ReelViews for PG-13 movies

Fear of the dark - few phobias are more common across the spectrum of modern society. Horror, in all its shapes, sizes, and forms, often works by exploiting this. It’s an underpinning of vampire stories and almost all horror films save their go...

Like Crazy is a love story, but not one of those pie in the sky/love conquers all romances. Instead, it's a little more down-to-earth. It eschews Hollywood formulas and seeks to turn a less rose-tinted lens upon the concerns of the protagonists. Al...

There is little doubt that the most discussed aspect of writer/director/editor John Sayles' Limbo will be the ending. Unconventional and unexpected, the conclusion will inspire outrage in some movie-goers (a patron at the showing I attended hurled...

After toiling on television for years, Bradley Cooper graduated to the big screen with a number of credits that placed him in supporting and/or "best friend" roles. With the runaway success of The Hangover, Cooper leapfrogged from "character actor"...

One of the many, many smart decisions made by director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner when developing Lincoln was not to make it a traditional bio-pic of the 16th U.S. president. Instead, they confined the main story to a one-month ...

Sometimes, it is said, truth is stranger than fiction. And, as director Garth Davis has perhaps discovered, filming such truths can be more difficult than filming fiction. Lion, based on the autobiographical tale of Saroo Brierley, tells of the autho...

Lisa Frankenstein is a bad Tim Burton movie with two unlikable main characters. A satirical tale of the high school-age romance between an undead serial killer (Cole Sprouse) and his weird enabler girlfriend (Kathryn Newton), the movie not only re...

If it wasn’t for the charisma and screen presence of 13-year old Marsai Martin (TV’s Black-ish), Little would be damn near unwatchable. The writing and directing are at best ‘90s direct-to-video and the film’s unwillingness to do anyth...

One of my fears when watching movies about characters coping with cancer is that they will turn into Lifetime disease-of-the-week melodramas: shallow, plot-by-numbers chronologies of the disease's progression that become either manipulative tear-je...

Watching Little Fockers is a depressing experience. Rarely does a comedy bring such an overpowering sense of sadness. Admittedly, I laughed a few times and am willing to admit that the experience as a whole was more bearable than the trial of sitti...