ROTTEN TOMATOES: Brent Simon

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Entertainment Today

BRENT SIMON

Agrees with the Tomatometer 69% of the time.

Biography: A bespectacled graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Brent Simon is editor-in-chief of Entertainment Today and a writer of many words for many formats. He does not like the new Pacific Bell Wireless commercials and cannot abide a world without U2 and pizza.

Favorites: Movies without Bette Midler, Barbara Streisand, Mariah Carey and Eric Schaeffer

Publications: Entertainment Today, FilmStew.com, IGN Movies, Los Angeles CityBeat, Los Angeles Daily News, Now Playing Magazine, ReelzChannel.com, Screen International, Screendaily, Shared Darkness

Critics' Group: Los Angeles Film Critics Association

Total Reviews: 1305
Total QuickRatings: 9

Location: Los Angeles, CA

LISTING OF ALL REVIEWS & ARTICLES

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Showing 1 - 50 of 1305

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date (default)

Rotten D+	Rotten 19%	Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)	" A posed, pop-art cinematic ejaculation of instinctive, unthinking extremes. And no, that's not a good thing, sorry." — Shared Darkness Posted Jul 3, 2009
Rotten C-	N/A	The Human Contract (2009)	" A deeply weird stab at a sort of humanistic erotic thriller whose interesting themes are sabotaged by two woefully miscast leads..." — Shared Darkness DVD REVIEW Posted Jul 3, 2009
Fresh C+	Fresh 60%	Surveillance (2009)	" A wholly engaging partial misfire, if that makes sense -- a spare yet stylish marginal recommendation that connects due to its provocative premise and ruminations on violence, and the considerations that spawns." — Shared Darkness Posted Jul 3, 2009
Fresh A	Fresh 97%	The Hurt Locker (2009)	" The Hurt Locker is so taut, and skillfully focused on character, that it could be retro-engineered into a stageplay and still retain most of its dramatic punch." — Shared Darkness Posted Jun 25, 2009
Fresh B	N/A	The Hostess Also Likes To Blow The Horn ()	" Greatest sex comedy title EVER? Perhaps. A pleasure, then, that this 1970 German import delivers." — Shared Darkness DVD REVIEW Posted Jun 25, 2009
Fresh	Rotten 17%	Year One (2009)	" *The big, blustery physical comedy of Jack Black makes for an amusing fit with Michael Cera�s quiet, self-deprecating humour in Year One." — Screen International* Posted Jun 19, 2009
Rotten D+	Rotten 12%	My Life in Ruins (2009)	" An aggressively awful opening 20 minutes gives way to over-the-top characterizations and an increasingly wan series of bits aping film moments we've all seen before, executed with more grace and charm." — Shared Darkness Posted Jun 12, 2009
Fresh B	Rotten 50%	Easy Virtue (2009)	" Engaging and well acted -- that rare period piece that refuses to yield to predictably stuffy interpretations of what does and doesn't constitute familial screen conflict in times gone by." — Shared Darkness Posted Jun 12, 2009
Rotten	Rotten 50%	The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)	" A professionally mounted genre exercise which tries to please both the thriller and social drama crowds and suffers as a result." — Screen International Posted Jun 8, 2009
Rotten	Rotten 28%	Land of the Lost (2009)	" *More rudely silly than funny, action-comedy Land of the Lost* is staged with colour and a fair amount of energy, but not much in the way of inventiveness or surprise.*" — Screen International* Posted Jun 5, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 82%	Pontypool (2009)	" Part of a new breed of highbrow 'concept' horror that shrugs off and/or embraces the constraints of limited production means and instead picks at the nasty mental scabs of what truly unnerves, Pontypool has the twin advantages of a provocative prem" — Shared Darkness Posted May 29, 2009
Rotten D	Rotten 38%	While She Was Out (2008)	" A harebrained, stalking, I-am-woman-hear-me-roar thriller, the sort of which would have starred Ashley Judd if it had been produced during the late '90s. Inane dialogue torpedoes a committed performance from Basinger." — Shared Darkness DVD REVIEW Posted May 21, 2009
Rotten C	Rotten 37%	Angels & Demons (2009)	" The chief problem is that the literary-historical elements of the story that so root it in detail are the same things that work against the film's time-crunch structure, which doesn't play convincingly." — Shared Darkness Posted May 21, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 93%	Drag Me To Hell (2009)	" A slickly made, engaging horror film that evokes the spirit of much of the director�s early work." — Screen International Posted May 20, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 84%	Wendy and Lucy (2008)	" *A willfully spare, carefully observed film about sympathy and generosity at the dirty-fingernailed edges of American life, Wendy and Lucy* feels like a folk song come to life.*" — Shared Darkness* DVD REVIEW Posted May 13, 2009
Rotten C-	N/A	America Betrayed (2009)	" Any frothy rage or eagerness to make a change from this skipped-stone, scatterbrained social-agitation documentary dissipates on contact, as soon as credits roll. And that's a shame, honestly..." — Shared Darkness DVD REVIEW Posted Apr 29, 2009
