By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) The tagline for The Forever Purge, the somewhat mediocre fifth film in the horror franchise that started in 2013, might as well be “the purge in daylight.” The film’s main selling point (and the point that is brought up in the bonus features) is the opportunity to see… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Forever Purge
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) DreamWorks Animation’s 2017 movie The Boss Baby was essentially a one-joke film. Yes, I know, it was loosely based on a picture book by Marla Freeze, and set up a whole world of baby corporate leaders. But the purpose of the movie was really just an excuse to… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Boss Baby: Family Business
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Spirit Untamed, one of the latest animated offerings from DreamWorks, is a spinoff of both their 2002 film Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and the Netflix series Spirit Riding Free, and it’s the very definition of generic entertainment made to capitalize on an existing IP. The film mainly… Read More Blu-ray Review: Spirit Untamed
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The latest provocation by Canadian filmmaker Bruce LaBruce, who is known for exploring various taboos and sexual fetishes across his body of work, Saint-Narcisse is a film that deals in themes of self-infatuation, repression, scrupulosity and, well, incest. Set in Quebec in 1972 (FLQ graffiti is seen on… Read More Review: Saint-Narcisse
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Twenty years after the release of his breakout film Training Day, director Antoine Fuqua has crafted a different type of cop thriller in The Guilty, a Netflix film that is being given a short theatrical run before its streaming release. The film is actually a remake of director… Read More Review: The Guilty
By John Corrado This week, Paramount is releasing the 2001 sports drama Hardball for the first time ever on Blu-ray, in honour of the film’s 20th anniversary this month. Directed by Brian Robbins, who was hired off the success of his football drama Varsity Blues two years earlier, the film stars Keanu Reeves in the… Read More Blu-ray Review: Hardball (2001)
By John Corrado This week, Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing the 1997 thriller Breakdown for the first time on Blu-ray, newly remastered from a 4K film scan. The film follows Jeff Taylor (Kurt Russell) and his wife Amy (Kathleen Quinlan). They are in the process of moving to California, when their car breaks down on… Read More Blu-ray Review: Breakdown (1997)
By John Corrado Last month, Paramount released a new Blu-ray edition of director Alan Parker’s 1976 film Bugsy Malone, an homage to classic Prohibition-era gangster movies that casts kids in all the roles and replaces bullets with whipped cream. The film is set in New York City circa 1929, and follows Bugsy Malone (Scott Baio),… Read More Blu-ray Review: Bugsy Malone (1976)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The latest film from Chinese director Zhang Yimou, One Second is a pretty wonderful love letter to cinema itself and the travelling picture shows of his youth. Set in China in the 1970s, the engaging plot of One Second follows three people who are all after a reel… Read More #TIFF21 Review: One Second (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The feature directorial debut of writer-director Camille Griffin, Silent Night is a dark but compelling holiday twist on the “last night of the world” premise, that takes a bold, eerily believable high concept setup and applies it to a stripped down character dramedy set at Christmas. The film… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Silent Night (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) George MacKay plays a young man who believes he’s actually a wolf trapped in a human body in writer-director Nathalie Biancheri’s new film Wolf, which explores the concept of “species dysphoria.” And the film is fine. Neither the total mess nor the instant cult classic that it could… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Wolf (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast is the filmmaker’s bittersweet cinematic memoir of growing up in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. The story begins in the year 1969, and follows a young boy named Buddy (Jude Hill), a stand-in for Branagh, who lives on a mostly Protestant street in Belfast where the… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Belfast (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Sigourney Weaver stars in The Good House as Hildy Good, an older real estate agent with a drinking problem. It’s a plum role for Weaver, as the character chews up the screen and breaks the fourth wall, addressing us directly as she grapples with whether or not to… Read More #TIFF21 Review: The Good House (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) The latest work from Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti, who won the Palme d’Or for The Son’s Room two decades ago, Three Floors is a watchable but somewhat mediocre multi-character drama that follows the denizens of an apartment complex in Rome as their stories collide, sometimes literally. The film… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Three Floors (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Director Will Sharpe’s The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is a quirky and enjoyable biopic of eccentric British artist Louis Wain, whose stylized drawings of cats with large eyes are credited with helping turn felines into acceptable house pets. You see, cats were thought of only as rodent-killing… Read More #TIFF21 Review: The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The latest from French filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve, Bergman Island is a very enjoyable love letter of sorts to the work of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. The film is set on the Baltic island of Fårö, where the director lived and shot some of his most famous films, which… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Bergman Island (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Neil Bennett (Tim Roth) is a wealthy Englishman vacationing at a resort in Acapulco, Mexico with his sister Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her two kids Colin (Samuel Bottomley) and Alexa (Albertine Kotting McMillan). Their holiday gets cut short when Alice receives a phone call informing them of a… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Sundown (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★½ (out of 4) Director Rob Savage made waves during the pandemic when he released Host, a horror movie set on Zoom. Now he returns with the Blumhouse-produced Dashcam, another pandemic project that was apparently made on the fly without much of a script and just a basic outline. And it’s a… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Dashcam (Midnight Madness)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Writer-director Stephen Karam confidently adapts his own Tony-winning play for the screen in The Humans, crafting an intense and engaging family drama that comes to life with the help of a small but mighty six person ensemble cast. The film unfolds over the course of Thanksgiving Day, and… Read More #TIFF21 Review: The Humans (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Based on a novel by Laura Santullo, who co-directs the film version alongside Mexican filmmaker Rodrigo Plá, The Other Tom focuses on Elena (Julia Chavez), a single mother living in El Paso, Texas with her nine year old son Tom (Israel Rodriguez). Elena is barely making ends meet,… Read More #TIFF21 Review: The Other Tom (Contemporary World Cinema)
The Joy of Movies 