ReelViews for PG-13 movies

I define a "boo!" moment as an instant in a movie when there is a loud sound, usually accompanied by a musical stinger and occasionally in concert with the fast pass of an unidentifiable object across a portion of the camera's field of view. The i...

The sole reason for Michael to exist—and the only legitimate way in which the movie can be enjoyed—is as a cocktail of nostalgia and musical appreciation. This truncated hagiography bends its knee to the myth of Jackson before tabloid headline...

From time-to-time, I suppose we all succumb to daydreams of what it might be like to have lived during a different, perhaps simpler era. Filmmaker Woody Allen, whose cinematic recipes have often incorporated more than a pinch of nostalgia, embraces...

It’s difficult to express how refreshing it is to encounter a dystopian film that hasn’t been developed for the YA market. Although flavored at times by its twin inspirations Gravity and The Revenant, The Midnight Sky maintains its own uni...

Warning! Beginning with paragraph #4, there are spoilers. Viewers who like virginal movie experiences should proceed at their own risk. What a marvelous return to form Clint Eastwood has made following the disaster of Blood Work. In fact, one ...

Despite the numerous inevitable similarities, every immigrant’s story is unique. It’s the commonality of experience, however, that allows us to appreciate the memories that form the basis of Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari. Beyond the cultural ...

On those rare occasions when a great motion picture reaches multiplexes, the film critic must add another aspect to his or her job description: that of cheerleader. It is incumbent upon those of us who routinely dissect movies to applaud the arriv...

Miss Bala is a reworking of a 2011 Mexican film. Although the movies may share the same name, they have different agendas. The original Miss Bala focused more on the dramatic elements than the action/thriller ones and wasn’t afraid to get d...

If there were lingering doubts that the time has come to write an obituary for Sandra Bullock's days as a leading lady, Miss Congeniality should dispel them. Trailing in the wake of a string of duds, the most recent of which were the un-releasable...

I can understand a sequel to Star Wars. Or Superman. Or The Matrix. Or even Before Sunrise. But Miss Congeniality? Are Hollywood's executives so greedy and creatively bankrupt that they will take any property that made a tidy profit and churn o...