Rotten C-	Rotten 55%	Lymelife (2009)	" A sort of facile, lesser entry in the canon of movies in which sensible, overly mature kids grapple with philandering and emotionally stunted adults, Lymelife is a bunch of discrete, thematically similar scenes in search of a cogent narrative punch" — Shared Darkness Posted Apr 29, 2009
Fresh	Rotten 41%	Fighting (2009)	" There's a lot of honest effort and investment here in character and emotion, which feels refreshing." — Screen International Posted Apr 23, 2009
Rotten C-	Rotten 35%	The Edge of Love (2009)	" A bit too arty and concerned with quasi-historical detail to catch fire as a romance (doomed or otherwise), and too yawningly familiar in its major chord plotting to set sail as a honest character ensemble." — Shared Darkness Posted Apr 19, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 88%	Adventureland (2009)	" Adventureland never fully digs into its potentially provocative mutual-use premise, but with its easygoing, lived-in charms and nice supporting performances, there's certainly a lot more good than not in the film." — Shared Darkness Posted Apr 14, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 79%	Return of the Secaucus Seven (1981)	" Stagy and at times unevenly acted, but full of discerning and engaging judgments about what it meant to be a childless thirtysomething couple -- or, egads, even single -- at the close of the 1970s." — Shared Darkness DVD REVIEW Posted Apr 14, 2009
Rotten D	Rotten 35%	Alien Trespass (2009)	" Neither legit parody nor loving sci-fi homage; a movie with no firm reference point, [and] lacking the breezy wit or clever execution that might otherwise provide a reason for its standalone existence." — Shared Darkness Posted Apr 8, 2009
Rotten	Rotten 28%	Fast & Furious (2009)	" A technical team the size of a small army attempts to inject some life into Fast & Furious, the fourth entry in the urban auto franchise, but only succeeds in upping the decibel level of this grating, clamorous mess." — Screen International Posted Apr 3, 2009
Rotten C-	Rotten 52%	American Swing (2009)	" There's glossy surface engagement as an artifact snapshot of the sexual revolution, but everything about American Swing is only thumbnail-deep; it doesn't have, ahem, the rigorous thrust necessary to leave a lasting impression." — Shared Darkness Posted Mar 31, 2009
Fresh C+	Fresh 82%	I Love You, Man (2009)	" The premise is modern, and brilliant; it could easily be used to delve substantively into the new, post-feminist (evolving? constricting? wounded?) male psyche. But the film eschews anything too complicated or dark, so laughs are counterbalanced with shru" — Shared Darkness Posted Mar 27, 2009
Fresh A-	Fresh 66%	Duplicity (2009)	" Only incidentally a con movie, Duplicity is actually a subversive, high-wire romance, with the MacGuffin serving as a metaphorical placeholder for the surging hormonal attraction, trepidation and uncertainty of love's bloom." — Shared Darkness Posted Mar 27, 2009
Fresh A-	N/A	Nova - Fractals: Hunting the Hidden Dimension (2008)	" Lively interview subjects help make this hour-long doc on the irregular repeating shapes found in nature an engaging treat." — Shared Darkness DVD REVIEW Posted Mar 27, 2009
Fresh B+	Fresh 92%	Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)	" It doesn't matter whether one really 'likes' Poppy, only that they recognize in her the proactive application of joy as a weapon -- as well as something that keeps her in a state of arrested development." — Shared Darkness DVD REVIEW Posted Mar 20, 2009
Fresh B+	Fresh 74%	Elegy (2008)	" A carefully observed, well acted autumnal character study that plays nicely on the small screen, in a dimly lit den, with a nice glass of wine." — Shared Darkness DVD REVIEW Posted Mar 20, 2009
Rotten C-	Rotten 4%	Miss March (2009)	" Notable to its wheelhouse-demographic, in that it disproves the notion that every possible mangled male genital sight-gag has already been shown on screen." — Shared Darkness Posted Mar 16, 2009
Rotten	Rotten 42%	The Last House on the Left (2009)	" While director Dennis Iliadas has no trouble capturing depravity, as the film wears on the script lets him down." — Screen International Posted Mar 13, 2009
Fresh B+	Fresh 65%	The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008)	" An opening quote that characterizes childhood as being a carefree period before 'the dark hour of reason grows' serves as ironic counterpoint for a well-crafted World War II drama through which prejudice, dehumanization and corrupted innocence are all ass" — Shared Darkness DVD REVIEW Posted Mar 12, 2009
Fresh C+	Fresh 88%	Frozen River (2008)	" A quaint slice of socioeconomically depressed cinema, Frozen River could just as easily be titled Women on the Edge, for it's all about the struggle of blue-collar, single retail moms for whom life doesn't quite work." — Shared Darkness DVD REVIEW Posted Mar 12, 2009
Fresh A	Fresh 79%	Office Space (1999)	" A comedy about authority and the searing resentment that its lazy application engenders -- the dialogue is rich, the details spot-on and the laugh-out-loud factor as high as just about any comedy of the 1990s." — Shared Darkness DVD REVIEW Posted Mar 9, 2009
