By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Frank Farelli (Pål Sverre Hagen) is an out of work sad-sack who is hired as the new “middle man” in the fictional town of Karmack, USA. The job involves being dispatched out to deliver bad news to residents when people die or accidents happen, a surprisingly common occurrence… Read More #TIFF21 Review: The Middle Man (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Anna (Alanna Bale), the immortal protagonist of Kicking Blood, is a young vampire who is intrigued by mortals. She works a day job in a library, and is friends with her dying, elderly co-worker (Rosemary Dunsmore), which is perplexing to the rest of her undead crew who only… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Kicking Blood (Contemporary World Cinema)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The Indigenous-led survival thriller Night Raiders is set in the year 2043, and imagines a dystopian, post-war society where all children are taken to be wards of the state, and put in a military academy that serves as an indoctrination camp. The film centres around Niska (Elle-Maija Tailfeathers),… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Night Raiders (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) When I say that PAW Patrol: The Movie, a feature length spinoff of the popular Canadian children’s television show, is surprisingly pretty good, I feel like I should clarify that statement by adding “for a PAW Patrol movie.” I do not say this to throw any shade on… Read More Review: PAW Patrol: The Movie
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A Canadian animated film from the Quebec company 10th Ave Productions, Felix and the Treasure of Morgäa is an enjoyable family adventure movie set in the Magdalen Islands. The film follows a 12-year-old boy named Felix (Daniel Brochu), who believes that his fisherman father, who disappeared at sea… Read More VOD Review: Felix and the Treasure of Morgäa
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Based on the stage show Strike!, Stand! is a Canadian musical that dramatizes the events surrounding the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, an important moment in the history of labour rights in our country. The film, which was shot in Winnipeg and screened theatrically in Canada for the… Read More VOD Review: Stand!
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2021 Hot Docs Festival is running virtually from April 29th to May 9th, all films are available to stream for audiences across Canada Josiah Wilson was born in Haiti and adopted as a baby by a Heiltsuk father and a white mother, and raised as part of… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: One of Ours
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2021 Hot Docs Festival is running virtually from April 29th to May 9th, all films are available to stream for audiences across Canada Filmmaker Katherine Knight crafts an engaging portrait of acclaimed Canadian artist Max Dean in her documentary Still Max, which offers an interesting look at… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: Still Max
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2021 Hot Docs Festival is running virtually from April 29th to May 9th, all films are available to stream for audiences across Canada In her short documentary Mary Two-Axe Earley: I Am Indian Again, filmmaker Courtney Montour explores the legacy of Indigenous women’s rights activist Mary Two-Axe… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: Mary Two-Axe Earley: I Am Indian Again
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2021 Hot Docs Festival is running virtually from April 29th to May 9th, all films are available to stream for audiences across Canada Director Sheona McDonald’s short documentary Into Light explores the experience of a single mother in Yellowknife, as she helps her young transgender daughter through… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: Into Light
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2021 Hot Docs Festival is running virtually from April 29th to May 9th, all films are available to stream for audiences across Canada Directors Sean Horlor and Steve J. Adams follow a group of people from Vancouver’s LGBTQ+ community who are working together to sponsor a gay… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: Someone Like Me
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2021 Hot Docs Festival is running virtually from April 29th to May 9th, all films are available to stream for audiences across Canada Shawn Bath, the main subject of the engaging and appropriately titled documentary Hell or Clean Water, is a commercial diver in Newfoundland who has… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: Hell or Clean Water
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2021 Hot Docs Festival is running virtually from April 29th to May 9th, all films are available to stream for audiences across Canada Documentary filmmaker Jesse McCracken returns to his hometown of Markdale, Ontario in Grey Roads, to explore how the town has changed since he grew… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: Grey Roads
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2021 Hot Docs Festival is running virtually from April 29th to May 9th, all films are available to stream for audiences across Canada Director Ann Shin explores the concept of “digital immortality” in A.rtifical I.mmortality, the opening night film of this year’s virtual Hot Docs, a thought-provoking… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: A.rtificial I.mmortality
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) When we first meet Frankie (Alana Hawley Purvis) in the very good homegrown drama Range Roads, which is closing the virtual Canadian Film Fest tonight, her face is painted white and she is wearing a bright red wig, playing the over the top role of a queen on… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: Range Roads
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Sugar Daddy, which is premiering tonight as the opening film of the virtual Canadian Film Fest on Super Channel, serves as a compelling showcase for its star Kelly McCormack. McCormack, who also wrote the film’s screenplay, stars as Darren, a classic “starving artist” living in Toronto. She works… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: Sugar Daddy
By John Corrado One of the movies that I got to see at TIFF last year was Shiva Baby, a tightly wound and sharply written comedy set at a shiva that serves as a breakout film for both first time feature director Emma Seligman and star Rachel Sennott. The film is now available to rent… Read More Shiva Baby is Now Available to Rent on the digital TIFF Bell Lightbox
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The feature debut of Canadian co-directors Dusty Mancinelli and Madeleine Sims-Fewer, who’ve made several short films together over the past few years, Violation is a confidently made first feature that serves as an incredibly dark entry into the revenge thriller genre. Sims-Fewer stars in the film as Miriam,… Read More VOD Review: Violation
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) 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
The Joy of Movies 