By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The 2023 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 27th to May 7th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. Danish filmmaker Christian Einshøj digs into his family history in his symbolic, deeply personal documentary The Mountains. Einshøj draws upon a vast… Read More #HotDocs23 Review: The Mountains
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. This is the deceptively simple question being asked by the 11-year-old protagonist of Judy Blume’s classic 1970 novel of the same name, a book for middle school readers that was groundbreaking for its frank discussions of taboo topics ranging from religion… Read More Review: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Here comes M3GAN, the latest killer doll movie that follows in the footsteps of previous films about murderous toys like Chucky and Annabelle. The difference is that M3GAN (which was produced by James Wan, the driving force behind the Annabelle movies) aims to be more campy than scary.… Read More Blu-ray Review: M3GAN (Unrated Edition)
New releases for the week of April 21st, 2023. Theatrical Releases: Beau Is Afraid (Wide Release): This wildly ambitious, three-hour third film from writer-director Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar) stars Joaquin Phoenix in the titular role of the perpetually nervous Beau, who embarks on an increasingly bizarre, surrealist odyssey to reconnect with his mother (Patti… Read More New This Week (04/21/2023): Beau Is Afraid, Ghosted, & More!
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Beau Is Afraid, the wildly ambitious, three-hour-long third film from writer-director Ari Aster, has been described as a “nightmare comedy,” and that’s a pretty apt description for what the filmmaker has cooked up this time around. I also saw the film last week and am still not entirely… Read More Review: Beau Is Afraid
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Director Daniel Goldhaber’s provocatively titled second feature How to Blow Up a Pipeline – which has garnered a lot of buzz since it premiered at TIFF last year, and also (unsurprisingly) stirred up controversy – is a tautly paced thriller following a group of eco-terrorists plotting to blow up… Read More Review: How to Blow Up a Pipeline
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The third instalment in the Magic Mike saga, which began with Steven Soderbergh’s 2012 film that first introduced us to Channing Tatum’s titular male stripper, Magic Mike’s Last Dance is an example of a third film that is easily the weakest in the series, yet still mildly entertaining… Read More Blu-ray Review: Magic Mike’s Last Dance
New releases for the week of April 14th, 2023. Theatrical Releases: Showing Up (Limited/TIFF Bell Lightbox): Kelly Reichardt’s eighth feature follows a sculptor (played by Michelle Willaims in her fourth collaboration with the director) over a chaotic week leading up to an art exhibit. It’s a solid addiction to Reichardt’s impressive oeuvre of slice-of-life films about… Read More New This Week (04/14/2023): Showing Up, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Renfield, & More!
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The eighth feature from American indie auteur Kelly Reichardt, Showing Up is recognizably a part of her impressive oeuvre of slice-of-life films about ordinary people going about their lives in Oregon, while also adding some levity to it. The film stars Michelle Williams as Lizzy, a struggling sculptor… Read More Review: Showing Up
By John Corrado In his over twenty years as an animator at Pixar, Peter Sohn has directed the short film Partly Cloudy, the feature The Good Dinosaur, and also lent his voice to characters in Ratatouille (Emile), Monsters University (Squishy) and Lightyear (Sox). Sohn is now directing Elemental for the studio, which is set to be… Read More Highlights from Pixar’s Elemental Footage Presentation and Q&A with Director Peter Sohn
New releases for the week of April 7th, 2023. Theatrical Releases: Air (Wide Release): I’ve heard pretty much nothing but raves about Ben Affleck’s latest directorial effort, which focuses on Nike courting basketball star Michael Jordan to make their iconic shoe. The promising ensemble includes Affleck, Matt Damon, Viola Davis, Jason Bateman and Chris Tucker.… Read More New This Week (04/07/2023): Air, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Soft, & More!
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The feature directorial debut of Toronto filmmaker Joseph Amenta, Soft is a gritty and atmospheric coming-of-age film. It follows Julien (Matteus Lunot), Otis (Harlow Joy) and Tony (Zion Matheson), three adolescent kids in the city who are hanging out together over summer break. The kids, who are all… Read More Review: Soft
By John Corrado This week, Paramount is releasing Star Trek: The Next Generation 4-Movie Collection on 4K Ultra HD, including the films Star Trek: Generations (1994), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). These four films serve as a continuation of the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation 4-Movie Collection
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) The 2023 Canadian Film Fest runs from March 28th to April 1st, with films screening in-person at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto and virtually on Super Channel Fuse. Set in a vague, post-apocalyptic world that has turned much of the population into depressive zombies, Wintertide follows Beth (Niamh Carolan),… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: Wintertide
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2023 Canadian Film Fest runs from March 28th to April 1st, with films screening in-person at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto and virtually on Super Channel Fuse. A routine traffic stop leads to an increasingly obsessive quest to get the ticket thrown out in court in writer-director Adrian… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: Retrograde
New releases for the week of March 31st, 2023. Theatrical Releases: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Wide Release): Directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the same team behind Game Night, this is a surprisingly fun movie based on the classic fantasy game. What works about the film is that the directors are… Read More New This Week (03/31/2023): Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, A Thousand and One, Rye Lane, & More!
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Writer-director A.V. Rockwell’s debut feature A Thousand and One, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in January, is a mother-son drama defined by its complex lead character, with the filmmaker eschewing easy emotion for something far thornier. The film, which begins in the 1990s, centres around… Read More Review: A Thousand and One
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a movie based on the classic fantasy roleplaying game, and it offers a surprisingly enjoyable mix of comedy and adventure that has a fun, playing with a group of friends feel to it that I imagine will be quite appealing to… Read More Review: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Dom (David Jonsson) and Yas (Vivian Oparah), the two protagonists of British filmmaker Raine Allen-Miller’s directorial debut Rye Lane, have their initial meet-cute through the dividing walls in the unisex bathroom of a South London art gallery. Dom is crying in one of the stalls after a bad… Read More Review: Rye Lane (Disney+)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2023 Canadian Film Fest runs from March 28th to April 1st, with films screening in-person at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto and virtually on Super Channel Fuse. In How to Get My Parents to Divorce, a family movie from Quebec that plays like a clever inversion of The… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: How to Get My Parents to Divorce
The Joy of Movies 