By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The 2022 Canadian Film Fest starts tonight and runs in two segments from March 22nd to 26th and March 29th to April 2nd, exclusively on Super Channel. Tehranto, writer-director Faran Moradi’s crowdfunded feature debut, is a Canadian romantic dramedy that explores the very different experience of two Iranian… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: Tehranto
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) CODA is nominated for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Troy Kotsur) and Best Adapted Screenplay at the 94th Academy Awards. The title of CODA is an acronym that stands for Child of Deaf Adults, and the film centres around Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones), a teenager who is as… Read More Review: CODA
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) A lone toll booth operator (Michael Smiley) in the middle of Wales has been robbed of his cash, watch and sandwich by a gang of girls wearing balaclavas. When local traffic cop Catrin (Annes Elwy), starts digging into his claims, she starts to discover a criminal past he… Read More VOD Review: Tollbooth
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Cheaper by the Dozen, the latest Disney+ Original Movie that is being dropped on the streaming service this week, styles itself as a remake of the 2003 Steve Martin comedy of the same name, which was itself a remake of a 1950 film that was in turn based… Read More Disney+ Review: Cheaper by the Dozen
By John Corrado Director Antoine Fuqua’s 2007 action film Shooter is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, and Paramount is marking the occasion by releasing the film for the first time on 4K Ultra HD in a new, limited edition SteelBook package. Mark Wahlberg stars as Bob Lee Swagger, a former Marine sniper who is… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Shooter: 15th Anniversary (SteelBook Edition)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Written, directed, produced by and starring actress Agam Darshi, Donkeyhead is a Canadian dramedy that centres around a South Asian family and explores the tensions between four adult siblings dealing with their father’s impending death. Mona Ghuman (Darshi) is a failed novelist in her mid-thirties, plagued by self-doubt… Read More Review: Donkeyhead
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) “Do androids dream of electric sheep?” was the question asked in the title of Phillip K. Dick’s novel that provided the basis for sci-fi classic Blade Runner, and Korean-American filmmaker Kogonada’s After Yang asks if humans would grieve an android’s “death.” Kogonada’s second film as director following his… Read More Review: After Yang
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The Matrix Resurrections is the fourth film in the franchise that began over twenty years ago when filmmakers Lana and Lily Wachowski unleashed their groundbreaking 1999 film The Matrix upon the world, setting the bar very high for future blockbusters with its mix of heady philosophy, martial arts… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: The Matrix Resurrections
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Coming 2 America is a legacy sequel that sees the return of Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy) and his royal assistant Semmi (Arsenio Hall), over three decades after they first travelled to Queens, New York from their fictional African nation of Zamunda and tried to make it in the… Read More Blu-ray Review: Coming 2 America
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) We can all surely remember what it was like to experience growing pains and pubescent mood swings brought on by deep hormonal changes. But what if those mood swings caused you to physically transform into, say, a giant red panda? That’s the predicament that Meilin Lee (Rosalie Chiang),… Read More Disney+ Review: Turning Red
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The setup for director Mimi Cave’s Fresh is a classic “meet cute” between two people, of the sort that any good romantic comedy should have. Her name is Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones). She is a young woman who’s tired of the dating game, from swiping right on apps to… Read More Disney+ Review: Fresh
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Early on in director Stephen Fingleton’s Nightride, a new single take thriller shot in Belfast, two characters discuss Michael Mann movies. One character says Miami Vice is his favourite. The other scoffs slightly. Is he more of a Heat man? No, Mann’s debut Thief is his personal favourite.… Read More VOD Review: Nightride
By John Corrado Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast is one of the main players this awards season, and Universal is releasing the TIFF People’s Choice Award winner (a laurel that is proudly displayed on the front cover) on Blu-ray this week. Nominated for seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture), Branagh’s film is based on his own childhood… Read More Blu-ray Review: Belfast
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Shot in the Kingston-Galloway area of the East Toronto suburb that it is named for, Scarborough is an intimate yet expansive character drama that showcases the lives of several struggling families in a part of the city that is too often ignored. Based on the 2017 novel of… Read More Review: Scarborough
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Based on the 2017 novel of the same name by Taylor Adams, No Exit is a surprisingly effective little thriller that contains itself almost entirely to a single location, building a chilling mystery around a young addict, a kidnapped girl, and a group of potential suspects, all trapped… Read More Disney+ Review: No Exit
By John Corrado John Carpenter’s 1996 sequel Escape from L.A., a follow up to his 1981 cult classic Escape from New York, is being released for the first time on 4K Ultra HD this week. The film sees the return of Kurt Russell’s eye-patched outlaw antihero Snake Plissken, who is brought back for another mission… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: John Carpenter’s Escape from L.A.
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, the second of two movies that the veteran filmmaker put out last year (the other being The Last Duel), is a sprawling film that has ambitions of being a family crime saga à la The Godfather, with grandiose themes of betrayal, greed and… Read More Blu-ray Review: House of Gucci
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) In her absorbing, aptly titled documentary President, director Camilla Nielsson intimately follows Nelson Chamisa, a young populist candidate running in Zimbabwe’s 2018 presidential election. Chamisa is a 40-year-old lawyer running for opposition party MDC Alliance, who stepped into the race when leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who was widely favoured… Read More VOD Review: President
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Throughout his career as an actor, Channing Tatum has played the role of Hollywood heartthrob (Dear John, The Vow), dancer and sex symbol (Step Up, Magic Mike), action hero (the G.I. Joe movies), comedy star (21 and 22 Jump Street), and serious actor (Foxcatcher), approaching these different roles… Read More Review: Dog
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Julie (Renate Reinsve), the protagonist in Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World, is not actually as bad as the knowingly hyperbolic title suggests. Well, not really, anyway. Sure, she makes some bad decisions and struggles with selfish choices, but the same is true of… Read More Review: The Worst Person in the World
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