By John Corrado In his film Bad Apples, Swedish director Jonatan Etzler fully commits to a tricky tonal tightrope walk between drama, thriller, darkest of dark comedies, and barn-burner of a satire. It will polarize viewers, but is also completely engaging if you are able to get on its wavelength. Saoirse Ronan stars in the… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Bad Apples (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Christy is Australian director David Michôd’s gruelling sports biopic of boxer Christy Martin, a pioneer in the sport of female boxing. Michôd doesn’t fully escape the expected biopic beats. But his film is an emotionally charged one, built around two very strong performances from Sydney Sweeney, who is excellent as Christy, and… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Christy (Special Presentstions)
By John Corrado A clear labour of love for director Colin Hanks and producer Ryan Reynolds, the celebrity bio-doc John Candy: I Like Me provides an engaging and moving tribute to the Canadian legend, both his work and his humanity. It was a fitting choice for the festival’s opening night on Thursday. The film’s name,… Read More #TIFF50 Review: John Candy: I Like Me (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado Named for the Jonathan Edwards country song, which gives you some idea of the tone the film is going for, Carolina Caroline is the story of Caroline (Samara Weaving), a Texas girl looking for a way out of her dead end town. She finds it in a drifter con man (Kyle Gallner)… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Carolina Caroline (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado In her sophomore feature Blood Lines, Métis writer, director, and actress Gail Maurice (Rosie) crafts a family melodrama steeped in Métis culture. This cultural specificity is the main point of intrigue for Maurice’s film, which is also presented largely in the traditional Michif language. The main character is Beatrice (Dana Solomon), a… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Blood Lines (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado The latest film from Korean director Park Chan-wook, following up the gauzy, neo-noir, romantic mystery of 2022’s stunning Decision to Leave, No Other Choice is a wildly entertaining film that moves so seamlessly between dark comedy, drama, and murderous thriller, that it seems to defy genre itself. The story centres around Man-soo… Read More #TIFF50 Review: No Other Choice (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado There is something objectively funny about Canadian filmmaker and actor Matt Johnson using the money and industry cred that he received from his 2023 movie BlackBerry to make Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, an idiosyncratic and gloriously entertaining big screen resurrection of his cult web series from 2008. In doing… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (Midnight Madness)
By John Corrado The Canadian genre film Honey Bunch serves as both the latest collaboration between actors and real life partners Grace Glowicki and Ben Petrie, and the sophomore feature from co-directors Madeline Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli. In their debut film, the ultra-gritty revenge thriller Violation, Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli showed an appetite for extreme violence.… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Honey Bunch (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado In his latest film, the Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident, formerly imprisoned Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi crafts another complex and involving portrait of modern day Iran. The film follows a group of people who find themselves at the centre of a moral dilemma, when a worker named Vahid (Vahid… Read More #TIFF50 Review: It Was Just an Accident (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado In his mixing of paranoid espionage thriller and absurdist dark comedy, Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho delivers a culturally specific portrait of his country in the late 1970s in The Secret Agent, seen through the eyes of a man on the run during the waning days of the military dictatorship. The man… Read More #TIFF50 Review: The Secret Agent (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado A man gets off the subway and tries to exit the station. But every time he turns a corner, he ends up back in the same place, stuck in a seemingly endless loop. This is the premise behind the Japanese film Exit 8, a fun and suspenseful little puzzle box thriller from… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Exit 8 (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado Director Oliver Laxe’s Sirât opens on a memorably cinematic scene as a group of outcasts hold a rave in the middle of the Moroccan desert. We see evocative images of massive speakers being set up in the desert, as bodies bop and gyrate in time to the blaring techno music, the beat… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Sirât (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Sentimental Value is Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s followup to his 2021 modern classic The Worst Person in the World, reuniting him with that film’s star Renate Reinsve. If Worst Person was about a quarter-life crisis and searching for meaning in your twenties, Sentimental Value aims for something even more ambitious in scope.… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Sentimental Value (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado The Long Walk is the long-awaited film adaptation of Stephen King’s 1979 novella of the same name, an early work by the author that became part of a 1985 short story collection published under the pen name Richard Bachman. That that collection also included The Running Man and Rage, a school shooting story… Read More Movie Review: The Long Walk
By John Corrado New releases for the week of August 29th, 2025. Theatrical Releases: Splitsville (Limited Release): Director Michael Angelo Covino and his real life friend Kyle Marvin co-write, co-produce and co-star in this comedy exploring the modern concept of open relationships. Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona play the wives of their two characters, with… Read More New This Week (08/29/2025): Splitsville, Caught Stealing, & More!
By John Corrado Splitsville is the new relationship comedy from director Michael Angelo Covino and his real life friend Kyle Marvin. The two previously teamed up to make the 2020 film The Climb, a portrait of male friendship told with impressive technical precision through a series of long takes and fluid camerawork. Covino and Marvin… Read More Movie Review: Splitsville
By John Corrado Wes Anderson’s latest film, The Phoenician Scheme, is now available on physical media, following its run in theatres earlier this summer. Benicio Del Toro stars in Anderson’s latest as Zsa-zsa Korda, a corrupt businessman who decides to appoint his only daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton) – a young nun – as the sole… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Phoenician Scheme
By John Corrado Searchlight Pictures has just given us our first look at Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On?, the director and actor’s follow up to Meastro and A Star is Born. Cooper’s latest is a character dramedy starring Will Arnett as a guy going through a divorce (Laura Dern plays ex-wife), who turns to… Read More Teaser Trailer for Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On?
By John Corrado Focus Features has now released the first teaser trailer for Hamnet. This is Oscar-winning Nomadland director Chloe Zhao’s return to the awards season race, after her Marvel foray Eternals. This one stars Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare and Jessie Buckley as his wife Agnes, telling the tragic story that inspired Hamlet. Their… Read More Teaser Trailer for Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet
By John Corrado New releases for the week of August 22nd, 2025. Theatrical Releases: Honey Don’t! (Limited Release): Margaret Qualley stars as private investigator Honey O’Donahue in this second solo effort from director Ethan Coen, following last year’s Drive-Away Dolls. I was pretty mixed on this one. It’s occasionally entertaining, and Qualley has some fun… Read More New This Week (08/22/2025): Honey Don’t!, Ne Zha II, & More!
