Simon's Movie Reviews

I always thought Forrest Gump ’s signature quote never made any sense. “Life is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get.” Of course you know what you’re gonna get, the flavours are listed on the back of the box. This minor plot hole aside, I love all the flavours that are included in Robert Zemeckis’ 1994 highlight reel of all the major American events from the 1950s through the early 1980s. Through the eyes of simpleton Forrest (Tom Hanks) we see everything from the civil rights’ movement to Vietnam and even the rise of Apple Inc. And then there is the soundtrack. Two albums of pure goodness with artist like Elvis Presley, The Doors, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Simon & Garfunkel. As Forrest Gump covers plenty of events that happened before I was born but that happened during my parents’ lifetime, they were of course the perfect target audience for the movie. It eventually ended up in our ever-growing VHS tape collection we were accumulating while living in S...

Wouldn’t it be cool if cartoons co-existed with human beings? Let me rephrase that: how awesome would it be if Daffy Duck and Donald Duck were to have a duel of pianos at a members-only club in 1940s Hollywood? Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), based on the book Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf, successfully imagines such a world and most importantly manages to convince the audience cartoons are actually interacting with human beings. Its director, Robert Zemeckis, has always been a master at mixing groundbreaking special effects with an engaging story, so if anyone was going to get this story right, it had to be him. Pulling the strings at the top of the production chain was none other than Steven Spielberg, who although better known for his directorial work, has produced some of the most memorable movies of the 80s, including this one. But just how do you classify Who Framed Roger Rabbit ? I first saw a French-dubbed version of the film on VHS in the early 90s while li...