lives are sometimes at risk, they have no way of communicating with their parents, but they will definitely have a story to remember for the rest of their lives. For many North Americans adults this movie fondly reminded them of a time in their childhood despite the inherent danger. Not so for me since, first of all, there was no time in my childhood when I could possibly go out of the house for more than three hours without my mom getting in her car to go look for me. The there is the fact that I spent a good chunk of my childhood living in Chile and Per...

There is an age-old question regarding whether single men and women can be just friends. In real life the answer is obviously “yes,” but in movies and TV the answer always has to be that at some point two single characters will get attracted to each other and move beyond friendship. On TV I find this to be contrived and overused, but some movies can have a lot of fun with the concept, most notably Rob Reiner’s comedy classic When Harry Met Sally …(1989). It may not change your view on love and friendship, but it forever changed the meaning of the phrase “I’ll have what she’s having.” On paper this film’s premise sounds like another rom-com, but seen by oneself during an evening of Netflix binging it does make you think about deep stuff like the long-term impact of your decisions on your life. A person you meet during a tense trip might turn up again sometime later down the road in the most unexpected ways. If there is one thing I believe in it is infinite possibilities, and Nora...

A characteristic of a great story is when the person listening to said story keeps asking: “And then what happened?” Throughout Rob Reiner’s classic adventure film The Princess Bride (1987) the young boy (Fred Savage) listening to the story keeps asking the story teller, in this case his grandfather (Peter Falk), not to just to keep on reading, but also to skip the gross kissing parts. What makes The Princess Bride a classic is that you are continuously interested in knowing what is going to happen next, regardless if you are so young you are disgusted by the kissing parts, or old enough to not mind at all. In a post Shrek era the film may seem somewhat quaint today since at times it almost resembles a parody of fairy tales movies. Upon first viewing when it was playing on a movie channel a few years ago, I thought it had a bit of a Mel Brooks vibe given the hero is played by Cary Elwes, also the star of Robin Hood: Men in Tights . However there is a lot more than just comedy ...