Rotten C-	N/A	The Librarian 3: Curse Of The Judas Chalice (2008)	" *Sort of like The Da Vinci Code* crossed with Indiana Jones, if that movie was written by an enthusiastic community college instructor with a single credit of Xena fan-fiction to his name.*" — Shared Darkness* DVD REVIEW Posted Mar 6, 2009
Rotten C-	N/A	Kiss Me Deadly (2008)	" A gay-themed, very derivative, amnesiac Bourne-type, straight-to-video spy thriller that succeeds in some spicy character notes, but fails even by modest standards as an actioner." — Shared Darkness DVD REVIEW Posted Mar 4, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 88%	Medicine for Melancholy (2009)	" A shoegazing arthouse romance marked by naturalistic performances and a commitment to the beauty, tenderness and on-tenterhooks hope of everyday reality..." — Shared Darkness Posted Mar 2, 2009
Rotten	Fresh 64%	Watchmen (2009)	" Fitfully touching on a variety of complex issues, but never entirely satisfyingly so, Watchmen is shockingly devoid of natural narrative pull -- a beautifully constructed rocket that never quite gets off the ground." — Screen International Posted Feb 27, 2009
Rotten F	N/A	Against the Dark (2009)	" Terrible, and even suffers from a paucity of Seagal. Opening dialogue: 'We're not here to decide what's wrong or right, just who lives and dies.' Whaaaaaaaaaat?" — Shared Darkness DVD REVIEW Posted Feb 24, 2009
Rotten D-	N/A	Kill Switch ()	" With alcohol and a quick-witted group of right-minded action fans, this could be enjoyed as a comedy, because that's how poorly the action is cut together." — Shared Darkness DVD REVIEW Posted Feb 23, 2009
Rotten C	Rotten 59%	Quarantine (2008)	" A passably engaging claustrophobic horror thriller that eventually reveals the limitations of its storytelling mode and visual scheme, and descends into nonsensical confusion." — Shared Darkness DVD REVIEW Posted Feb 20, 2009
N/A	Fresh 91%	Gomorrah (2009)	" *Garrone talks about Gomorrah's theatrical success in Italy, the state of the government's war on the mafia, and what Oliver Stone thought about his film." — Shared Darkness* INTERVIEW Posted Feb 17, 2009
Rotten F	Rotten 0%	Polanski (2009)	" A jumbled, whorish, opportunistic hot mess, multi-hyphenate Chapa's film is a fantastically terrible biopic, poorly told and riddled with repeated, confounding lapses in logic." — Shared Darkness Posted Feb 17, 2009
Rotten	Rotten 23%	Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009)	" A manic and not entirely convincing romantic comedy in which there is no discernible difference between its characters drunk or sober." — Screen International Posted Feb 12, 2009
Rotten C	Fresh 84%	Ghost Town (2008)	" Sweet-natured and well served by Gervais, Ghost Town feels full of safe choices and conventional moves, rendering it a future bundled-DVD companion of fellow apparitional rom-com piffle like Just Like Heaven." — Shared Darkness DVD REVIEW Posted Feb 10, 2009
Rotten C	Fresh 60%	The Duchess (2008)	" *Yet another period piece about a progressive, fashionable woman constrained by the strict mores of her time, The Duchess* is a gear-grindingly familiar romantic drama cloaked in sumptuousness.*" — Shared Darkness* DVD REVIEW Posted Feb 10, 2009
Fresh B	Rotten 58%	The International (2009)	" A tough sell due to its ambition, complexity and the fact that its action is contained in a single, crazy mid-film burst; still, a perfectly good, engrossing adult espionage drama even if it doesn't take a full, hearty swing at greatness." — Shared Darkness Posted Feb 9, 2009
N/A	Fresh 84%	Two Lovers (2009)	" *James Gray chats about Two Lovers* and Joaquin Phoenix, as well as his wild new film with Brad Pitt.*" — Shared Darkness* INTERVIEW Posted Feb 9, 2009
Fresh B	Fresh 94%	2009 Academy-Award Nominated Short Films (2009)	" *Some melancholic tone poems and beautiful acting. The Pig* and On the Line are best, and there's only one real misfire out of the bunch.*" — Shared Darkness* Posted Feb 6, 2009
N/A	Fresh 84%	Two Lovers (2009)	" *Vinessa Shaw talks about Two Lovers, working with Joaquin Phoenix, and practicing Buddhism..." — Shared Darkness* INTERVIEW Posted Feb 6, 2009

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A	Wedding Crashers Offsite
10/10	WALL-E Offsite
A-	Grizzly Man Offsite
B+	Broken Flowers Offsite
3/4	Days and Clouds Offsite
B	Batman Begins Offsite
7/10	There Will Be Blood Offsite
2.5/4	Jackass: Number Two Offsite
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3/5	The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause Offsite
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2.5/5	Night at the Museum Offsite
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4/10	Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem Offsite
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D	The Island Offsite
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A	Slumdog Millionaire Offsite
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A	Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Offsite

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F	Anatomy of Hell Offsite
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F	Fear Dot Com Offsite

BRENT SIMON

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