Simon's Movie Reviews

Quentin Tarantino has, so far, made fewer movies than I have fingers. Yet his films are so distinctively stylistic that every time a new one comes out everyone from the Cannes Film Festival to the Academy Awards pays attention. This explains why when the first trailer for “Kill Bill” came out it proudly said “Miramax presents the 4 th film by Quentin Tarantino” as though it was the announcement of a major event. Given the sight of Uma Thurman surrounded by sword-wielding henchmen to the tune of yet another great Tarantino soundtrack, it did indeed look like an affair to remember. When that first trailer came out, Miramax had not yet announced their decision to split the film in two. Given the full film’s four-hour running time, it did make logical and not just financial sense. The man does like to write a lot of scenes, but whether they involve blood flow or word flow, they are always excellent scenes. This film came out in October 2003, a few months after my fa...

It seems today you can’t flip a channel without running into a show about competitive singing, competitive dancing, scavenger hunts, or just plain competitive living. Everyone from the airheads on The Jersey Shore to ordinary idiots pretending to live their lives on Big Brother want their every moves recorded so the whole world can see them on their TVs, laptops, tablets or their phones. In 1998 Australian filmmaker Peter Weir and New Zealand screenwriter Andrew Niccol warned us with American film “The Truman Show” starring Canadian Jim Carrey. This international talent pool made a brilliant satire of the rise of reality television by showing us a world willing to watch the life of an ordinary man 24/7. The catch is that man has no idea his whole life is a lie. This movie came out when I was around 11 years and my family and I were living in South America but we would spend the summer back in Québec. I had zero interest in reality shows, but I loved Jim Carrey. Movies h...

Germany had it rough in the 20 th century to put it mildly. World War I was quickly followed by World War II, after which the country was carved in two. East Germany was called the German Democratic Republic, but it was in fact a communist nation where people’s every move could be monitored if they were suspected of being against the party, not that that is so different from what modern governments do these days. “The Lives of Others” (2006) tells the story of a Stasi agent in 1984 assigned to monitor a writer to make sure he has no intention of writing anything subversive. However, as the agent listens in on their lives, he realizes there is more that meets the eyes, or in this case the ears. The 2006 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film, “The Lives of Others” ended up on plenty of critic’s top ten lists that year. My taste for foreign movies can be hit or miss depending on the genre, but seeing as this one had practically universal love, I rente...

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...

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...

The movie that kick started M. Night Shyamalan’s career and featured THAT twist ending, “The Sixth Sense” (1999) is the best kind of ghost story there is. It relies on environment and tension, not gore, to scare its audience. Its protagonist is a nine-year-old boy haunted by spirits, making him a very vulnerable victim. His mother of course attributes his behavior to hallucinations and has a psychologist try to help out, but the doctor himself is unsure if he can do anything. That kid is in for some wild nights. Of course “The Sixth Sense” is known for its twist ending that put a whole new spin on the story. In case you are one of six people on Earth who have not seen it, no spoilers from me. Unfortunately, I accidently read the ending on a movie web site that listed the twist endings from Shyamalan’s three best films since 1999. This is why I always try to watch as many movies as possible over the weekend: you never know when you are going to miss one that everyone wil...

Nostalgia is a powerful feeling. You have some good times in a period of your life, time goes by and you feel like going back to that time period. I am guessing someone in the late 70s felt nostalgic about late 1950s high school life in America, leading to the creation of “Grease,” one of John Travolta’s first hits. The life and time are very dated today, but every now and then you still hear the soundtrack on classic rock stations. Clearly the lyricists did their jobs right. This is not my favourite musical. It’s cutesy with catchy tunes, but my top two musicals are “The Blues Brothers” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” If it involves car chases, Ray Charles, the Time Warp, Meat Loaf, and Carrie Fisher with a rocket launcher then count me in. I have less enthusiasm for Danny Zucko singing about his summer love for Sandy. But the movie was available for a dollar on iTunes during an evening when I had nothing to do in University, so I might as well kill two hours and ...