Simon's Movie Reviews

The phrase “like father like son” applies really well to Martin and Charlie Sheen. In 1979 Martin Sheen starred in Apocalypse Now , an intense Vietnam War movie that puts its actors through hell. Not to be outdone in 1986 Charlie Sheen was put through an actual boot camp training for Oliver Stone’s Platoon . Sadly nowadays the younger Sheen is better known for starring in sitcoms and behaving wildly offscreen, but Platoon shows there is a great actor buried beneath the tabloid fodder. Platoon can definitely be described as a guy film in the sense that it features a mostly all-male cast that spends most of its time doing very violent things. A romantic comedy this is not. So obviously I watched it when I was in my late teens with my brother. I am pretty sure we had already seen Apocalypse Now , but even so there are scenes of violence in Platoon that will rattle your cage the first time around. Oliver Stone based the film on his own experiences in Vietnam to give an accurate port...

I have only seen two of the late Anthony Minghella’s films, but based on what I have seen he seemed to have a taste for old-school Hollywood movies that were made on a grand scale and shot on location. Cold Mountain (2003) was a Civil War drama featuring epic battles, a love story, and Academy Award winning performances. Before that his signature film was The English Patient (1996), a World War II drama featuring slightly less epic battles, a love story, and multiple Academy Award winning performances. Although decried by a Seinfeld character for being too long, Minghella’s film deserved every award it received and emphasizes the loss cinema suffered when he died in 2008. Since I had nothing to do last Valentine’s Day (not that I am complaining) I thought I might as well dig through Netflix and cross off another movie off my list. As The English Patient came out when I was around nine years old I of course missed it when it first came out and only heard about through pop cul...