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The Simon

The Simon is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Tim Grierson.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
Get Low (2009) Tim Grierson A sincere but gamey mixture of cornball sentimentality and faux-period (not to mention faux-regional) detail.
Posted Jul 29, 2010  Edit critic review
Countdown to Zero (2010) Tim Grierson It's fast-paced and engaging, and at 91 minutes it doesn't overstay its welcome. But director Lucy Walker follows the documentary formula with too much maniacal fidelity.
Posted Jul 29, 2010  Edit critic review
Inception (2010) Tim Grierson Inception is an extraordinarily ambitious work. It's a bit overlong at 148 minutes, but I couldn't tell you what I would have cut out of it.
Posted Jul 15, 2010  Edit critic review
Great Directors (2009) Tim Grierson Great Directors doesn't tell you a lot about its great directors, but as a roadmap on how to live artfully, it's rather inspiring.
Posted Jul 09, 2010  Edit critic review
Despicable Me (2010) Tim Grierson So if delicious nastiness isn't Despicable Me's thing, what is? Rampant, merciless cuteness.
Posted Jul 09, 2010  Edit critic review
Wild Grass (2009) Tim Grierson Not since the masterful Punch-Drunk Love has a love story been this willfully loopy and beguiling.
Posted Jun 25, 2010  Edit critic review
The Karate Kid (2010) Tim Grierson Laziness permeates every moment of director Harald Zwart's new version of The Karate Kid.
Posted Jun 10, 2010  Edit critic review
Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (2009) Tim Grierson As Coco Chanel, Anna Mouglalis is brittle, shallow, and petty in all the right ways.
Posted Jun 10, 2010  Edit critic review
Survival of the Dead (2009) Tim Grierson I would hardly proclaim Survival to be a creative renaissance for Romero, but the movie's down-and-dirty simplicity keeps this latest installment moving along.
Posted May 27, 2010  Edit critic review
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) Tim Grierson While Gyllenhaal doesn't quite elevate Prince of Persia or make it worth your while, he doesn't embarrass himself, either.
Posted May 27, 2010  Edit critic review
Everyone Else (2009) Tim Grierson Like love itself, Everyone Else is far from perfect, but its sustaining pleasures make you wonder how you ever lived without it.
Posted May 16, 2010  Edit critic review
Date Night (2010) Tim Grierson Steve Carell and Tina Fey manage to be funny without ever seeming superior to the slipshod material.
Posted Apr 11, 2010  Edit critic review
How to Train Your Dragon (2010) Tim Grierson Dragon isn't an instant classic, but there's emotion and darkness in it.
Posted Apr 11, 2010  Edit critic review
Greenberg (2010) Tim Grierson The storytelling may not always be sharp enough, but director Noah Baumbach's vision of a Los Angeles where people with dreams slowly age into bland irrelevance is spot-on.
Posted Apr 11, 2010  Edit critic review
Green Zone (2010) Tim Grierson The film magnifies the obstacles in the path of anyone trying to make compelling, intelligent drama out of the most important ongoing American issue.
Posted Mar 12, 2010  Edit critic review
The Ghost Writer (2010) Tim Grierson This isn't a movie to compare to Chinatown or Rosemary's Baby, but it's entertaining, clever, very funny and largely unpredictable all the way to the end.
Posted Feb 26, 2010  Edit critic review
The Yellow Handkerchief (2008) Tim Grierson Despite all the sad twists and turns in the central love story, the movie's most heartbreaking element is that Hurt and Bello do such good work in a fairly negligible movie.
Posted Feb 26, 2010  Edit critic review
Fish Tank (2009) Tim Grierson Andrea Arnold is too skilled not to surprise you with the unexpectedly graceful moment, and she has a feel for the downtrodden milieu she loves exploring.
Posted Feb 26, 2010  Edit critic review
Bronson (2008) Tim Grierson Bronson doesn't have much to say, but it's a very fun exercise in bad behavior that's neither glamorized nor bemoaned.
Posted Feb 26, 2010  Edit critic review
The Lovely Bones (2009) Tim Grierson Director Peter Jackson is superb when he sets up Susie's world, but once she's killed, just about nothing works well afterward.
Posted Dec 30, 2009  Edit critic review
A Single Man (2009) Tim Grierson Unlike few films I've seen, A Single Man excellently visualizes what depression feels like.
Posted Dec 30, 2009  Edit critic review
Invictus (2009) Tim Grierson Eastwood's austere direction is always this close to tumbling into dullness, but he's got two strong leads to keep Invictus alert and alive.
Posted Dec 30, 2009  Edit critic review
The Blind Side (2009) Tim Grierson Writer-director John Lee Hancock wants to say something meaningful about racism, but he can't even get the football parts of his film right.
Posted Dec 30, 2009  Edit critic review
The Headless Woman (2008) Tim Grierson Even if I was never fully captivated by Veronica's existential journey, I was happy to get lost in it for the length of the film's running time.
Posted Dec 30, 2009  Edit critic review
Brothers (2009) Tim Grierson This Brothers can't help but feel like a shadow of the original, but its quieter stretches are quite successful.
