Simon's Movie Reviews

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) is that rare Western that goes off the beaten path, at one point quite literally by leaving the American West behind. It is also sometimes cartoonishly funny as outlaws use too much dynamite to blow up a safe, jump off a cliff to evade a posse, and have to learn a new language in the middle of a bank robbery. At its core it is the story of two friends who, despite the occasional argument, stay together until the end. The first time I saw the movie was more than a decade ago when if I wanted to watch a classic movie I had to rent it from a store. It was not the best cinematic experience since the disc was scratched and the image kept jumping in the first minutes, but eventually it got better. I recently rewatched it on Disney +, since Disney seems intent on owning everything, and was pleasantly reminded of what a fun movie this is. It is not Blazing Saddles in terms of silliness, but it’s certainly not Unforgiven in terms of violence either....

  Some movies have their main characters fight against nature, some against armies and others have them fight against institutions, always with the odds against them. Cool Hand Luke (1967) falls into that last category as it follows a character who clashes against the often-troubled institution that is the American prison system. It helps that the people in charge of said prison are borderline sadists and that the convict rebelling against the system is the legendary screen presence that is Paul Newman. I had a great first impression of this movie even though the first time I saw it was years ago while it had already started playing on TV. The dialogue was dubbed in Spanish since I was living in South America at the time, but once you get into the story it is hard to let go. Watching Paul Newman defy and outsmart prison guards is not on par with all the spectacle you see in cinemas nowadays, but it is certainly engaging. I recently rewatched the movie, from beginning to end, on ...

Brian De Palma’s Blow Out (1981) manages to be an outstanding thriller while also educating the audience about the mechanics of making such a movie. Many moviegoers might not understand the concept of editing, sound mixing, or why they have their own categories at the Oscars. Through the eyes (and ears) of a sound technician, we get to see how every sound in any movie is carefully picked in order to elicit the right reaction from the audience. Things take a tragic turn when said technician records an actual murder. Jack Terry (John Travolta) is a self-described “sound guy” who has quite a few movies under his belt. Unfortunately, those movies are not Oscar-winning dramas shot in Hollywood, but low-budget slasher films that border on sexploitation. Yet Jack works diligently out of his Philadelphia office, always trying to find the right sound to mix into the film. Those sounds can be anything from the sounds of a creaking door to the scream of an actress as a maniac is about to stab h...

  Alien (1979) is a perfectly executed horror movie with a simple premise that works and a slim cast treating the material seriously. The movie’s one-word title perfectly sums up the story and its deadly antagonist: an unknown alien creature is aboard a spacecraft and is killing the crew one by one. This is a B-movie plot that had been done before plenty of times and has been imitated repeatedly. However, in the highly capable hands of Ridley Scott, this haunted house movie set in space slowly build up to be one of the scariest thrillers ever made with only a few jump scares. It helps that the monster is one of the scariest creatures ever designed in the history of horror.   Two things about me and this movie’s monster: first, when I was a kid, seeing it in a 30-second trailer was enough to scare me. Second, Mel Brooks made it a lot less scary. There is an entire generation of movie-goers who were scared and possibly vomited in their popcorn bags when they first saw the sce...

  Peter Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) is a very well made look at how reporters, back when they still had stable careers, operate in unstable countries. It looks at ethical questions, from the point of view of both the journalists covering the conflicts, and the people who actually live in the country and have to live with the impact of their coverage. One of these people is a photographer played by an award-winning Linda Hunt. Unfortunately, the other major role is played by Mel Gibson, a name now synonymous with controversy, but that shouldn’t stop anyone from seeing the movie. Between Christmas and the start of 2022 like many people I was stuck indoors with a lot of time to kill so I caught up on a few shows and movies. I can’t say I was itching to complete my viewing of Mel Gibson’s filmography, but I was pleasantly surprised to see Linda Hunt have such a prominent role. Certain TV viewers might know her as the boss on NCIS LA , but here we see her early in her...

  Despite all the fantasy elements and the many battles, it would be reasonable to consider Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy a holiday tradition. All three movies all came out during the holiday season, feature family and friends joining together, and it is wonderful escapism to enjoy on a cold winter day. The Return of the King (2003) is especially joyous since it is the culmination of all the adventures the characters have gone through, even though there are about five different culminations as the movie winds down. Whether you are a fan of the fantasy genre or if you have read the books, seeing The Return of the King on the big screen is quite the experience. It is not with every movie that you get to see thousands of riders charge against an army of orcs on a battlefield only to get attacked by a battalion of elephant-like creatures. That is one of the most spectacular scenes in a movie filled with plenty of spectacular scenes over a two and a half runnin...

  Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) should be what all action movie sequels aim to be. Some people say less is more; James Cameron says more is more. With this sequel he pitted two terminators against each other, turned Linda Hamilton into a heroine for the ages, and just as he did with Aliens, he increased the scale of the action sequences by 10. On paper the concept for the Terminator films sounds like a low-grade B movie: a robot from the future, played by an Austrian actor with the world’s thickest accent, is sent to the past to kill the leader of the human resistance. What ended up on screen is a ground-breaking special effects bonanza that takes viewers on an epic adventure. This was a seminal 90s movie, so of course my brother and I ended up owning a copy on VHS, which had repeated viewings. Some of the action scenes were probably too graphic for my age at the time, but I’m not complaining. Whenever I feel today’s action movies have too many G-rated gunfights with superhe...