By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The directorial debut of actor Jesse Eisenberg, When You Finish Saving the World (which had its premiere at Sundance in 2022) is a quirky comedic story about a self-absorbed mother and son who are struggling to reconnect. The son, Ziggy Katz (Finn Wolfhard), is a budding teenage singer-songwriter… Read More Review: When You Finish Saving the World
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Andrea Riseborough’s Best Actress nod for To Leslie was maybe the biggest surprise of this year’s Oscar nominations. Despite no real studio push behind the indie drama, she got in through a last minute campaign from her industry friends (including Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet and Susan Sarandon), who… Read More Review: To Leslie
By John Corrado The nominations for the 95th Academy Awards were announced this morning, with A24’s beloved Everything Everywhere All at Once – which maxed out with a total of eleven nominations – leading the charge. The Best Picture lineup is rounded out by All Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar: The Way of Water,… Read More Nominations for the 95th Academy Awards
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Directed by Ukrainian filmmaker Roman Liubiy, Iron Butterflies is a documentary that sets itself up as an investigation into the downing of Malaysian airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, which was accidentally shot down by a Russian anti-aircraft missile in 2014, killing all 298 people on board. But… Read More #Sundance2023 Review: Iron Butterflies
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Slow, a very good drama from Lithuanian writer-director Marija Kavtaradze, begins with what feels like it could be a classic meet-cute. Elena (Greta Grineviciute) is a contemporary dancer hopping between sexual partners, and Dovydas (Kestutis Cicenas) is a sign language interpreter. They meet when she is teaching a… Read More #Sundance2023 Review: Slow
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The directorial debut of Belgian actress Veerle Baetens (The Broken Circle Breakdown), When It Melts is an adaptation of author Lize Spit’s book Het Smelt that explores childhood trauma through the eyes of a young woman finally confronting her past. Beatens takes an unflinching and provocative approach to… Read More #Sundance2023 Review: When It Melts
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A madcap reimagining of the Pied Piper story centred around a swindler cat and his band of talking rats, the European animated film The Amazing Maurice – playing in the Kids section at Sundance – serves as a colourful and often amusing adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s award-winning 2001… Read More #Sundance2023 Review: The Amazing Maurice
By John Corrado New releases for the week of January 20th, 2023. Theatrical Releases: Living (Limited Release): A remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 classic Ikiru starring Bill Nighy and written by novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, Living is a really lovely and beautifully crafted old school drama that works to compliment the original. It’s a tender and… Read More New This Week (01/20/2023): Living, The Son, Saint Omer, & More!
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) The narrative feature debut of documentary filmmaker Alice Diop, Saint Omer (France’s official Oscar submission for Best International Feature) is an extremely understated and slow-moving legal drama that unfolds almost entirely within a French courtroom. The film centres around Rama (Kayije Kagame), a professor and novelist who travels… Read More Review: Saint Omer
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Bill Nighy’s performance in Living, a remarkably tender remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru written by novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, is a thing of quiet beauty. Nighy stars as Mr. Williams, a worker drone in 1950s London whose job as a civil servant at the public works department… Read More Review: Living
By John Corrado It’s been fifteen years since director Matt Reeves and producer J.J. Abrams first unleashed their found footage monster movie Cloverfield in theatres on January 18th, 2008. Paramount is honouring the milestone by re-releasing the film on 4K Ultra HD this week, in a very nice new limited edition SteelBook set. The film… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Cloverfield: 15th Anniversary – Limited Edition SteelBook
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) George Clooney and Julia Roberts reunite onscreen in Ticket to Paradise, a romantic comedy that serves as an exercise in they don’t make ‘em like this anymore cinema. The film is a throwback to 1990s or early-2000s rom-coms that follows the formula to a tee, but gets by… Read More Blu-ray Review: Ticket to Paradise (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Door Mouse, a Canadian mystery involving missing girls and dirty nightclubs, is a pretty good little homegrown neo-noir exercise done on a budget that serves as the feature directorial debut of Canadian actor Avan Jogia. The film is named for Mouse (Hayley Law), who works by night dancing… Read More Review: Door Mouse
By John Corrado New releases for the week of January 13th, 2023. Theatrical Releases: Adult Adoption (Limited Release): This Toronto-set feature debut from director Karen Knox (CBC Gem’s Homeschooled) focuses on an emotionally immature young woman (played by Ellie Moon, who also wrote the screenplay) going through the process of “adult adoption” after aging out… Read More New This Week (01/13/2023): Adult Adoption, The Quiet Epidemic, The Territory, & More!
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Adult Adoption is the Toronto-set feature directorial debut of Karen Knox, best known as the creator of the CBC Gem series Homeschooled. The film is written by Canadian actress and playwright Ellie Moon, who also stars in it as Rosy, a 25-year-old woman living in Toronto who has… Read More Review: Adult Adoption
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Damien Chazelle’s Babylon feels like the movie you make after narrowly losing the Best Picture Oscar for La La Land; a go-for-broke epic about the early days of Hollywood that suggests you love the movie industry as much as you might hate it. Because as much as Chazelle’s… Read More Review: Babylon
By John Corrado Please note that this is a review of the Blu-ray release of Halloween Ends. For my full thoughts on the film itself, you can read my original review right here. The third film in director David Gordon Green’s modern Halloween trilogy that began in 2018, Halloween Ends is now arriving on Blu-ray… Read More Blu-ray Review: Halloween Ends (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado Another year has come and gone. We are now a week into 2023, which means it’s high time for my countdown of the best movies of 2022. It took a little while to put this list together, with me watching (and rewatching) as many films as possible to get the order right.… Read More The Best Movies of 2022
By John Corrado New releases for the week of January 6th, 2023. Theatrical Releases: A Man Called Otto (Limited Release): An American remake of the 2015 Swedish film A Man Called Ove, A Man Called Otto stars Tom Hanks in the role of Otto Anderson, an old grouch grieving the loss of his wife who… Read More New This Week (01/06/2023): A Man Called Otto, Corsage, If These Walls Could Sing, & More!
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A fictionalized biopic of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (played by Vicky Krieps), Corsage is the sort of reimagined period piece that takes some artistic liberties to offer a more modern portrait of a dissatisfied monarch. Set in 1877 and 1878, around Elisabeth’s 40th birthday, the film charts her… Read More Review: Corsage
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