Simon's Movie Reviews

  I have seen plenty of “end-of-the-world” movies featuring various scenarios of destruction, but Pixar’s “WALL-E” (2008) is one of the few that truly scared me into thinking this could happen. The computer animated film features a small robot left to clean up the mess left by humanity centuries after they abandoned Earth on a spaceship that serves the same purpose as Noah’s ark. Only it was not a flood of water that wrecked the planet, but a mountain of trash that humanity mass-produced since the beginning of the Industrial Revolutions. Zombies don’t exist, aliens have yet to invade us, Global Warming may or may not boil us in the near future, but a massive pile of trash burying the planet? That’s happening right now. Directed by Andrew Stanton, “WALL-E” was part of the great summer movie season of 2008, which featured the return of Indiana Jones, the Academy-Award winning performance of Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight,” and the rebirth of Robert Downey Jr. as Iro...

It seems to me that some of the best, or at least the most enthusiastic, filmmakers are film buffs themselves. Quentin Tarantino could tell you who did the lighting on every Western ever made and Martin Scorsese knows film preservation like Carl Sagan knows about outer space. British writers Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright know their zombie movies, hence the making of “Shaun of the Dead” in 2004. Since they also methodically watched action movie ever made, they teamed up again in 2007 for “Hot Fuzz,” which referenced everything from “Point Break” to “Bad Boys II.” I saw this movie with the perfect crowd for a movie made by action movie fans: other movie fans. It was part of a double feature organized by the film club at the University of Sherbrooke, and of course the other film was “Shaun of the Dead.” I am pretty sure somebody cheered when Nick Frost opens a door to reveal a room full of DVDs. Lets face it, if you’re not a movie nerd, it doesn’t seems like a very good idea...

A wedding is a situation ripe for comedy, something Richard Curtis obviously knew when he wrote “Four Weddings and a Funeral” which was directed by Mike Newell in 1994. It began a frequent collaboration between Curtis and the movie’s protagonist, Hugh Grant, who became a star in North America thanks to the movie’s success. Nowadays Grant’s character seems all too familiar as he has played similar bumbling romantics in many other comedies in the decade following the movie, but the first time around you can’t deny he is a perfect fit for Curtis’ writing. The first time I watched this movie was during family movie night with my mom, my brother and I. Of course my mom picked that title since she was a fan of Grant. I was sold on my love of Rowan Atkinson ( BlackAdder ) who plays a priest who is clearly not ready for the job. I had never been to a wedding yet, so this was a bit like watching a movie set in Cuba: you’ve never been there, but you might someday. As it turns out...

Hundreds of movies have been made about serial killers and the police officers hunting them down, but David Fincher’s “Zodiac” (2007) stands apart because of its more grounded approach. It chronicles a police investigation that begins in San Francisco in 1969 and ends in 1991. Along the way we follow smart police officers who do their best to narrow down a long of list of suspects, and reporters who try to figure out what to do when the killer sends them letters detailing his crimes. These are all intelligent people trying to outsmart a cerebral killer. Yet there is also a surreal sense of humor as the story unfolds. The manhunt and one of its detectives ended up being the inspiration for “Dirty Harry” starring Clint Eastwood. Imagine sitting in a movie theater watching an actor playing that detective who is watching the movie that was inspired by his work. When I first watched that scene and the rest of the movie, it was my first time watching a movie at Toronto’s Scotiabank T...

Watching Martin Scorsese’s “Mean Streets” (1973) is like taking a look at one of the smaller pyramids of Egypt before the BIG ones were built. Before Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio were working opposite sides of the law in “The Departed,” before Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci were running Vegas in “Casino,” and before Ray Liotta became a gangster in “Goofellas,” Harvey Keitel was trying to survive the mean streets of New York. All the classic elements are there: strong performances, gangsters who are both reckless and conflicted by their choices, and a kick-ass soundtrack by The Rolling Stones. This movie was another entry in the film club I joined while studying at the University of Sherbrooke, where we would watch double features every night in the faculty basement. That week’s programming: a Martin Scorsese double feature starting with “Mean Streets” and ending with, I believe, “Goodfellas.” Appropriate, since “Mean Streets” was the beginning of success for Scorsese, while “...

Brad Bird’s “Ratatouille” (2007) shouldn’t work. Rats can’t cook and they certainly do not belong in the kitchen of a Paris restaurant. Yet because this is a film made by Pixar, the studio with a nearly impeccable track record, that rat is not only depicted as a great cook but as also looks kind of cute, or as cute as an animated rat can be. Imagine the challenge if this had been a live-action film. As for the food, the dishes devised by the rat look a lot healthier than the frozen food the movie’s antagonist wants to peddle to his customers. This was yet another occasion when I wanted to wait until the movie came out on DVD so I could watch the original English version and not the French dubbed version. It would actually have made more sense to see it in French since it is set in Paris, but it is funnier to hear Americans speak English with a phony French accent. Besides, the DVD had plenty of funny extras, such as short film about the misconceptions of rats towards hu...

Alfonso Cuaron’s “Children of Men” (2006) imagines a bleak future that is not the result of a nuclear war, a fallen meteor, or the ever-popular zombie outbreak. This possible future planet earth is going down the drain because humanity itself is slowly ebbing away after eighteen years of infertility. Set in not-so-distant future in the United Kingdom, the film shows a world overrun with pollution, corruption, massive immigration, and a totalitarian police force. You know it is the future, since all of the bright colors are gone. I first saw this movie at an art-house cinema during my first year at Sherbrooke University. The bleak future reminded me of the PC game Half-Life 2. This game, much like “Children of Men,” featured a city controlled by a totalitarian police force. Except, while the game was senseless fantasy, the movie has a much more visceral feel since it is much more grounded in reality. You just need to look at the news footage to think we are one global ca...