Simon's Movie Reviews

Unbreakable (2000) is a movie that is becoming more and more relevant as time goes by. For one thing it is one of the last good movies M. Night Shyamalan made before his career took a pretty steep nose-dive. For another it deals with the idea of super heroes and villains in a world where none of those exist and yet and approaches these concepts while steeped in realism. Nowadays there are at least five super hero movies that come out every year, but Unbreakable still feels fresh and original despite the fact two of its actors are now part of the Marvel and DC movie universe. Early on in his career Shyamalan became known for the twist endings in his movies, and Unbreakable is no exception. Unfortunately it took me 15 years to finally see the whole thing on Netflix and by then the ending had been spoiled just like with The Sixth Sense . Then the same thing happened again this year when Shyamalan released Split in which SPOILER ALERT, Bruce Willis has a cameo at the end. When the n...

Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown (1997) is somewhat of an anomaly in the director's repertoire. The only one of his films to be based on a novel, it is relatively low on action, and it is not one of his most financial successful endeavours. Some saw it as a step down after he took the world by storm with Pulp Fiction while others rightfully believe it showcases some of his best work. It shows QT doesn’t need buckets of blood to make good entertainment. Sometimes it can be all about the story. I first saw Jackie Brown sometime after Kill Bill had come out, which in contrast goes full-tilt boogie in terms of violence. By then I was hooked on his filmmaking and was very enticed every time I would see the cover for the Special Edition DVD at HMV. I wasn’t too familiar with Pam Grier since she rose to fame in the 1970s, but if I see Robert De Niro, Samuel L. Jackson, and Michael Keaton on a poster I take at a sign this is something good. Watching it for the first time I was surp...

As of 2013, it is two years from the release of the new “Star Wars” trilogy and eight years since the release of the last prequel, “Star War Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.” George Lucas got a lot of flack for going back to the past with his new trilogy and doing what many fans, most notably Patton Oswalt , would say was a poor job. However, of those three films most people would agree Episode III is the best one. We finally get to see the rise of the evil empire, Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader and we get a great lightsaber battle between good and evil on a volcanic planet. I’ve watched these movies at various points of my life. My parents showed me the original trilogy on recorded VHS tapes while we were living in Newfoundland in the early 90s. The new trilogy started coming out in 1999, when we were living in South America. By the time the final episode came out, we were back in Canada, so it all came full circle. I saw Episode III in theatres in Quebec...