ReelViews for PG-13 movies

Valley Girl is a re-imagination of the 1983 film for a generation raised on Baz Luhrmann films and Glee. It’s a celebration of kitsch and of the ‘80s as they’re remembered (not as they actually were). Everything about director Rachel Le...

In the 1930s, monster movies were the staples of Universal Pictures' line-up, a cash cow as the industry metamorphosed from silent films to talkies. Although the monsters came in all sizes and flavors, none could match the appeal of the "Big Three...

At first glance, Vantage Point looks like it might be inspired by Rashomon - different points-of-view of an incident leading to some greater revelation about the nature of truth. However, while the decision to reveal the story like a puzzle throug...

The Vast of Night begins with an image of a TV set. A show is just beginning as the camera moves in, allowing all other details but the grainy black-and-white image to fade away. A voice, sounding suspiciously like Rod Serling, tells us “You...

Venom represents the final result of a long-standing attempt by Sony Pictures to give the popular Spider-Man nemesis his own film. Influenced equally by the comic books and the Deadpool movies, Venom falls considerably short of the high bar s...

If 2018’s Venom felt like an afterthought, then the sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, feels like an afterthought to an afterthought. With its short running length, this drunk-on-CGI production is less a movie and more the outline of somet...

Veronica Mars is a delightful piece of fan service - a supersized TV reunion episode expanded for viewing in movie theaters. Warner Brothers, unsure of the film’s box office potential, has chosen an unusual distribution model. Simultaneous with t...

There was hope in 2005 that Woody Allen had re-discovered his groove with the release of Match Point. Since then, however, he has slipped back into the sinkhole of mediocrity that kept him from greatness throughout most of the '90s and '00s. Unfo...

It’s amazing that, two years in a row, a movie with the name “Frankenstein” in the title will claim a spot of dishonor on my “Turkeys of the Year” list. In many ways, 2015’s Victor Frankenstein is an even worse mov...

Victoria and Abdul, based on (mostly) true events as related in Shrabani Basu’s historical chronicle of the same name, is effectively a sequel to the 1997 film, Mrs. Brown. That movie, directed by John Madden, detailed Queen Victoria’s fri...