ReelViews for R movies

At one time, a new Brian De Palma film was something to be greeted with enthusiasm. The filmmaker, with his affinity for borrowing from the greats (Hitchcock in particular), understood how to put his own, modern spin on classic tropes. His rep...

Don Jon is about addiction, obsession, and compulsion. It's about how the elements that drive and define our lives can impede normal, productive behavior. And, unlike a dark film like Shame, which deals with the same subject, it attacks its thesis ...

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, a re-make of the 1973 made-for-TV movie of the same name, is a haunted house movie whose success lies in the careful manner freshman director Troy Nixey steeps everything in a surfeit of atmosphere. It overflows. It suf...

Spoiler Warning: I’m not 100% certain what constitutes a “spoiler” for this film and what has been revealed in the trailer and/or pre-release publicity. However, it’s difficult for me to engage in a coherent discussion of the movie wit...

Don't Look Now, Nicolas Roeg's nighmarish and atmospheric 1973 classic, takes the viewer on a winding, unpredictable trip that starts as a meditation on grief and ends as a supernatural thriller. It's a stark, tragic melodrama that veers off into ...

When I finished watching Don’t Look Up, I couldn’t avoid asking the obvious question: How did this go so wrong? Despite a to-die-for cast and a seemingly can’t-miss premise, Don’t Look Up is a failure on too many levels and, although t...

I have done my best to avoid spoilers and, although I’d love to get into specifics about what’s wrong with the movie, such an approach would require revealing plot twists. So, although I won’t go that far, some of the “comparison” movies...

Al Pacino in a Mafia movie feels as natural as peanut butter with jelly. Mike Newell, the director of such popular British comedies as Enchanted April and Four Weddings and a Funeral, is another matter altogether. When you think of a director...

Donnie Darko, the debut feature from writer/director Richard Kelly, is part psychological thriller and part science fiction mystery. The title character (Jake Gyllenhaal), a teenager in his last year of high school, is suffering from all manner of ...

(Insert appropriate remarks about how Doom is the perfect name for this motion picture.) Although I am not averse to wasting a few hours playing computer games, I have never tried my hand at Doom. Judging by sales figures and testimonials, play...