Simon's Movie Reviews

“The Ward” is John Carpenter’s first movie since “Ghosts of Mars” nine years ago. This new movie is a classic horror tale set in a spooky locale on a dark and stormy night featuring a vengeful ghost. Unfortunately, it doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel. The movie opens on a dark and stormy night at a mental institution. Inside one of the rooms, a young female patient is pretty sure that there is someone or something creeping outside her room. As she stands to take a look through the door’s window, she is strangled from behind by what can only be a ghost, since the door was locked from the outside. The following morning another young girl (Amber Heard) is running through the countryside. She finds an empty house, whose address was written on her hand, and immediately sets fire to the curtains thus burning the house down. The police find her collapsing at the scene and she is immediately taken to the asylum where the first girl was taken. Once there she tells nurse Lundt (Susanna Burn...

Yesterday I had the chance to watch “Monsters” a low-budget science-fiction movie at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was the first time I saw a movie in this context and overall it was a memorable experience. Plus, the movie was memorable. I arrived at the Scotiabank theatre for the 8:30pm showing about an hour and a half ahead of schedule. It wasn’t a bad idea since there were already a few people in line. On the other hand I probably should have brought something to read or at least my iPod. By 7:30pm the line was full. Most people were dressed casually (it was a monster movie after all) but some wore expensive clothes. I guess it was somewhere between a Comic-con crowd and just another Friday night at the movies, except there were also one or two members of the press waiting in line. Now, as to the actual movie… “Monsters” is first and foremost, just like the title says, a film about monstrous creatures. The premise is somewhat reminiscent of last year’s “District ...

What a day. When I woke up the plan was to go to Toronto and buy tickets for films that will be shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. I left the house armed with a backpack, a wallet,  food, water, a festival program that comes with a map of festival hotspots, sunglasses, my hat, and my camera in case I would see something worth photographing. Boy, did I ever. While reading my festival program on the train between Oakville and Toronto, I read that today was the opening of the TIFF Bell Lightbox, a sort of movie museum sponsored by influencial people from the movie industry in Toronto including Jason and Ivan Reitman. Since the opening would include an outdoor show from noon til four in the afternoon and I had nothing but time after I bought my tickets, I thought "why not?" I may as well make the most of my day. After buying the tickets for Monsters next Friday and John Carpenter's The Ward next Sunday, I walked in front of the newly constructed building an...

Ever since I created this blog I have only written amateur movie reviews. I am just one of thousands of film fans, nothing special. Until Wednesday of last week I was limited by the fact that I was living in Quebec City where most of the movies are dubbed in French, which I hate. Great movies are made in Quebec, but because it is mostly Francophone town, they prefer to dub any foreign movie. Since I learned how to speak English when I was around six years old, I can tell that something is often lost in translation. Hence I was always eargerly awaiting  the week-end to see which movie might be shown in its original language. This summer I missed a lot of wide releases and mostly watched movies made in Quebec or France. Which brings me back to last Wednesday, when I moved to Oakville, a small town outside of Toronto. After I obtained my B.A in English Studies, I did not see myself going anywhere hence I decided to go to Sheridan College where I was accepted in post-graduate program...