By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Emulating the spirit of 1980s high school classics from John Hughes and Cameron Crowe, with a screenplay by writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig that instantly cements her as a fresh new voice, The Edge of Seventeen is a modern teen film that is funny, smart and heartfelt. Nadine (Hailee… Read More Review: The Edge of Seventeen
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Based on an incredible true comeback story, Bleed for This recounts the career of boxer Vinny Pazienza (Miles Teller), a world class champion from Rhode Island who is riding high after a win, but suffers a major setback when he breaks his neck in a car crash. Vinny… Read More Review: Bleed for This
By John Corrado Arriving thirteen years after the release of the beloved Finding Nemo, Finding Dory focuses on Dory (Ellen Degeneres) as she starts having flashes of remembering her parents, Jenny (Diane Keaton) and Charlie (Eugene Levy). When she sets off to find them, Marlin (Albert Brooks) and Nemo (Hayden Rolence) follow her to the Marine… Read More Blu-ray Review: Finding Dory
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) After twelve egg-shaped alien spaceships land around the world, linguistics professor Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is recruited by the military to try and communicate with the otherworldly visitors in Montana. Teaming up with Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) and theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), Louise takes a methodical approach… Read More Review: Arrival
By John Corrado “Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.” Delivered partway through Taxi Driver, these words have lingered in my mind since I first saw Martin Scorsese’s iconic 1976 classic, and they are just as haunting and relevant now, especially as the film is celebrating its fortieth… Read More Blu-ray Review: Taxi Driver: 40th Anniversary Edition
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Dreamt up by writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg who wanted to craft a Pixar-style computer animated film for adults, Sausage Party imagines a world where grocery store items are alive, and living under the delusion of entering “The Great Beyond” when they are taken out of the supermarket… Read More Blu-ray Review: Sausage Party
Doctor Strange Review By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Just when it was starting to feel like the Marvel Cinematic Universe might be at risk of only delivering bloated ensemble sequels like Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange has arrived in the nick of time to breath some new life into the… Read More Three Views: Doctor Strange
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The third entry into the rebooted franchise, Star Trek Beyond finds Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto) and the rest of crew of the Enterprise stranded on an alien planet after their ship is ambushed by the villainous Krall (Idris Elba), leading them to team… Read More Blu-ray Review: Star Trek Beyond 3D
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Beginning and ending with scenes of Inuit people hunting seals, Angry Inuk packs a compelling argument between these bookending sequences that gracefully challenges those who protest the seal hunt. The winner of the Audience Award at Hot Docs, this is documentary filmmaking at its most important and provocative. Directed by Alethea… Read More Review: Angry Inuk
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) The story of a young black man and how his life changes from childhood to adulthood as he comes to terms with being gay, Moonlight is a heartbreaking and vital work of art, that has a profound lasting impact. The film opens with our protagonist Chiron as an extremely… Read More Review: Moonlight
By John Corrado Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, the 2006 comedy Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is getting a new Blu-ray release, including both the theatrical and unrated cuts of the film. I still remember seeing Talladega Nights in theatres when it first came out and laughing my face off, and it still holds up… Read More Blu-ray Review: Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
By John Corrado To mark the fifteenth anniversary of the film, the Oscar-winning modern classic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is being released on Blu-ray. Directed by Ang Lee, the film became an instant critical and box office success upon its release, that went on to win four of its ten Academy Award nominations, and remains the highest… Read More Blu-ray Review: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: 15th Anniversary Edition
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The fifth film in the popular animated franchise, arriving fourteen years after the still-best original from 2002, Ice Age: Collision Course finds its characters dealing with the various entanglements of romance. Manny (Ray Romano) is trying to keep his marriage to Ellie (Queen Latifah) from getting stale while also having a hard time accepting… Read More Blu-ray Review: Ice Age: Collision Course
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Jonas Ford (Josh Wiggins) lives on a struggling rural farm property, with a severely depressed mother (Vickie Papavs) and a father (Joe Cobden) who keeps him out of school and expects him to work in the fields. When Casey Caraway (Sophie Nélisse) moves into a nearby farmhouse with… Read More Review: Mean Dreams
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The People vs. Fritz Bauer dramatizes the lengths prosecutor Fritz Bauer (Burghart Klaussner) went to in tracking down high-ranking Nazi Adolf Eichmann (Michael Schenk) over a decade after the end of World War II, hoping to put him on trial in Germany for his crimes against humanity. Burghart Klaussner portrays… Read More Review: The People vs. Fritz Bauer
By John Corrado A much less successful followup to Tim Burton’s 2010 take on Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass follows Alice (Mia Wasikowska) as she is guided through a mirror that takes her back to Underland. The Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) has grown sick, and the clues to cure him lie in the past,… Read More Blu-ray Review: Alice Through the Looking Glass
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) When an ancient and powerful mutant named Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) is awoken after thousands of years and becomes hellbent on wiping out humanity, it’s up to Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), as well as a team of young mutants including Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), Cyclops (Tye… Read More Blu-ray Review: X-Men: Apocalypse
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) A passion project for director Andrea Arnold, American Honey is an epic in its own right. This is an exhilarating road movie that quietly explores the hidden pockets of America where real people live their lives, struggling with ways to make money and dealing with the reality of… Read More Review: American Honey
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) A visually stunning mix of animation and archival footage, the unique documentary Tower recreates the events of August 1st, 1966 when a lone gunmen with a sniper rifle positioned himself atop the clock tower at the University of Texas, and for over ninety minutes unleashed a reign of terror… Read More Review: Tower
By John Corrado Celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, the 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life is being rereleased in a new Platinum Anniversary Edition on Blu-ray. The film follows the life of George Bailey (James Stewart), a man faced with suicidal desperation on Christmas Eve who is visited by Clarence (Henry Travers), a kind angel wanting to get… Read More Blu-ray Review: It’s a Wonderful Life: Platinum Anniversary Edition
The Joy of Movies 