Posted Dec 04, 2009  Edit critic review
The Last Station (2009) Tim Grierson Literate, pleasant, vaguely arty, good enough.
Posted Dec 04, 2009  Edit critic review
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) Tim Grierson In hindsight, it seems obvious now that Wes Anderson should make a stop-motion animated film -- the medium highlights all his strengths while nullifying his limitations.
Posted Dec 04, 2009  Edit critic review
Me and Orson Welles (2008) Tim Grierson It's a fun, smart movie about artistic aspirations, but its worthiness stems from Christian McKay's terrific performance.
Posted Dec 04, 2009  Edit critic review
The Road (2009) Tim Grierson The Road ends up being more gloomy than harrowing. That's probably good for your constitution but not so much for your viewing experience.
Posted Dec 04, 2009  Edit critic review
Broken Embraces (2009) Tim Grierson It's an easy film to like, but to love it you have to have spent your entire life learning everything about the world from other films.
Posted Nov 19, 2009  Edit critic review
La Danse -- Le Ballet de l'Opera de Paris (2009) Tim Grierson Sweeping, elegant, completely enjoyable, but rarely revelatory.
Posted Nov 19, 2009  Edit critic review
Red Cliff (2008) Tim Grierson John Woo doesn't make films, he makes movies -- and Red Cliff is one pretty darn good movie.
Posted Nov 19, 2009  Edit critic review
Planet 51 (2009) Tim Grierson At a time when so many other animated films are actively pushing the envelope, Planet 51 just bottom-feeds.
Posted Nov 19, 2009  Edit critic review
Collapse (2009) Tim Grierson Like with The Fog of War, Collapse is intentionally, deceptively one-dimensional, and it's up to you to fill in the other half of the debate with your own opinions.
Posted Nov 12, 2009  Edit critic review
The Messenger (2009) Tim Grierson In his directorial debut, Moverman is a very confident filmmaker, one who can sustain unbroken scenes of over 10 minutes without making it seem self-indulgent or gimmicky.
Posted Nov 12, 2009  Edit critic review
Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009) Tim Grierson The greatest tension in this adaptation of A Christmas Carol isn't between Scrooge and those pesky ghosts but within writer-director Robert Zemeckis.
Posted Nov 12, 2009  Edit critic review
Pirate Radio (2009) Tim Grierson To enjoy Pirate Radio you have to accept its bits-and-pieces format. And you probably will also have always secretly wanted to be a disc jockey as a kid.
Posted Nov 12, 2009  Edit critic review
Treeless Mountain (2008) Tim Grierson A series of plotless, episodic incidents that slowly build to understated emotional crescendos.
Posted Nov 12, 2009  Edit critic review
Paranormal Activity (2007) Tim Grierson I think it's more fun and inventive than really frightening, but that's not to say it doesn't have a significant amount of creepy-crawly moments that are very, very effective.
Posted Nov 05, 2009  Edit critic review
Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire (2009) Tim Grierson Moment by moment, Precious walks a predictable path but keeps us off-balance because Daniels consistently executes scenes slightly differently than what we expect.
Posted Nov 05, 2009  Edit critic review
The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) Tim Grierson Nagging deficiencies aside, I can't deny that I found this to be a fizzy, funny little romp.
Posted Nov 05, 2009  Edit critic review
35 Shots of Rum (2008) Tim Grierson Characters tend not to say things that are explicit. We piece together bits of information from here and there, and we're left to draw some conclusions on our own.
Posted Oct 22, 2009  Edit critic review
(Untitled) (2009) Tim Grierson Sort of a parody of the cliquish New York art scene, but also a defense of it.
Posted Oct 22, 2009  Edit critic review
A Serious Man (2009) Tim Grierson The agony and dread that permeate this film never waver.
Posted Oct 22, 2009  Edit critic review
Where the Wild Things Are (2009) Tim Grierson Much like Eyes Wide Shut or a David Lynch film, Where the Wild Things Are works on the level of the conscious and subconscious.
Posted Oct 22, 2009  Edit critic review
Antichrist (2009) Tim Grierson For those with a strong constitution, Lars von Trier's Antichrist has much to recommend. It's got gore and shocks, but most of the horror will occur in your mind.
Posted Oct 22, 2009  Edit critic review
Julia (2008) Tim Grierson If you're feeling adventurous, seek it out. Swinton's masterful performance as the flailing, desperate L.A. alcoholic Julia will more than reward your time.
Posted Oct 15, 2009  Edit critic review
Still Walking (2008) Tim Grierson Precisely observed and unfailingly modest and graceful, the 24 hours or so chronicled by Kore-Eda are pregnant with resentment, sadness and love.
Posted Oct 15, 2009  Edit critic review
Beeswax (2009) Tim Grierson if Beeswax doesn't feel as significant as his last film, Mutual Appreciation, it's that movie's equal in terms of lovingly gnomic characters and very real anxieties.
Posted Oct 15, 2009  Edit critic review
The Informant! (2009) Tim Grierson Between this film and The Girlfriend Experience, Soderbergh has had himself a great year.
Posted Oct 15, 2009  Edit critic review
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