ReelViews for R movies

It’s the early 1990s and Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy) is already well past her sell-by date. An author specializing in biographies (she once landed on the New York Times bestseller list for one she wrote about game show panelist Dorothy Kil...

Candy is an Australian film that also offers a dose of familiarity. It's one of those drugs-are-hell movies that follows the time-tested path of watching two generally likable characters embark upon the road to self-destruction that results when re...

At the time of its October 1992 release, I wrote the following about the original Candyman (which was directed by Bernard Rose based on a story by Clive Barker): “Candyman is one of the most intelligent and chilling movies to grace the scree...

Perhaps Michael Moore missed his calling. He could have been a preacher. And not any kind of preacher - a fire-and-brimstone, Jonathan Edwards sort. His movies ooze passion and come across like two-hour sermons. He doesn't just believe in what h...

Capote tells two stories, presenting both without hiccups. The first is an exposé of how the title author's In Cold Blood was written. The second shows the emotional and psychic dissolution of the man who starts out the film as a brilliant eccentr...

Bucking the summer movie empty spectacle approach, Captain Fantastic is about something. Despite the title, which might stir images of a superhero story, this is a human drama about the bonds that hold and sever families and the conflict between two ...

When it comes to movies, I am not a crusader. Rarely do I find the content of a motion picture objectionable on ethical grounds. Then again, films as morally repugnant as Captivity don't come along too often (thankfully). There is no requirement...

Writer/director Paul Schrader makes moody, low-budget movies about isolated people. While his highly regarded reputation as a screenwriter is deserved (he wrote, among other titles, Raging Bull and Taxi Driver), his directorial resume is checke...

Carnage is a French dark comedy made with an A-list cast and filmed in English. Adapted from the play God of Carnage by the play's scribe, Yasmina Reza, and director Roman Polanski, Carnage makes no attempt to "open up" the stage production. With t...

Carol is a haunting motion picture - the kind of film that stays with the viewer long after the multiplex’s neon signage has disappeared from the rear-view mirror. Despite having a deceptively simple storyline, the film is entirely unlike any o...