Simon's Movie Reviews

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shinning (1980) is a fascinating movie because it is a Stanley Kubrick film but in certain aspects it is disappointing because it is not entirely Stephen King’s The Shining. This is a perfect example of two great artists clashing because they are both very good at what they do and are also determined to do their own thing. Consequently the movie is in ways very different from the book on which it is based, and yet it is still a horror classic. One might even say a classic film, period, if only for Jack Nicholson’s manic performance. Kubrick’s adaptation came out 39 years ago and yet after close to four decades it remains an engrossing and frightening experience. I started hearing about it when I was in middle school because a teacher in my school was playing it for a class and word got around quick. Every now and then I would see clips of it on TV, or even in other movies because it has so many scenes that stand out. Eventually I bought a copy of King’s nov...

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...

And you thought your prom night was bad. Had it happened in real life, the tale of Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) and what she did after a horrible prank during her big moment at her prom would have become an urban legend to scare high school students for generations. Fortunately it is only a work of fiction envisioned by horror master Stephen King and first brought to the big screen by Brian De Palma in 1976. It is an undoubtedly scary film, but also one that deals with important themes such as bullying, kindness, and acceptance. This is one of those stories where I really did my homework. I have given myself the goal to read all of Stephen Kings’ oeuvre and Carrie is one of his earliest novels. In addition to seeing De Palma’s adaptation on Netflix have also seen the 2013 remake directed by Kimberly Peirce with Chloe Grace Moretz in the Carrie role. Both movies tell pretty much the same story with different budgets, but I must conclude the original is bleaker and much more in the...

Stephen King is known around the world for his tales of horror and the supernatural, but every now and then he can write very compelling tales of drama and hope. Two of them are set in a prison and were adapted to the screen by director Frank Darabont. “The Green Mile” (1999) was the second adaptation after “The Shawshank Redemption” and stars the late great Michael Clark Duncan as John Coffey, a giant of a man on death row in 1935 Louisiana. Ironically for a man condemned to die, Coffey has the power to restore life. This film was a holiday film released in December and it eventually became part of one of my family movie nights. Back in the early 2000s when my family and I were living in Lima, Peru, my dad bought the VHS, I am guessing after he had seen the movie in theatres and liked what he saw. This was right around when I was starting to develop my love affair with cinema, so just seeing that new box was enough to make me excited. I do mean box, because you will re...