ReelViews for R movies

Whatever its flaws, one can certainly not accuse Prozac Nation of avoiding risks. The movie, directed by Erik Skjoldbjaerg (the original Insomnia) and adapted from the book by Elizabeth Wurtzel, doesn't exactly go out on a tightrope, but it frequen...

Halloween is rightfully considered to be the father of the modern slasher movie. Ultimately, all the Friday the 13ths, Nightmare on Elm Streets, and Screams owe their existence to that one low-budget film that crept its way across motion picture s...

[Click here to read my review of the original 1960 film.] There's no secret why this new version of Psycho exists. Redundant and unnecessary as it is, it will likely make money for Universal Pictures (a studio in dire need of a box office succe...

Psycho Killer is all about misdirection. It starts out as one thing and ends up someplace completely different. The first scene, a shot through the front windshield of a speeding car, offers up a grim aesthetic that is only amplified through the e...

There's something almost old-fashioned about Michael Mann's Public Enemies, a mostly factual re-telling of the descent and death of John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), one of the 1930s most infamous bank robbers. More drama than thriller, the movie does...

Puccini for Beginners has a lot less to do with opera than it has to do with a sit-com view of life in the Big City. Not that the approach is inherently bad, and director Maria Maggenti has fashioned a reasonably entertaining movie that borrows he...

Pulp (pulp) n. 1. A soft, moist, shapeless mass of matter. 2. A book containing lurid subject matter, and being characteristically printed on rough, unfinished paper. "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of...

Those who would bundle Pump Up the Volume with the other numerous teenage-oriented movies to dot the '80s and '90s cinematic landscape do the film and themselves a great disservice. Pump Up the Volume is smart, perceptive, thought-provoking, and w...

Punch Drunk Love represents a departure on the part of two key participants. For Adam Sandler, who portrays the film's protagonist, this is an attempt to play it straight, without falling back on antics, physical comedy, or silliness. For Paul Th...

Jonathan Hensleigh's directorial debut is the second movie to be based on the Marvel Comics character of The Punisher. The first film, released in 1989, stars Dolph Lundgren in the role essayed here by Thomas Jane. The earlier picture is rarely ci...