ReelViews for NR movies

Nymphomaniac Volume I is possibly the best movie Lars von Trier has made since Dancer in the Dark. It doesn’t take much analysis to determine the “why” of this statement - for Nymphomaniac, the iconoclast director has dialed back the pretent...

Nymphomaniac Volume II, the continuation of the story begun by writer/director Lars von Trier in Nymphomaniac Volume I, is a clear case of a narrative running out of steam. Exhaustingly repetitive, this movie attempts many of the same things its pr...

O.J.: Made in America, an epic documentary from Ezra Edelman, explores not only the rise and fall of one of football’s iconic players, but the status of race relations in America and the impact of celebrity-worship on modern culture. Althoug...

In recent years, some of the most outlandish and edgy movies have emerged from South Korea, where directors like Kim Ki-duk, Park Chan-wook, and Bong Joon-ho have challenged norms and defied conventions. The results, although not always succes...

Consider this situation: two people approach an intersection from different vantage points. When an accident occurs, they both observe the same facts, yet afterwards their versions of events differ considerably. Neither is lying; rather, it is t...

The recipient of eight Oscars (including Best Picture), On the Waterfront represented a defining moment in the careers to two key participants: actor Marlon Brando and director Elia Kazan. A gritty, uncompromising look at union corruption on the d...

If you were to begin watching Once Upon a Time, Cinema with no knowledge of what you were seeing, you might initially mistake it for a lost silent film made during the 1910s or 1920s. In terms of style, approach, and technique, it’s a nearly perf...

The full title of this movie is the wordy and confusing Science Fiction Volume 1: The Osiris Child. (Is that intended to mean that the series is called “Science Fiction”?) The “Volume 1” should have given me a clue not to expect a compl...

One of the age-old questions about movies is whether a terrible ending can ruin an otherwise solid motion picture. In the case of Oxygen, the bad aftertaste from the contrived and unconvincing conclusion diminishes the experience but doesn’t...

Palindromes, the fourth feature from Todd Solondz, makes me wonder whether this director only had two good films in him. A shallow, transparent satire/social commentary, Palindromes lives and dies on a gimmick. In an attempt to do something "artist...