By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A madcap reimagining of the Pied Piper story centred around a swindler cat and his band of talking rats, the European animated film The Amazing Maurice – playing in the Kids section at Sundance – serves as a colourful and often amusing adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s award-winning 2001… Read More #Sundance2023 Review: The Amazing Maurice
By John Corrado New releases for the week of January 20th, 2023. Theatrical Releases: Living (Limited Release): A remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 classic Ikiru starring Bill Nighy and written by novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, Living is a really lovely and beautifully crafted old school drama that works to compliment the original. It’s a tender and… Read More New This Week (01/20/2023): Living, The Son, Saint Omer, & More!
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) The narrative feature debut of documentary filmmaker Alice Diop, Saint Omer (France’s official Oscar submission for Best International Feature) is an extremely understated and slow-moving legal drama that unfolds almost entirely within a French courtroom. The film centres around Rama (Kayije Kagame), a professor and novelist who travels… Read More Review: Saint Omer
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Bill Nighy’s performance in Living, a remarkably tender remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru written by novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, is a thing of quiet beauty. Nighy stars as Mr. Williams, a worker drone in 1950s London whose job as a civil servant at the public works department… Read More Review: Living
By John Corrado It’s been fifteen years since director Matt Reeves and producer J.J. Abrams first unleashed their found footage monster movie Cloverfield in theatres on January 18th, 2008. Paramount is honouring the milestone by re-releasing the film on 4K Ultra HD this week, in a very nice new limited edition SteelBook set. The film… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Cloverfield: 15th Anniversary – Limited Edition SteelBook
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) George Clooney and Julia Roberts reunite onscreen in Ticket to Paradise, a romantic comedy that serves as an exercise in they don’t make ‘em like this anymore cinema. The film is a throwback to 1990s or early-2000s rom-coms that follows the formula to a tee, but gets by… Read More Blu-ray Review: Ticket to Paradise (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Door Mouse, a Canadian mystery involving missing girls and dirty nightclubs, is a pretty good little homegrown neo-noir exercise done on a budget that serves as the feature directorial debut of Canadian actor Avan Jogia. The film is named for Mouse (Hayley Law), who works by night dancing… Read More Review: Door Mouse
By John Corrado New releases for the week of January 13th, 2023. Theatrical Releases: Adult Adoption (Limited Release): This Toronto-set feature debut from director Karen Knox (CBC Gem’s Homeschooled) focuses on an emotionally immature young woman (played by Ellie Moon, who also wrote the screenplay) going through the process of “adult adoption” after aging out… Read More New This Week (01/13/2023): Adult Adoption, The Quiet Epidemic, The Territory, & More!
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Adult Adoption is the Toronto-set feature directorial debut of Karen Knox, best known as the creator of the CBC Gem series Homeschooled. The film is written by Canadian actress and playwright Ellie Moon, who also stars in it as Rosy, a 25-year-old woman living in Toronto who has… Read More Review: Adult Adoption
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Damien Chazelle’s Babylon feels like the movie you make after narrowly losing the Best Picture Oscar for La La Land; a go-for-broke epic about the early days of Hollywood that suggests you love the movie industry as much as you might hate it. Because as much as Chazelle’s… Read More Review: Babylon
By John Corrado Please note that this is a review of the Blu-ray release of Halloween Ends. For my full thoughts on the film itself, you can read my original review right here. The third film in director David Gordon Green’s modern Halloween trilogy that began in 2018, Halloween Ends is now arriving on Blu-ray… Read More Blu-ray Review: Halloween Ends (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado Another year has come and gone. We are now a week into 2023, which means it’s high time for my countdown of the best movies of 2022. It took a little while to put this list together, with me watching (and rewatching) as many films as possible to get the order right.… Read More The Best Movies of 2022
By John Corrado New releases for the week of January 6th, 2023. Theatrical Releases: A Man Called Otto (Limited Release): An American remake of the 2015 Swedish film A Man Called Ove, A Man Called Otto stars Tom Hanks in the role of Otto Anderson, an old grouch grieving the loss of his wife who… Read More New This Week (01/06/2023): A Man Called Otto, Corsage, If These Walls Could Sing, & More!
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A fictionalized biopic of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (played by Vicky Krieps), Corsage is the sort of reimagined period piece that takes some artistic liberties to offer a more modern portrait of a dissatisfied monarch. Set in 1877 and 1878, around Elisabeth’s 40th birthday, the film charts her… Read More Review: Corsage
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Tom Hanks stars in A Man Called Otto as Otto Anderson, an old grouch who we first meet buying a hook and exactly five feet of rope from a hardware store. An English-language remake of the 2015 Swedish film A Man Called Ove, which was itself based on… Read More Review: A Man Called Otto
By John Corrado ★½ (out of 4) Black Adam, the latest film in the soon-to-be retooled DC cinematic universe, is the epitome of mediocrity in the already overcrowded superhero genre. No, this big scale action flick directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and starring wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson is not completely unwatchable. But it is entirely mindless and… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Black Adam
By John Corrado New releases for the week of December 30th, 2022. Theatrical Releases: Broker (TIFF Bell Lightbox): The latest from Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, working in Korea for the first time, Broker is a captivating story about found family showing the bonds that form between two “baby brokers” (played by Parasite‘s Song Kang-ho and… Read More New This Week (12/30/2022): Broker, White Noise, & More!
By John Corrado New releases for the week of December 21st, December 23rd, and December 25th, 2022. Theatrical Releases: The Whale (Limited Release): Brendan Fraser delivers the performance of a lifetime – and the comeback story of the year – in director Darren Aronofsky’s stunning and devastating character drama The Whale. Aided by prosthetics, Fraser… Read More New This Week (12/23/2022): The Whale, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Women Talking, & More!
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) How long can you keep running from death before it catches up to you? That’s the surprisingly deep question being asked at the centre of DreamWorks Animation’s almost shockingly good sequel Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. As a followup to 2011’s Puss in Boots, which was itself… Read More Review: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
By John Corrado Please note that this is a review of the Blu-ray release of Bros. For my full thoughts on the film itself, you can read my original review from TIFF right here. Following its world premiere at TIFF and release in theatres at the end of September, the Judd Apatow-produced rom-com Bros is… Read More Blu-ray Review: Bros (Collector’s Edition)
The Joy of Movies 