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 ★★★ (out of 4) The most obvious comparison to The Curse of Audrey Earnsahw, Canadian filmmaker Robert Thomas Lee’s new period horror film which was produced with the participation of Telefilm Canada, would be The Witch. Like that 2015 film directed by Robert Eggers, Lee’s film is another work of folk horror… Read More Review: The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) In 1969, the Canadian government under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau made crucial changes to the criminal code under Bill C-150, partially decriminalizing homosexuality across the country. It was a historic move that struck down archaic “anti-buggery” and “gross indecency” laws, with Trudeau’s famous musing that “there’s no place… Read More Inside Out 2020 Review: Sex, Sin & 69
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The year is 1995, and Malik (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman) has just moved to a small town in Illinois with his partner Aaron (Ari Cohen), seeking a new life for themselves and Aaron’s teenaged daughter Kayla (Jennifer Laporte). But it’s not long before Malik, who still hasn’t recovered from the… Read More Inside Out 2020 Review: Spiral
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Russell (Thomas Duplessie) is a young drag queen in Toronto, who has turned to drag as a way to perform and express himself after his career as a young actor stalled out. When his boyfriend (Andrew Bushell) dumps him, Russell packs his bags and heads to Prince Edward… Read More Inside Out 2020 Review: Jump, Darling
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) A Mohawk girl comes of age against the backdrop of the Oka Crisis in Beans, a drama that reimagines the 1990 showdown between several levels of police and Indigenous land protectors from two Quebec Mohawk communities, who were trying to stop the town of Oka’s planned expansion of… Read More #TIFF20 Review: Beans (Discovery)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Iris (Hera Nalam) and Simon (Kristian Jordan), the lead characters in Canadian writer/director Sean Garrity’s new Winnipeg-set romantic comedy I Propose We Never See Each Other Again After Tonight, have a very Canadian meet cute while helping push a car out of a snowbank. With the scarf pulled… Read More Review: I Propose We Never See Each Other Again After Tonight
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) There are many things that could be said about Tito, an offbeat Canadian character study from multi-hyphenated writer-director-star Grace Glowicki, but the one thing you can’t say is that it is in any way conventional. In fact, Tito is completely unconventional, often defiantly and interestingly so. The film… Read More VOD Review: Tito
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Directed by Jay Baruchel, dipping his toes into the horror genre following his 2017 directorial debut Goon: Last of the Enforcers, Random Acts of Violence explores what happens when the work of an artist starts to inspire shocking acts of real life violence. Todd (Jesse Williams) is a… Read More VOD Review: Random Acts of Violence
By John Corrado The Canadian drama White Lie, which had its world premiere at TIFF last year, is being released digitally and on demand this week on a variety of platforms. The film, which is the best one yet from young Toronto directors Calvin Thomas and Yonah Lewis, follows a young woman named Katie Arneson… Read More VOD Release: White Lie
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) The latest from Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan, Guest of Honour unfortunately follows in the footsteps of several of his other disappointing late career works; it’s a dramatic thriller that takes topical themes and buries them in an overly complicated and melodramatic package. The film tells the story of… Read More VOD Review: Guest of Honour
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) James Odin (Adrian Glynn McMorran), a man with the ability to see glimpses of the future, ends up embroiled in a diamond smuggling ring while trying to stay one step ahead of the visions that he keeps having of his own own murder, in the ambitious indie sci-fi… Read More VOD Review: Volition
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Based on his stage play of the same name, writer and director Drew Hayden Taylor’s engaging and informative documentary Cottagers & Indians, which premieres tonight on CBC, explores the fierce battle that is raging in the Kawartha Lakes between a group of mostly white cottagers and members of Curve… Read More Review: Cottagers & Indians
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The feature directorial debut of Canadian film producer Aisling Chin-Yee, The Rest of Us is a very solid little film that finds both drama and gentle humour in the interactions between its unique cast of female characters. The film centres around Cami (Heather Graham), the author and illustrator… Read More VOD Review: The Rest of Us
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) With this year’s in-person 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… Read More Hot Docs At Home Review: The Walrus and the Whistleblower
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 ★★★ (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 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
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: Finding Sally
The Joy of Movies 