Movies with music written by Rob Simonsen

The Adam Project has much in common with last year’s Shawn Levy/Ryan Reyolds collaboration, Free Guy (notably the somewhat questionable “science” content in the sci-fi tapestry and well as some dubious plot points), but this film has a more ...

Get ready for a deep dive into nostalgia. Ghostbusters: Afterlife, although boasting a next generation of Ghostbusters, works best for those who have seen (and at least somewhat remember) the original two Ivan Reitman films from the ‘80s. Althou...

The Way Back conflates a sports movie with the tale of an alcoholic struggling to overcome his addiction. It plays out a little like a cross between Hoosiers and Manchester by the Sea. Although director Gavin O’Connor and writer Brad Ingelsb...

The scenario presented in Captive State would almost certainly have worked better in a mini-series format. The filmmakers’ low-budget approach of minimizing special effects might have allowed for an expansion of the narrative over a six or ei...

The Upside is a serviceable English-language remake of The Intouchables, a 2011 success at the French box office. Anchored by strong performances and a palpable chemistry between leads Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston, The Upside breathes life an...

The Front Runner attempts – and partly achieves – two goals: to provide a chronicle of events leading to the downfall of one-time Presidential candidate Gary Hart and go illustrate the power of the press to do harm. While there have been n...

The House of Tomorrow is ripe with metaphors, from inventor R. Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome house to the omnipresent sounds of punk rock and all the music genre represents. The film depicts a radical coming-of-age for wallflower Sebast...

Spoilers! Nothing is explicitly revealed but something is implied. For about a half-hour, Tully is damn near brilliant. An incisive, relentless takedown of the myth of new parenting, Diablo Cody’s screenplay highlights the incessant crying, ...

Love, Simon is, at it’s core, a crowd-pleaser about an “average” high school guy who finds love in the most unlikely of places. Part romantic-comedy, part coming-of-age story, it recalls the more innocent “high school” films of the p...

Here’s a piece of advice: don’t watch a trailer for Gifted prior to seeing the film. This warning has nothing to do with spoilers; the trailer makes the movie seem like a cloying, paint-by-numbers story that no one in their right mind would...