Back in the early 80s, when I was still a kid, my parents subscribed to an early cable pay channel called Prism that showed uncut movies (along with sports, etc). Just recently I saw a trivia question about actors who have played Inspector Clouseau, which made me think of Alan Arkin, which suddenly brought back this dim memory of a weird movie I had seen a bunch of times on Prism. Specifically, I was picturing Arkin running through a parking lot with an oven mitt.
Not much to go on, but using IMDB I somehow figured out it was Simon, and a web search revealed that the movie was up on a certain video hosting site that shall remain nameless (but its initials are YT). So I watched it. Turns out my memory is crap. The scene I was thinking of was when Simon escapes from the research facility - he is running through a parking lot, but there's no oven mitt. Instead he sees a woman dancing with a man in a puffy silver suit (it kind of makes sense if you watch the film) and says "That lady is dancing with a potholder!"
That joke really cracked me up as a kid, and the whole weird, off-kilter vibe of the movie just stuck with me over the years. It's kind of a dark comedy, kind of a farce, kind of a social critique and just thoroughly odd. If you're the type that likes "cult" movies and intelligent, offbeat humor, you'd probably love it. If not, you'll probably hate it. It's that type of movie. I doubt there were many viewers who walked away thinking "Eh, it was OK".
Kind of a shame the movie has become so obscure that when you search IMDB for "Simon", it doesn't even come up in the short list of results. I had to get to it by looking at Arkin's film list.
Oh, and one last bit of trivia - while watching it, the music in the final scene seemed really familiar, so I watched the credits...hmmm, nothing that I recognize. Eventually I figured out it was Ravel's "Pavanne De La Belle Au Bois Dorman", and I recognized it because Joe Walsh did a rock instrumental version of it on his "So What" album under the title "Pavanne" and all these years I had no idea it was a famous piece of classical music.
Not much to go on, but using IMDB I somehow figured out it was Simon, and a web search revealed that the movie was up on a certain video hosting site that shall remain nameless (but its initials are YT). So I watched it. Turns out my memory is crap. The scene I was thinking of was when Simon escapes from the research facility - he is running through a parking lot, but there's no oven mitt. Instead he sees a woman dancing with a man in a puffy silver suit (it kind of makes sense if you watch the film) and says "That lady is dancing with a potholder!"
That joke really cracked me up as a kid, and the whole weird, off-kilter vibe of the movie just stuck with me over the years. It's kind of a dark comedy, kind of a farce, kind of a social critique and just thoroughly odd. If you're the type that likes "cult" movies and intelligent, offbeat humor, you'd probably love it. If not, you'll probably hate it. It's that type of movie. I doubt there were many viewers who walked away thinking "Eh, it was OK".
Kind of a shame the movie has become so obscure that when you search IMDB for "Simon", it doesn't even come up in the short list of results. I had to get to it by looking at Arkin's film list.
Oh, and one last bit of trivia - while watching it, the music in the final scene seemed really familiar, so I watched the credits...hmmm, nothing that I recognize. Eventually I figured out it was Ravel's "Pavanne De La Belle Au Bois Dorman", and I recognized it because Joe Walsh did a rock instrumental version of it on his "So What" album under the title "Pavanne" and all these years I had no idea it was a famous piece of classical music.