Simon's Movie Reviews

In Dan Brown's most recent book an atheist states religion had to be invented because humanity needs to believe in an organized system and not just random chaos in life. The 1946 film A Matter of Life and Death by British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger not only imagines an organized system for the afterlife, but one so organized it has bureaucrats and a court of appeal. I generally lean more towards atheism, yet I found this film to be utterly charming, beautiful and visually striking. If the idea of an afterlife makes you laugh, you can still enjoy the movie as a beautiful work of art. What’s more, it’s free art since it is available in the public domain at archive.org. It was an interesting discovery for me as I was unfamiliar with the work of the two directors and only knew two of the actors in the entire cast. The concept of the story though is something that gives me a great deal of thought. The word heaven is never explicitly used, but rather ...

I recently found out most movies about serial killers and police procedural owe a lot to a black and white German movie from 1931. M , directed by iconic director Fritz Lang, has all the classic elements to be found in modern-day thrillers. There is the sinister killer lurking in the shadows, the question as to whether the killer is insane, panic in the streets, the hunt for vital pieces of evidence, and politicians breathing down the necks of investigators because results are not happening fast enough. As old as the movie may be, it remains a superb piece of film making that is sadly still very relevant today. This movie is available online completely free, and I don't mean free as in on pirate bay or other piracy websites. It is a piece of cultural history, so the Open Culture website has a 109-minute restored version available for viewing along with information about the film's history. Most of it was unknown to me, although I was familiar with the director Fritz ...

The life of rock stars is very fascinating and often highly absurd. Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap (1984) captures that absurdity perfectly by going through all the tropes of the rock’n’roll world through the lens of a fake documentary. The band members are played by actors, but their mannerisms and anecdotes sometimes feel pulled from real-life rock legend. Plus, the movie popularized the expression “dial it up to 11”, which I think we can all agree is one awesome expression. It’s been a while since I first saw This Is Spinal Tap , but I remember laughing a lot while watching it with my brother. Ever since I have noticed its influence in many facets of pop culture, such as how the Defense against the Dark Arts teachers in the Harry Potter don’t last more than one year. Without it we also wouldn’t have Andy Sandberg’s comedy Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping which does for pop music what Reiner’s film did for rock and roll. Then of course we have the cast, a who’s who of ...