By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Jack Cunningham (Ben Affleck) is an alcoholic. He works in construction during the day and spends his nights at the local bar, getting drunk to the point of needing to be helped home. In the morning, he sips a beer while in the shower, and starts the whole… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Way Back
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The Painter and the Thief, director Benjamin Ree’s excellent documentary about friendship and the healing power of art, documents a coming together of two people that is so remarkable and interesting that if it had been fiction, it likely would have been accused of being contrived. The painter… Read More VOD Review: The Painter and the Thief
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are back at it again in The Trip to Greece, the fourth instalment in this series that finds the two comic actors playing versions of themselves enjoying good food, having great conversations, and arguing over who does the better celebrity impressions. It all… Read More VOD Review: The Trip to Greece
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The poster for Military Wives boasts that the film comes to us “from the director of The Full Monty,” and this really is a case of there being truth in advertising. The director is Peter Cattaneo, and like his surprise Oscar nominee from 1997, this film also functions… Read More VOD Review: Military Wives
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) With this year’s edition of Hot Docs cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a selection of festival films are being given broadcast premieres every Thursday night from April 16th to May 28th on CBC, documentary Channel, and the CBC Gem streaming app, as part of the Hot Docs… Read More Hot Docs At Home Review: Influence
By John Corrado This week, Paramount is giving the 4K Ultra HD treatment to a trio of their catalogue titles; Top Gun, Days of Thunder, and War of the Worlds (2005). What all three of these films have in common, aside from them being extremely well suited to being watching in high definition, is that they all star Tom… Read More 4K Ultra HD Reviews: Top Gun, Days of Thunder and War of the Worlds (2005)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A beautifully crafted and dryly humorous adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic novel of the same name, Emma. is a very enjoyable period piece that finds the perfect sweet spot between feeling sparkling and fresh while also remaining true to its 1815 setting. The film stars Anya Taylor-Joy in… Read More Blu-ray Review: Emma.
By John Corrado By virtue of being one of the few big movies this year to get a theatrical release in February before COVID-19 forced most theatres to shut down in March, Sonic the Hedgehog carries the distinction of being one of the highest grossing movies of 2020. After receiving an early digital release two… Read More Blu-ray Review: Sonic the Hedgehog
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) With this year’s edition of Hot Docs cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a selection of festival films are being given broadcast premieres every Thursday night from April 16th to May 28th on CBC, documentary Channel, and the CBC Gem streaming app, as part of the Hot Docs… Read More Hot Docs At Home Review: They Call Me Dr. Miami
By John Corrado One of the five films nominated for Best International Film at this year’s Oscars, Les Misérables is a stirring modern day fable from director Ladj Ly that explores timely themes about racial tensions and police brutality in contemporary France. As of yesterday, the film is now available for rent and purchase on… Read More VOD Release: Les Misérables
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Damon (Kristian Bruun), the main character in the enjoyable Canadian dramedy Red Rover which opened the Canadian Film Festival last year and is being released on VOD today, is a lonely geologist in Toronto, who feels like he doesn’t have much left for him on earth. He lives… Read More VOD Review: Red Rover
By John Corrado Annette Bening and Bill Nighy star in Hope Gap, which had its world premiere at TIFF last year, as an old married couple who are going through a divorce. The film is being released for rent and purchase on a variety of VOD platforms today, including iTunes. When Edward (Nighy) announces that… Read More VOD Release: Hope Gap
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) In 1991, a group of eight men and women locked themselves inside Biosphere 2, a massive indoor recreation of the earth’s ecosystem built in the middle of the Arizona desert. The plan was to stay there for two years with no interference from the outside world, growing their… Read More VOD Review: Spaceship Earth
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) With this year’s edition of Hot Docs cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a selection of festival films are being given broadcast premieres every Thursday night from April 16th to May 28th on CBC, documentary Channel, and the CBC Gem streaming app, as part of the Hot Docs… Read More Hot Docs At Home Review: Meat the Future
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) One of the first clues we get that something is very off in The Assistant comes within the opening few minutes of the film when Jane (Julia Garner) puts on rubber gloves and gets down on her knees to scrub a stubborn stain off the couch in her… Read More VOD Review: The Assistant
By John Corrado The Irish ghost comedy Extra Ordinary, which screened as the opening night film at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival last October, is being released for rent and purchase this week on a variety of VOD platforms, including iTunes. The film had the misfortune of being released theatrically on March 13th for… Read More VOD Release: Extra Ordinary
By John Corrado Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville deliver a pair of moving performances in Ordinary Love, a quiet, emotionally raw drama that charts the ups and downs of a husband and wife in Ireland dealing with her breast cancer diagnosis. The film, which had its world premiere at TIFF last year and enjoyed a… Read More VOD Release: Ordinary Love
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The character of Dr. John Dolittle, a veterinarian with the magic ability to talk to animals who first appeared in stories by English author Hugh Lofting roughly a century ago, has in the past been played on the big screen by Rex Harrison in the Oscar-winning 1967 musical… Read More Blu-ray Review: Dolittle
By John Corrado Kire Paputts’ The Last Porno Show was set to open in theatres for a limited run at the Carlton Cinema in Toronto at the end of March. But mere weeks before that could happen, all of the theatres were shut down due to COVID-19 and the release was cancelled, throwing the film’s… Read More The Last Porno Show is Available to Stream for Free on Vimeo This Weekend
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) In the opening scene of the dark Canadian dramedy Tammy’s Always Dying, we cut back and forth between a pair of legs wearing torn stockings and high heels walking along a bridge over the train tracks, as a woman drives frantically through the streets of Hamilton before coming… Read More Review: Tammy’s Always Dying
