By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) William (Aneurin Barnard) is a depressed young writer who has attempted to kill himself seven times, ten if you count the cries for help. He is in the midst of his latest botched attempt when he meets Leslie (Tom Wilkinson), a for-hire assassin who agrees to help him… Read More Review: Dead in a Week (Or Your Money Back)
By John Corrado Spike Lee’s 1988 college comedy School Daze is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. The film is inspired by Lee’s own college experiences in Atlanta, Georgia, and unfolds over the hectic homecoming weekend at the historically black Mission College. The story focuses on the rivalries between Vaughn “Dap” Dunlap (Laurence Fishburne), a young… Read More Blu-ray Review: School Daze: 30th Anniversary Edition
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Agnes (Kelly Macdonald) is a housewife, who has dedicated herself to looking after her husband Louie (David Denman) and their two sons Ziggy (Bubba Weiler) and Gabe (Austin Abrams), who are now young adults but not quite ready to forge their own paths. She is bored and wants… Read More DVD Review: Puzzle
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Taking place in the 1970s, The Drawer Boy unfolds at the Huron County farm shared by old friends Morgan (Richard Clarkin) and Angus (Stuart Hughes), who have their lives changed and old tensions brought back to the surface when a young playwright named Miles (Jakob Ehman) arrives from… Read More Review: The Drawer Boy
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A followup of sorts to his previous documentary Unauthorized: The Harvey Weinstein Project, Barry Avrich’s The Reckoning: Hollywood’s Worst Kept Secret uses the revelations of sexual assault that took down legendary mogul Weinstein last fall as the jumping off point for an exposé on sexual abuse in Hollywood. Featuring interviews… Read More Review: The Reckoning: Hollywood’s Worst Kept Secret
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Six years after the release of Wreck-It Ralph in 2012, the video game characters return for a new adventure in Ralph Breaks the Internet. This time around, best friends Ralph (John C. Reilly) and Vanellope Von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) venture into the world wide web, and the results are… Read More Review: Ralph Breaks the Internet
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Taking place on the day of a commemorative fireworks display in Japan, the anime film Fireworks follows teenaged friends Norimichi (Masaki Suda) and Yusuke (Mamoru Miyano), who both harbour crushes on their high school classmate Nazuna (Suzu Hirose). With her mother about to remarry and move away from their countryside home,… Read More Blu-ray Review: Fireworks
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Based on the bestselling novel by Kevin Kwan, Crazy Rich Asians is a splashy and entertaining romantic comedy that represents a step forward in terms of onscreen diversity in major studio films. The film tells the story of Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), a Chinese-American economics professor from New… Read More Blu-ray Review: Crazy Rich Asians
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) With just three days left in his probation, Collin (Daveed Diggs) is trying desperately to stay on the straight and narrow so that he doesn’t end up back in prison, but his unstable friend Miles (Rafael Casal) keeps threatening to pull him back down. This is the basic plot line… Read More Blu-ray Review: Blindspotting
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) Taking its name from The Negro Motorist Green Book, a guidebook for African American travellers that was published annually during the Jim Crow era, Green Book is a road trip film that strikes the perfect balance between being funny and deeply moving. The film reinvigorates the mismatched buddy movie… Read More Review: Green Book
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Directed by Steve McQueen, following up his Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave, Widows is a twisty and often entertaining crime thriller that is carried by an all-star cast, immersing us in the seedy underbelly of contemporary Chicago. The film opens with a heist gone wrong that ends up… Read More Review: Widows
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The latest film from director Jason Reitman, The Front Runner is a polished and expertly acted dramatization of Gary Hart’s failed 1988 presidential bid, that also works as a cautionary tale that is particularly relevant in this current political climate. The film unfolds over three weeks, opening with Colorado… Read More Review: The Front Runner
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Spike Lee’s latest joint, BlacKkKlansman, is the type of film that will make you deeply uncomfortable to watch at times with its unflinching look at simmering racial tensions in America in both the past and present, and that’s precisely the point of it. The film is based on… Read More Blu-ray Review: BlacKkKlansman
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) A surprise box office hit when it was released over the summer, The Meg could be best described as that movie where Jason Statham does battle with a big ass shark. If that’s all you’re looking for, and you don’t care about the fact that this is essentially a… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Meg
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Directed by Peter Berg, in his fourth collaboration with Mark Wahlberg following their trio of true life dramas Patriot’s Day, Deepwater Horizon and Lone Survivor, Mile 22 is a generic action thriller that presents a real step down for both the filmmaker and star. The film opens with a… Read More Blu-ray Review: Mile 22
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Based on Garrard Conley’s 2016 memoir of the same name, which documented his experience of being sent to a program meant to “fix him” for being gay, Boy Erased is an emotional and at times harrowing drama about the horrors of conversion therapy that provides a powerful showcase for Lucas… Read More Review: Boy Erased
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) First published by Dr. Seuss in 1957, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! has become a beloved staple of the holiday season, with its rhyming story and heartfelt message about rediscovering the true meaning of Christmas. The book has been adapted multiple times over the years, furthering the prevalence of… Read More Review: The Grinch
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Adam (Calum Worthy) is a nerdy graduate student at Berkeley who is fascinated by battle rap. Writing his thesis paper on the use of the “N-word” in hip-hop culture, despite not saying it himself, he is the epitome of a young, white progressive trying to balance being seen as… Read More Review: Bodied
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) From ending up in someone’s engagement photos, to serving drinks at a bar, and even doing the dishes at a random house party, there are a lot of urban legends that exist on the internet about encounters that random people have had with Bill Murray. Colloquially known as… Read More Review: The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned From a Mythical Man
By John Corrado One of the nicest surprises of the year, Disney’s Christopher Robin finds the titular character as an adult (played by Ewan McGregor), who gets reunited with Winnie the Pooh (Jim Cummings), and the rest of his childhood friends from the Hundred Acre Wood, in order to help him rediscover what is important… Read More Blu-ray Review: Christopher Robin
The Joy of Movies 