ReelViews for R movies

For Ask the Dust, director Robert Towne, adapting the novel by John Fante, has returned to the time and place of his greatest cinematic endeavor: Los Angeles in the 1930s. The setting, however, is the only similarity between Ask the Dust and China...

One of the longest films of the fall (both in terms of title length and running length) is The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. It seems every bit as long or longer than its 160 minutes. Parts of the movie are brilliant in a ...

What is the world coming to when the film community is remaking John Carpenter movies? Admittedly, Assault on Precinct 13 isn't the best example of Carpenter's expert craftsmanship, but it was the picture that got him noticed, and that notice enab...

The Astronaut's Wife is the latest demonstration of how a good "high concept" does not necessarily translate into a decent motion picture. With its Invasion of the Bodysnatchers-inspired storyline, this movie could have been an effectively creepy ...

Atomic Blonde combines the storytelling intrigue of a LeCarre/Deighton Cold War spy novel with the in-your-face kinetic style of John Wick. The result, while at times a little too visually chaotic, is bracing. Headlined by a committed Charliz...

Joe Wright's interpretation of Ian McEwan's Atonement proves that, when it comes to literary adaptations, he understands what he's doing. Wright’s previous feature was Pride and Prejudice, a significantly happier production than this one (althoug...

August: Osage County is all about the acting. That makes sense because the storyline doesn't offer much that could be considered new or remarkable. It's as big a downer as the pills popped by matriarch Violet Weston (Meryl Streep) but the quality ...

As is often true of "high concept" movies like this one, the most interesting aspect - the hook that gets us into the theater - does little more than add some color. Awake, the writing/directing debut of Joby Harold (who might not be given another...

It may be fair to consider Away We Go as Sam Mendes' penance for Revolutionary Road. The director's late-2008 Winslet/DiCaprio reunion was an immersion in bile - an acidic trip underneath the placid exterior of mid-20th century suburbia to a rot t...

Babel represents director Alejando Gonzalez Iñárritu's conclusion to a stylistic and thematic trilogy begun in Amores Perros and continued in 21 Grams. Of the three, Babel is arguably the most accessible. As with 21 Grams (and to a lesser degree ...