Hidden Figures Review By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) A crowbar smashes into the sign for a “colored” washroom, tearing it from the wall. A piece of chalk passes from a white man’s hand to a black woman at a classified NASA briefing, where there was previously no protocol for women attending, let alone people… Read More Three Views: Hidden Figures
Fences Review By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington) is a man who is almost always talking, filled with stories and sharing his opinions on just about everything. When Fences opens, we find him already in the middle of a conversation with his coworker Bono (Stephen McKinley Henderson), as they both cling to… Read More Three Views: Fences
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Christian Wolfe (Ben Affleck) is an accountant who has Asperger’s syndrome, and was raised by a militant father (Robert C. Treveiler) who taught him survival skills so that he could stand up against bullies. These survival skills come in handy considering that most of his clients are crime bosses and drug… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Accountant
By John Corrado First released in 2001, and receiving Oscar nominations for Will Smith and Jon Voight, Ali is an impressionistic biopic that follows Muhammad Ali (Will Smith) over a decade of his life in the 1960s and ’70s. Last year, the film received a new cut to coincide with its 15th anniversary, which is now… Read More Blu-ray Review: Ali: 15th Anniversary Commemorative Edition
By Erin Corrado As part of Canada’s Top 10, the Student Shorts Programme plays today at 1pm at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. Filmmakers will be in attendance, and the Student Short Film Prizes will be announced following the screening. Each film was made as part of a university program by students, and while there… Read More Review: Canada’s Top Ten Student Shorts Programme
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The first thing we see gracing the screen in La La Land, the new throwback to old musicals that is good but not quite as good as you’ve heard, is a nicely retro logo for Summit Entertainment, presented on a black and white screen in Academy aspect ratio. The screen pulls out to announce… Read More Review: La La Land
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) “Maybe I’m a feminist,” teenage protagonist Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) tells his mother Dorothea (Annette Bening) partway through 20th Century Women, and there is perhaps no better statement to sum up what makes this film so special. This is the story of a boy essentially being raised by the woman… Read More Review: 20th Century Women
By John Corrado Dramatizing the events of the worst oil spill in United States history, Deepwater Horizon centres its narrative around engineer and family man Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg), who goes to work on the rig off the Gulf of Mexico and starts to realize that things are going very wrong. Expertly crafted on a technical scale,… Read More Blu-ray Review: Deepwater Horizon
By John Corrado Recounting the events of a landmark court case in the 1990s, Denial tells the story of Jewish professor and historian Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz), who was taken to court by David Irving (Timothy Spall), a Holocaust denier who has devoted his life to discrediting proof that Aushwitz was ever used as a killing machine. Built around… Read More DVD Review: Denial
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) With undertones of an Amblin production from the 1980s, A Monster Calls is the rarest of things nowadays. It’s a family film that is as much for older kids as it is for adults, and is unafraid of going dark and exploring sensitive themes involving the death of… Read More Review: A Monster Calls
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Florence Foster Jenkins (Meryl Streep) is a rich heiress who has always dreamed of being an opera singer, with the only problem being that she is oblivious to the fact that she can’t sing. But her husband St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant) is fully willing to keep her dreams alive,… Read More Blu-ray Review: Florence Foster Jenkins
By John Corrado Boasting a fine performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the title role, Snowden uses a narrative that jumps around in time to show Edward Snowden’s career trajectory from a patriotic army hopeful to working for the NSA, which leads him to the startling realization that compel him to steal classified documents proving to the world that the… Read More Blu-ray Review: Snowden
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Following their mega hit The Secret Life of Pets this summer, Illumination has delivered another animated winner with Sing, a fun and often joyful pop musical that is enlivened by its colourful visuals and likeable characters. Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) is a theatre-loving koala who is struggling to… Read More Review: Sing
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) When his grandfather (Terence Stamp) is murdered by a vicious monster, Jake (Asa Butterfield) discovers a mystery that takes him to an old children’s home in Wales. Run by shapeshifting headmistress Miss Peregrine (Eva Green), the house provides residency for children who all have their own unique special powers. But the… Read More Blu-ray Review: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
By John Corrado After her husband is killed by a capitalist land baron (Peter Saarsgard), Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett) enlists bounty hunter Sam Chisholm (Denzel Washington) to help her get vengeance and protect their land. Sam rounds up a motley crew (Chris Pratt, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Ethan Hawke, Byung-hun Lee, Vincent D’Onofrio, Martin Sensmeier) to help prepare… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Magnificent Seven
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Still recovering from being brutal assaulted and robbed, Brad (Ben Schnetzer) goes to college, hoping to start a new chapter of his life. But when his older brother Brett (Nick Jonas) convinces him to join his fraternity, Brad faces a whole new level of pain and humiliation as the pledging rituals become increasingly horrifying… Read More DVD Review: Goat
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) When his mother (Margo Martindale) is diagnosed with a brain tumour, John Hollar (John Krasinski) returns to the hometown where his father (Richard Jenkins) and brother (Sharlto Copley) still live. As he faces his mother’s potential mortality, John also has to help deal with various other family problems,… Read More DVD Review: The Hollars
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Review By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Recounting the events of the rebellion hinted at in the opening crawl of the original 1977 film, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a prequel that actually works. Directed by Gareth Edwards, the film expands upon the mythology of the series in… Read More Three Views: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Review By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Expanding upon the world she created in the Harry Potter series, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is the first film for which author J.K. Rowling wrote the screenplay, and it serves as a welcome return to the wizarding… Read More Three Views: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) A remake of the classic 1959 biblical epic, which was itself a remake of a 1925 silent film, Ben-Hur is another version of the classic story of adoptive brothers Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston) and Massala Severus (Toby Kebbell), who’s loyalty is tested when Massala joins the Roman army and betrays… Read More Blu-ray Review: Ben-Hur
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