By John Corrado Cecil B. DeMille’s Biblical epic The Ten Commandments is one of the biggest and most beloved studio pictures of all time and, in my opinion, the nearly four hour film from 1956 still holds up quite well in terms of its grandeur and scope. In honour of the film’s 65th anniversary, Paramount… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: The Ten Commandments: 65th Anniversary (SteelBook Edition)
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) Sean Baker makes films about the types of Americans that don’t usually get shown on movie screens, or, worse, get looked down upon by the coastal elites. You know, like sex workers, those living in abject poverty, and the types of “forgotten people” that may have voted for… Read More Review: Red Rocket
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Nightmare Alley is Guillermo del Toro’s followup to his surprise Oscar winner The Shape of Water. It serves as both a remake of the 1947 film noir of the same name and a new adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s novel from a year earlier, with the beloved filmmaker delivering… Read More Review: Nightmare Alley
By John Corrado ★½ (out of 4) Antoine Fuqua’s Infinite is a sci-fi action flick that imagines a world of reincarnated souls where a group of people called Infinites have the ability to remember their past lives. Within this group, there are two subgroups; the “believers,” who view their ability as a gift, and “nihilists”… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Infinite
By John Corrado Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude flopped upon its release in theatres on December 20th, 1971, with its unique tone and delicate subject matter being a tough sell for mainstream audiences, before steadily gaining status as a beloved cult classic for these very same reasons. The film, which brilliantly mixes humour that is… Read More Blu-ray Review: Harold and Maude (1971)
By John Corrado The MTV animated series Beavis and Butt-Head was a pop culture staple of the 1990s, following the misadventures of two idiot teenaged slackers voiced by the show’s creator, Mike Judge. A feature length film, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, was released in theatres at the height of the show’s popularity on December… Read More Blu-ray Review: Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) In his five decades of making feature films, Steven Spielberg has never directed a full-on musical, but his visual style and cinematic sense of scope has always suggested he would be good at one. This all changes with West Side Story, his long-gestating remake of the 1961 Oscar-winning… Read More Review: West Side Story
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Adam McKay is a director who has gone from making off the wall comedies like Anchorman, Talladega Nights and Step Brothers to Oscar-winning prestige pictures like the financial satire The Big Short (which was genuinely very good) and the Dick Cheney biopic Vice (which was uneven but still… Read More Review: Don’t Look Up
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Cry Macho, the latest film directed by Clint Eastwood, finds the veteran actor and filmmaker appearing in front of the camera once again, following his much touted “final role” in the 2018 film The Mule, to deliver what is now said to be his actual swan song as… Read More Blu-ray Review: Cry Macho
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) After switching gears and directing the comic book movie Aquaman, Warner Bros. has allowed James Wan to return to his low-budget horror movie roots with Malignant, an absolutely gnarly little film that I’m honestly impressed the studio even agreed to put out. Wan, who has kickstarted no less… Read More Blu-ray Review: Malignant
By John Corrado In 1978, Warren Beatty co-directed, co-wrote, produced and starred in the comedy fantasy Heaven Can Wait, which went on to be nominated for nine Oscars including Best Picture (which it lost to The Deer Hunter). Now Paramount has released the film for the first time on Blu-ray, fully restored and remastered from… Read More Blu-ray Review: Heaven Can Wait (1978)
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Joanna Hogg’s 2019 film The Souvenir was a low-key, semi-autobiographical drama about a film student, Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne), in the 1980s entering into an unexpectedly complicated relationship with a slightly older man, Anthony (Tom Burke). The film ended on a sombre note, followed by a title card… Read More Review: The Souvenir Part II
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Directed by up-and-coming filmmaker Nia DaCosta, and produced by Jordan Peele under his Monkeypaw banner, Candyman is a legacy sequel that directly follows the 1992 horror film of the same name (which already received a pair of followups in 1995 and 1999). The original Candyman was Daniel Robitaille… Read More Blu-ray Review: Candyman
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) C’mon C’mon, the latest film from writer-director Mike Mills (Beginners, 20th Century Women), opens with documentary-style interviews with kids talking about the future. The film’s protagonist, Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix), is a radio journalist in New York, and he is working on a project compiling comments from children about… Read More Review: C’mon C’mon
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Hawkeye, the first two episodes of which premiered today on Disney+, is Marvel’s fourth television series this year, and it’s somewhat of a departure for the studio in terms of how grounded it feels. Following on the heels of WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki,… Read More Disney+ Review: Hawkeye (First Two Episodes)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Encanto is Disney’s 60th animated feature, and it’s a bright and colourful film that feels like somewhat of a return to the studio’s musical roots, while also pushing things forward in terms of cultural representation by setting its story in Colombia. While this is technically not Disney’s first film to… Read More Review: Encanto
By John Corrado Arriving just in time for American Thanksgiving, Paramount is releasing a new SteelBook Edition of Planes, Trains and Automobiles on Blu-ray this week. The John Hughes classic follows family man Neal Page (Steve Martin) as he tries to get home to Chicago for Thanksgiving, only to end up stuck on the road… Read More Blu-ray Review: Planes, Trains and Automobiles: SteelBook Edition
By John Corrado Frank Capra’s beloved 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, and Paramount is honouring the occasion with a new Blu-ray edition. The film, of course, tells the story of George Bailey (James Stewart) who is visited by an angel named Clarence (Henry Travers) on Christmas Eve… Read More Blu-ray Review: It’s a Wonderful Life: 75th Anniversary Edition
By John Corrado Barry Sonnenfeld, who got his start in the industry as a cinematographer, made his directorial debut in 1991 with The Addams Family, a big screen adaptation of the classic 1960s TV show (which was itself based on a comic strip by Charles Addams). Despite a troubled production (with the film going over-budget… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: The Addams Family (With More Mamushka!)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the long-awaited canonical followup to the iconic 1984 horror comedy about a group of four ghost catchers in New York City and its 1989 sequel, is a movie that really embraces its status as a legacy sequel. Not only does it tell a story about legacy, establishing… Read More Review: Ghostbusters: Afterlife
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