By John Corrado Taking place during WWII, Their Finest follows Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton), a Welsh writer who is hired to work on a propaganda film about the Battle of Dunkirk, to boost the morale of British audiences. Although initially brought in to write the female dialogue, Catrin becomes an invaluable part of the project, and even starts… Read More DVD Review: Their Finest
By John Corrado Based on the fascinating true story of Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam), James Grey’s The Lost City of Z dramatizes the three expeditions that the British soldier turned explorer took into the Amazon between 1906 and 1925. Although initially going for colonialist purposes, Fawcett brought back valuable evidence of a lost civilization that was way more advanced than anyone… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Lost City of Z
By John Corrado Based on a true story, The Zookeeper’s Wife dramatizes the lives of Antonina (Jessica Chastain) and her husband Jan Zabinski (Johan Heldenbergh), the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo who used their facilities to save hundreds of Jewish people when the Nazis invaded Poland during WWII. Although I do think there are some problems with… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Zookeeper’s Wife
Spider-Man: Homecoming Review By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is back to being an awkward high schooler in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and the result is the best outing for the webslinger since Sam Raimi’s first two films. This reboot forgoes any sort of origin story, which is just fine this time… Read More Three Views: Spider-Man: Homecoming
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) One of my favourite things about The Big Sick, a romantic comedy with deep dramatic undertones that reinvigorates the well-worn genre, is how little moments from the film keep coming back to me a week after seeing it. This is a wonderful film on so many levels, at… Read More Review: The Big Sick
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Spud (Ewan Bremner) and Begbie (Robert Carlyle) are back in T2 Trainspotting, Danny Boyle’s much awaited follow up to his breakout 1996 classic, which poignantly reunites us with the characters twenty years later. Mark is now mostly clean and living… Read More Blu-ray Review: T2 Trainspotting
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) When the astronauts aboard the International Space Station bring in a soil sample from Mars, they discover a unique single-celled organism that presents the first proof of life on the Red Planet. Exobiologist Hugh Derry (Ariyon Bakare) starts experimenting with the creature, who gets to be named Calvin,… Read More Blu-ray Review: Life
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
