By John Corrado It’s the mid-2000s, right in the middle of the reality TV boom, and Chris Hansen is using his NBC show To Catch a Predator to turn sting operations capturing pedophiles into entertainment. This is the premise behind Primetime, director Lance Oppenheim’s quasi-biopic of Hansen turned stylish, disturbing Nightcrawler-esque thriller. Robert Pattinson stars… Read More Movie Review: Primetime
By John Corrado In his latest film, Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been, Canadian documentary filmmaker Barry Avrich puts the spotlight on singer Darlene Love. The film won the People’s Choice Documentary Award at TIFF (the second year in a row for Avrich, following his The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue last year),… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been (TIFF Docs)
By John Corrado Director Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code, Warcraft) brings the British comic book series from 2000 AD to the big screen in his adult animated sci-fi film Rogue Trooper, which has the look and feel of a video game. Whether or not you find that to be a positive attribute will impact your… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Rogue Trooper (Midnight Madness)
By John Corrado The latest film from Canadian director Michael Dowse (Goon, The F Word, Fubar), The Stunt Driver is a period biopic of Ken Carter, the eccentric Québécois stunt driver who planned to jump a rocket car over the St. Lawrence River in the 1970s. Jay Baruchel stars in the film as Carter, aka… Read More #TIFF26 Review: The Stunt Driver (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Everest: The Other Side is the latest thrill-seeking documentary from filmmakers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, the team behind the Oscar-winning mountain climbing film Free Solo. Their latest is a surprisingly harrowing portrait of mountaineer Jim Morrison’s unstoppable journey to ski down the North Face of Mount Everest. While many have… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Everest: The Other Side (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Chris Rock delivers his first directorial effort in over a decade (since 2014’s Top Five), with the uneven but fairly entertaining Hollywood satire Misty Green. Rosalind Eleazar is the best thing about Rock’s latest as writer and director, starring in the film as the titular Misty Green. Misty is a washed up… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Misty Green (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado The main takeaway from Half, the sophomore film from director Samjad P S, is that Indian vampire action cinema kinda kicks ass. Samjad’s film basically plays like a Bollywood mash-up of The Raid and Mad Max, following twin vampires out for blood and revenge in India. Ethan (Ranjith Sajeev) and Ivy (Aiswarya… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Half (Midnight Madness)
By John Corrado La Bola Negra, the new film from co-directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi known collectively as Los Javis, is an ambitious multi-character drama mixing elements of war movie, love story, and portrait of the persecution faced by gay men throughout Spanish history. It’s a sweeping film, that comes together beautifully by the… Read More #TIFF26 Review: La Bola Negra (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Terry Fox, the young man who had his leg amputated due to cancer and began running across the country in 1980 to spread awareness of the disease and raise money for a cure, remains one of the most celebrated Canadians of all time. In his remarkable new documentary Run Terry Run, director… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Run Terry Run (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado Live-action adaptations of animated films can be a contentious thing, but if only they were all as lovely as Look Back, Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda’s live-action adaptation of the popular anime and manga of the same name. The story follows Fujino (Furi Nanase), a young manga artist in elementary school who draws… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Look Back (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Eight years ago, Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong made Burning, a masterful slow-burn thriller. Now, in Possible Love, Lee’s belated follow up to that 2018 film, the director crafts a complex character drama focused on the entanglements between two married couples. Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu) and Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon) are a working class couple… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Possible Love (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado In Anchors Aweigh, writer-director-star Matt Barats delivers the most deadpan of deadpan comedies, mixed with video essay and home movie collage of loosely connected vignettes. The result is a mix of breakup comedy and meta mockumentary that feels destined for cult status. Playing a version of himself, Barats stars in the film… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Anchors Aweigh (Midnight Madness)
By John Corrado Written and directed by Lauren Miller Rogen, Babies is a bittersweet comedy about the personal choice whether or not to have kids, that draws a lot of elements from her own life with husband Seth Rogen. Seth Rogen and Anna Kendrick star in the film as Aaron and Annie, a happily married… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Babies (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado The latest work from Winnipeg filmmaker Matthew Rankin (The 20th Century, Universal Language), Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney is a gonzo Canadian political documentary by way of archival footage collage, and, well, it rocks. Backed by the National Film Board, this portrait of Canada’s 18th Prime Minister is a lot wackier than… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney (Midnight Madness)
By John Corrado Martin McDonagh is no stranger to the hitman buddy comedy, something that he did brilliantly in his 2008 feature debut In Bruges and 2012’s Seven Psychopaths. McDonagh’s latest, Wild Horse Nine, adds surprisingly somber and soulful notes to the formula, mixing his usual very funny dialogue with surprisingly moving themes of memory and… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Wild Horse Nine (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Director Simon Stone’s Elsinore, a moving drama about literally giving your life to art, is ostensibly a biopic of Scottish actor Ian Charleson. But it emotionally focuses on one key aspect of the actor’s legacy, who found success with Oscar-winner Chariots of Fire in 1981, and had opportunities mostly dry up afterwards.… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Elsinore (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado In his latest work, The Man I Love, celebrated filmmaker Ira Sachs crafts an understated AIDS drama, guided by an excellent performance from Rami Malek as a theatre actor in 1988. Malek’s Jimmy lives with his partner Dennis (Tom Sturridge) in New York City. A new love interest emerges when Vincent (Luther… Read More #TIFF26 Review: The Man I Love (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Filmmaker Andrew Haigh follows up his beloved 2023 film All Of Us Strangers with A Long Winter, a haunting, beautifully shot slow-burn character drama about families and gender roles that is itself sort of a ghost story. The film is set in rural Colorado, where Mike (Fred Hechinger) lives with his family;… Read More #TIFF26 Review: A Long Winter (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Love of Your Life is the sophomore feature from Rachel Morrison, the cinematographer turned filmmaker who made her directorial debut in 2024 with The Fire Inside. This one is an old school romantic drama, starring Margaret Qualley in a very good performance that would make her rom-com royalty mother Andie MacDowell proud.… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Love of Your Life (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado A series of Faustian bargains underpin Italian director Paolo Strippoli’s confidently directed psychological horror movie The Spiral, which is designed to provoke uncomfortable and disturbing moral questions as well as squirms. The film opens on Alice (Romana Maggiora Vergano) in Rome, being paid a visit by her estranged mother Anna (Jasmine Trinca)… Read More #TIFF26 Review: The Spiral (Midnight Madness)
