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SIMONE
"Adrew Niccol's 'Simone' is like the punch
line to a joke that's been going around for years. It has been told
better, and been funnier, elsewhere...Mr. Niccol is satirizing the
kinds of dazzling empties he himself has made...His newest effort,
'Simone,' goes beyond postmodern to post-entertainment--it's tepid
and vapid." --
Elvis Mitchell, The
New York Times
"Given that he's prone to overacting when he has flesh and blood performers
to contend with, co-starring Al Pacino with a computer-generated actress
in 'Simone' is asking for trouble. And trouble is definitely what
resulted...'Simone' is such a tedious Hollywood farce, so unpleasantly
glib and relentlessly shallow, that Pacino's excessive performance
is not even the worst thing about it...It's painful to see bright
people make a dim movie, but that's the case here." --Kenneth
Turan, The Los Angeles Times
"... a clever, innovative satire of movies and consumer technology
that marches to its own drumbeat and comes up with continual surprises....a
hilarious object lesson in the kind of hell Hollywood could unleash
if technology takes over...a riotous farce that would turn Preston
Sturges green with envy--but like all great farce, there's a grain
of truth in every cynical scene...'Simone' has a rumpled and charming
centerpiece in Al Pacino, who gives a performance for which I was
in no way prepared. He's looser here than he's ever been before, and
actually shows some flair for comedy as a man on a roller coaster
who can't get off." --Rex
Reed, The New York Observer
"... it's fitfully funny but never really takes off. Out of the corners
of our eyes we glimpse the missed opportunities for some real satirical
digging...the satire is not sharp enough and the characters are too
routine...in aiming for too wide an audience, Niccol has made too
shallow a picture." --Roger Ebert,
Chicago Sun-Times
"'Simone' staggers between flaccid satire and what is supposed to
be madcap farce. The few relatively original points that 'Simone'
does score against the industry are undermined by its own eruptions
of sentimentality and patronizing speeches that explain the filmmaker's
point...What makes 'Simone' worth watching are not the obvious potshots
at Hollywood narcissism and celebrity culture nor the pseudo-interesting
technological premise (the threat posed to the art of movies by computer-generated
imagery)--but the performances by Al Pacino and the always excellent
Catherine Keener, and the photography by Ed Lachman...as in Niccol's
earlier films, 'Gattaca' and 'The Truman Show,' 'Simone' is built
around little old ideas posing as big new ones." --Jonathan
Foreman, The New York Post
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