ReelViews for R movies

Vacancy is a nicely compact, tense thriller that loses a little of its punch as a result of a rushed, generic ending. For the most part, the English-language debut of Nimrod Atal (Kontroll) offers a strong sense of atmosphere and escalating suspen...

"No need to remember when, 'Cause everything old is new again." - Peter Allen & Carole Bayer Sager We live in an era of remakes, reboots, and sequels. Hollywood, having apparently run out of new ideas (or, more accurately, being ...

Suicide. Despite its growing prevalence in modern society, few filmmakers tackle this issue, at least not in a serious fashion. The Valley, set in California’s tech-heavy Silicon Valley, examines the impact of a young woman’s suicide on tho...

It seems that movie makers have lost the art of creating a good, scary vampire flick. The last such film to grace the screen was probably Fright Night, and that was a decade ago. Since then, the "sensitive" vampire has come into vogue -- a creatu...

Finally, the entire Barrytown Trilogy has made it to the screen. The process started back in 1991, when Alan Parker made The Commitments. It continued in '93, when Stephen Frears filmed The Snapper. Now, with the addition of 1996's The Va...

Vanilla Sky (the name refers to a painting by Monet) is the quirkily titled American remake of the 1997 Spanish language feature, Open Your Eyes. Like its predecessor, Vanilla Sky is a mind-bending excursion across genres - a warped fairy tale tha...

Move aside, Dennis Hopper. Step down, Alan Rickman. I am now convinced that no one can match Jon Voight when it comes to playing a thoroughly detestable bad guy. With his calm, sinister demeanor and menacing facial expression, Voight has the abi...

Vengeance tries for something different and succeeds. But, although screenwriter/director B.J. Novak swings for the fences, he doesn’t quite get the ball out of the park. This Blumhouse production marries fish-out-of-water elements with some phi...

The Oscar buzz surrounding Peter O'Toole is deafening. Despite having been nominated seven times, he has never won an Academy Award (unless you consider the honorary statue presented to him a few years ago). Roger Michell's Venus, which may be O'...

Although Vera Drake is about the downfall of an abortionist working during a time when the law in England decreed that it was unlawful to perform an "unauthorized" operation, this isn't really an "abortion movie." That's the context, but the tale ...