Good start, but then it gets ruined

Fresh and Exciting

Blistering performances.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

"Simon" is one of the strangest movies I have seen in quite some time. It's not the premise that is so strange - the bare bones of the plot read like they could be made into a typical comedy - but rather the execution. Although there are a number of attempts at humor throughout the movie (and I admit that I did find some of these attempts amusing), there is a strong serious undercurrent. It seems that the movie is trying to say something, though what that is I cannot say for sure. But there are deeper problem with the movie. It takes quite a while for it to get going, for one thing. And once it gets going, it seems to have a number of moments where key footage seems missing or wasn't filmed at all in the first place. But all the same, I am kind of glad that I saw the movie, because it's the rare major studio production to really be strange and offbeat - which is refreshing in an age of cookie cutter plots and lack of imagination. I would recommend this movie to viewers who want something different and are ready to accept something that is an interesting failure of sorts.

This is a very funny film written and directed by Marshall Brickman, who wrote Woody Allen's ANNIE HALL, MANHATTAN, and MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY, as well as numerous other films. He only directed four films, of which this is the first, and it shows the least directorial skill unfortunately. His second film LOVESICK (1983, see my review) was much more satisfactory as a film. SIMON should have been far more hilarious than it is, but Brickman was too inexperienced and did not plot the pace sufficiently to keep the action moving, so that it repeatedly sags with people talking for too long, and with too much space between the jokes. However, it is very good value if you are willing to go with the flow and not mind the minor faults. Austin Pendleton is the co-star, along with Alan Arkin, and Madeleine Kahn is one of the two female leads. Austin is my cousin, and I believe he and I met Maddy Kahn together for the first time at the Upstairs at the Downstairs when she was still doing live shows, long before she was ever in a movie. This film is a comic sci fi caper, where a think tank full of mad scientists interested in brainwashing techniques, which is run by Austin, choose Arkin for an experiment. They put him into an isolation tank for a very long period of sensory deprivation and persuade him that he is an alien. Much of the comedy then results from Arkin's behaviour once he comes to believe this. Wallace Shawn adds good support, as he always does. I won't spoil the ending by discussing what this all leads to, but 'a good time was had by all', as they say.

One of those comedies which are interesting rather than funny. Not that "Simon" is particularly interesting either, but it does have the benefit of being somewhat unusual, straying from the norm until the last third when it gets more formulaic: the wicked, wicked military chasing "the alien" (don't they always chase to kill?), media attention surrounding the title character (a mega-cliché in comedies), and a love interest that brings Simon back to Earth (I'm allowed a bad pun now and again, I believe).Lurking behind all the silliness is quite possibly the writer's social/political agenda, but it is so clumsily presented that it remains unclear where this guy stands politically. (And you can bet your pants that a Hollywood writer will NOT be wise enough to send a politically neutral message, i.e. mocking both sides of the fence for greater impact.) On one hand Simon quotes the Bible, but on the other he cites Sergey Eisenstein as the epitome of a great film-maker; those are contradictory signals, making it difficult to pin down the writer's political orientation. However, considering that he got a chance to write for Hollywood movies, and taking into account the extremely high percentage of left-wingers in U.S. cinema, I'd put my money on him being yet another liberal whining about "modern consumer-obsessed society" or some such childish nonsense. It's just that this one is probably a little confused, hence the way he went about it while writing the script.On the other hand, who could argue with the proposal to send all lawyers who lose a case to prison along with their defendant? Some of Simon's propositions are obviously goofy, included just for laughs, but some clearly reflect the writer's own frustrations with 70s America, so it's hard to figure him out. It's almost as if he used Simon both to mock him and as a jumping board for his own views - which is like wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Whatever the case, it's safe to say the writer is a bit of a malcontent who'd never personally experienced the Third World (or for that matter, the "Second World") in his whole life.I like Arkin, and he's generally well-suited to playing oddballs, but I had a feeling that perhaps someone like Steve Martin or even Bill Murray would have been funnier. Martin is funnier than Arkin when he shouts, and there is plenty of shouting, whereas Murray could have made the character more of a wise-ass hence funnier; Murray is better at playing those, and less suited to playing idealistic victims of circumstance so I guess Simon would have had to be toned down somewhat for Bill. This is not to say Arkin isn't interesting.

If you haven't seen this you are missing out on a real gem. It was an underground cult hit upon release, then vanished into obscurity. This is a clever, truly brilliant film and it's a true crime that it hasn't been released on DVD. One of Arkin's best performances, up there with Seven Percent Solution. A bizarre film that can appeal to all fans of Woody Allen films, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman TV show, etc. One highlight is the reference to the old TV program, Celebrity Bowling, which of course itself was one of the most bizarre things ever to hit TV screens. Worth the price of admission for that joke alone! Attention producers: DVD required asap please!