By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Written and directed by filmmaking brothers Eshom and Ian Nelms, the offbeat Christmas movie Fatman is one of those films that many will watch based on the absurdity of its premise alone, which was revealed in a pretty wild trailer. What is the premise, you might ask? Well,… Read More VOD Review: Fatman
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) A grandfather and grandson bond over bocce in Team Marco, a simple but charming family movie that is being released digitally this week and serves as a fine viewing option for families looking for something made outside the studio system. The lead character is Marco (Owen Vaccaro), an… Read More VOD Review: Team Marco
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Disney pays tribute to the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special in the LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special, which is premiering on Disney Plus today. The original TV special, which aired in 1978 between the releases of the first Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, was so widely panned… Read More Disney+ Review: The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special
By John Corrado One of my favourite movies of all time, and a perennial favourite that gets revisited every holiday season, is It’s a Wonderful Life. Frank Capra’s 1946 classic, about a suicidal man named George Bailey (James Stewart) who gets visited by an angel (Henry Travers) on Christmas Eve, is a film that always… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: It’s a Wonderful Life (Steelbook)
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The other day, I had a chance to review the first two episodes of Inside Pixar, the very good new docuseries on Disney Plus that introduces us to some of the individuals who help tell the stories we all know and love at Pixar Animation Studios. The show… Read More Disney+ Review: Inside Pixar (Episodes 3, 4 & 5)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The greatest challenge facing writer/director Francis Lee’s Ammonite, which serves as a companion piece of sorts to his acclaimed romantic drama God’s Own Country, has nothing to do with the film itself, but rather has to do with unfair comparisons to the recent Portrait of a Lady on… Read More Review: Ammonite
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) In 2003, co-directors Jennifer Abbott and Mark Achbar released The Corporation, a documentary based upon a book by Canadian professor Joel Bakan that sought to psychoanalyze corporations as if they were people, and came to the conclusion that they would be diagnosed as psychopaths. Now, seventeen years later,… Read More Review: The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Pixar Animation Studios is one of those places that I have always been fascinated by and have long dreamed of visiting. Not only am I a huge fan of their movies and characters, but as a studio, the place seems to be a bastion of creativity. The new… Read More Disney+ Review: Inside Pixar (Episodes 1 & 2)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Disney’s Mulan, the studio’s big budget live action remake of their 1998 animated classic, has had a pretty rough time getting in front of audiences. The film became one of the first major cinematic casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic when its theatrical release got cancelled back in March,… Read More Review: Mulan (Digital Release)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Spontaneous, the new teen romance about high school kids who start spontaneously exploding, is one of those films that takes a wild and totally original premise and just, well, runs with it. Based on the novel by Aaron Starmer, the film, which is arriving on DVD this week,… Read More DVD Review: Spontaneous
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) What if Encyclopedia Brown, the lead character from Donald J. Sobol’s book series about a young private eye, grew up? That’s the main question posed by The Kid Detective, a very good Canadian indie film from writer/director Evan Morgan that explores what happens when a former high school… Read More Review: The Kid Detective
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) An older couple fight to save their grandson and daughter-in-law from a violent family of hillbillies in Let Him Go. If that sounds like an overly simplistic description of writer/director Thomas Bezucha’s film, which was adapted from a novel by Larry Watson, it’s also the easiest way to… Read More Review: Let Him Go
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) There are so many different ways people grieve, that there is really no “right” way to deal with the death of a close family member, especially one that you had a complicated relationship with. This becomes a main theme in writer/director Josh Melrod’s micro budget indie film Major… Read More VOD Review: Major Arcana
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) SpongeBob SquarePants, the beloved cartoon character who made his TV debut in 1999, gets a live action reimagining in The SpongeBob Musical, a boisterous stage show that premiered on Broadway in 2017 and received a dozen Tony nominations. Now a filmed version of the show, which was broadcast… Read More DVD Review: The SpongeBob Musical: Live On Stage!
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) While Steven Spielberg’s name doesn’t actually appear on Come Play, the new thriller about a monster who connects to our world through electronic devices, the film is produced by his company Amblin Partners, and the filmmaker’s influence is felt all over it. It’s the way that Come Play… Read More Review: Come Play
By John Corrado The idea of a primetime animated sitcom was very much a novelty when The Flintstones premiered in 1960. Created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera under their company banner Hanna-Barbera Productions, the show about the “modern Stone Age family” was the first “cartoon” to ever land a primetime slot. And it became… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Flintstones: The Complete Series
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) Bong Joon-ho made history earlier this year when his movie Parasite became the first ever international film to take home the Oscar for Best Picture, a stunning win that was complimented by the South Korean filmmaker also winning the award for Best Director. It was a deserved victory… Read More Review: Memories of Murder (Theatrical Re-Release)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Did you ever wonder what that loveable snowman sidekick Olaf (voiced by Josh Gad) was doing in the movie Frozen between the time when Elsa (Idina Menzel) brought him to life while belting out “Let It Go” on the side of a snowy mountain, but before he met… Read More Disney+ Review: Once Upon a Snowman
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Growing up, writer/director Trevor Cameron was always fascinated by stories of his great-great-great-uncle, Gabriel Dumont. A Métis leader and lieutenant to Louis Riel, Dumont is a legendary figure for his involvement in the North-West Rebellions of 1885, gaining him the nickname the “Métis Braveheart.” Wanting to learn more… Read More imagineNATIVE 2020 Review: Shadow of Dumont
By John Corrado Shirley Jackson’s classic 1959 horror novel The Haunting of Hill House has been adapted for the screen a few times over the years, starting with Robert Wise’s faithful 1963 film adaptation The Haunting. More recently, Jackson’s novel provided the inspiration for Mike Flanagan’s 2018 Netflix series of the same name, which was… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Haunting (1999)
The Joy of Movies 