By John Corrado ★ (out of 4) Loosely based on the 1970s TV show, CHIPS follows an overly confident FBI agent (Michael Peña) who goes undercover on the California Highway Patrol as Frank “Ponch” Poncherello, and gets teamed up with brash stunt biker Jon Baker (Dax Shepard), who joins the patrol in an attempt to… Read More Blu-ray Review: CHIPS
By John Corrado Loosely based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name, the TV series Under the Dome takes place in the small town of Chester’s Mill, and follows the residents after a mysterious translucent dome appears out of nowhere, cutting them off from the rest of the world and forcing the imprisoned inhabitants to… Read More DVD Review: Under the Dome: The Complete Series
Cars 3 Review By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) is back on the racetrack in Cars 3, but now he is faced with confronting the end of his career as a world champion racer following a brutal crash, and thinking about how he will leave his mark in a world… Read More Three Views: Cars 3
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Existing as a spinoff of sorts from 2014’s The LEGO Movie, The LEGO Batman Movie finds its dark and brooding hero (Will Arnett) going up against his arch nemesis the Joker (Zach Galifianakis), who is vying for the place of Batman’s favourite enemy and is working with tons of other… Read More Blu-ray Review: The LEGO Batman Movie
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The narrative debut of documentarian Gabriela Cowperthwaite, who made waves with her hard-hitting SeaWorld exposé Blackfish in 2013, Megan Leavey is a solid and inspiring “based on a true story” drama, that gets to the heart of the human-animal bond. The film recounts the story of Corporal Megan… Read More Review: Megan Leavey
By John Corrado Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, the 1992 drama Juice offers a compelling and still relevant portrait of four teenaged friends colliding with each other and the law in Harlem, as they seek the power they call the “Juice.” Q (Omar Epps) wants to prove himself by becoming a scratch ‘n’ mix… Read More Blu-ray Review: Juice: 25th Anniversary Edition
By John Corrado Walt Disney’s 1942 animated classic Bambi is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, and has gotten a new Blu-ray release as part of their Signature Collection to honour the occasion. Adapted from Austrian author Felix Salten’s 1923 novel, Bambi follows a young deer who is destined to take over his father’s place… Read More Blu-ray Review: Bambi: 75th Anniversary Edition
By John Corrado A live action remake of Disney’s beloved animated classic, Beauty and the Beast updates the story of a prince (Dan Stevens) cursed to live as a beast, and the young woman (Emma Watson) who sees through his appearance and starts to fall in love with him. The highest grossing movie of the… Read More Blu-ray Review: Beauty and the Beast
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Abacus: Small Enough to Jail opens with its main subject Robert Sung, the founder of the independent Abacus Federal Savings Bank in New York’s Chinatown, watching It’s a Wonderful Life on TV with his wife, and relating himself to the character of selfless do-gooder George Bailey. Regardless of whether… Read More Review: Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) When we first meet our protagonist William Bowman (Jake Croker) in #AnAmericanDream, he is a high school football star living in farmland America, who gets overwhelmed whenever his parents try to talk about his future. Then he suffers a concussion on the football field, and suddenly the narrative shifts… Read More Review: #AnAmericanDream
By John Corrado Samantha (Zoey Deutch) is a popular small town high schooler who goes to a “Cupid’s Day” party with her trio of mean girl friends, only to have their car flip over on the way home after an unfortunate series of events causes them to leave. The next morning, Samantha wakes up in bed, and the whole… Read More Blu-ray Review: Before I Fall
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) It’s the last day of classes at an underfunded American high school, and tensions are on the rise amongst the teachers, with the students pulling increasingly extreme pranks, and the board threatening imminent downsizing across all departments. But when mild mannered English teacher Andy Campbell (Charlie Day) accidentally causes… Read More Blu-ray Review: Fist Fight
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Review By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The fifth entry in the blockbuster series, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is a sequel that has the distinction of being both not as good as the still-best first film The Curse of the… Read More Three Views: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The Vancouver housing market has gotten so out of reach that the majority of young people aren’t able to afford properties in the city, and many older retirees can no longer afford to live there. Coupled with a boom in expensive condo developments that are exploiting the city… Read More Review: Vancouver: No Fixed Address
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) When Agent Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) is taken down, and a satellite-controlling device known as Pandora’s Box is stolen by a rebel group led by Xiang (Donnie Yen), extreme athlete turned special agent Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) is called back into action to work for the government. Refusing to work with other… Read More Blu-ray Review: xXx: Return of Xander Cage
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) With radio host Joe Cristiano telling stories on air about his own mother and asking other men to call in as the narrative through line, Mom & Me offers an exploration of the bonds between tough guys and their mothers in Oklahoma, which is said to be the “manliest state.”… Read More Review: Mom & Me
By John Corrado Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, director John Badham’s iconic 1977 classic Saturday Night Fever has now gotten a beautifully restored new Blu-ray edition, which includes both the theatrical version and the slightly longer director’s cut of the film. Tony Manero (John Travolta) is a working class Italian-American teenager in Brooklyn, who works part time… Read More Blu-ray Review: Saturday Night Fever: 40th Anniversary Director’s Cut
By John Corrado Loosely based on a true story, Gold follows Texas prospector Kenny Wells (Matthew McConaughey) who is desperate for a big break and becomes convinced that he can strike gold in the jungles of Indonesia, teaming up with geologist Michael Acosta (Edgar Remírez) to help him excavate and get their commodity on the stock market. Although the… Read More Blu-ray Review: Gold
By John Corrado The 24th edition of Hot Docs has come to a close, and below are my thoughts on the final few films that I saw at the festival, including Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, which took home the $50,000 Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary before an encore screening on Sunday, and was announced as… Read More #HotDocs17: Final Batch of Reviews
By John Corrado We have reached the last day of Hot Docs, and below are my thoughts on five films that I saw over the last few days of the festival. Please come back tomorrow for my final set of reviews, and you can find more information through the links in the film titles. Enjoy! Let There… Read More #HotDocs17: Fourth Batch of Reviews
The Joy of Movies 