By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) As a portrait of poverty in post-recession America, and the people who were left behind by the 2008 economic crash, the film Nomadland, which was just awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, is something special. It’s a work of incredible empathy that lets us see… Read More #TIFF20 Review: Nomadland (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The latest feature from Cartoon Saloon and co-directors Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, the same creative team behind The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, Wolfwalkers is another engaging and beautifully stylized animated film from the Irish studio. The film, which draws upon Irish folklore, is… Read More #TIFF20 Review: Wolfwalkers (Special Events)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The lead character in the pitch black crime comedy I Care a Lot is Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike), a sociopathic caregiver who makes her money off the backs of seniors who have legally become wards of the state. Marla works as a court-appointed guardian, and she has found… Read More #TIFF20 Review: I Care a Lot (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The title character in The Father is Anthony (Anthony Hopkins), an elderly man with dementia who is reluctant to leave the London flat where he lives, despite no longer being to take care of himself. When his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) comes over to visit in the opening… Read More #TIFF20 Review: The Father (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A breakout film for both first time feature director Emma Seligman and star Rachel Sennott, Shiva Baby is an engaging comedy set at a Jewish funeral that finds humour in this unlikely setting. The film’s main character is Danielle (Sennott), a perpetual college student who gets dragged by… Read More #TIFF20 Review: Shiva Baby (Discovery)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Pete Souza, the former White House photographer for both Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan, shares his story in the documentary The Way I See It. A behind the scenes figure who previously kept quiet about his own political leanings, Souza became more vocal in the wake of Donald… Read More #TIFF20 Review: The Way I See It (Special Events)
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Billy Tipton was an American jazz musician whose career as a pianist and bandleader spanned from the 1930s to the 1970s. At the time of his death in 1989, it was revealed that Tipton was transgender, having been assigned female at birth but living and publicly presenting as… Read More #TIFF20 Review: No Ordinary Man (TIFF Docs)
By John Corrado One of the movies that I really enjoyed watching at home this summer was We Bare Bears: The Movie, which serves as a feature-length finale to the Cartoon Network series created by Daniel Chong. After initially only being available digitally in Canada, the film is now receiving a physical release on DVD,… Read More DVD Review: We Bare Bears: The Movie
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The largest embezzlement of public funds in American public school history provides the basis for the film Bad Education, a largely satirical work that offers a satisfying mix of dark comedy and crime drama. The film, which premiered at TIFF last year and was acquired by HBO where… Read More DVD Review: Bad Education
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Iris (Hera Nalam) and Simon (Kristian Jordan), the lead characters in Canadian writer/director Sean Garrity’s new Winnipeg-set romantic comedy I Propose We Never See Each Other Again After Tonight, have a very Canadian meet cute while helping push a car out of a snowbank. With the scarf pulled… Read More Review: I Propose We Never See Each Other Again After Tonight
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The year 2016 was a very strange time to be on the internet. That’s the thought I kept having while watching Feels Good Man, director Arthur Jones’ documentary about Pepe the Frog, a comic strip character that somehow played a role in getting Donald Trump elected president. Pepe… Read More VOD Review: Feels Good Man
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) There are many things that could be said about Tito, an offbeat Canadian character study from multi-hyphenated writer-director-star Grace Glowicki, but the one thing you can’t say is that it is in any way conventional. In fact, Tito is completely unconventional, often defiantly and interestingly so. The film… Read More VOD Review: Tito
By John Corrado ★½ (out of 4) It’s a strange experience to watch a film that does almost nothing for you only to go online afterwards to find out that it has a high score on Rotten Tomatoes. This is what happened to me with My Days of Mercy, a lesbian romance about the death… Read More VOD Review: My Days of Mercy