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
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Director Jesse Zigelstein’s Canadian chef drama Nose to Tail, which had screened at the Canadian Film Fest in 2019, is being released on VOD this week. This at-home release follows the film’s limited theatrical run back in February, a month before the theatre shutdowns started. The film centres… Read More VOD Release: Nose to Tail
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: 9/11 Kids
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto has come to be one of the biggest showcases of documentary cinema in the world, and it’s an event that, on a personal note, I look forward to attending every spring, as I have done since 2011. But this year, the… Read More Hot Docs At Home Review: Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The latest film from Canadian director Jeremy LaLonde, who previously made the raunchy comedies The Go-Getters and How to Plan An Orgy in a Small Town, James vs. His Future Self is not only his highest concept film as of yet, but also quite possibly his sweetest. James… Read More Review: James vs. His Future Self
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) In Run This Town, a Canadian political satire that serves as the feature debut of writer-director Ricky Tollman, a young upstart journalist named Bram (Ben Platt) tries to track down a video of the Mayor of Toronto smoking crack cocaine, as the mayor’s handlers led by “special assistant”… Read More Review: Run This Town
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Set in Clifton Hill, the tacky, tourist trap area of Niagara Falls that the film is named after, Disappearance at Clifton Hill follows a woman named Abby (Tuppence Middleton), who returns to her hometown of Niagara Falls after her mother dies to help facilitate the sale of their… Read More Review: Disappearance at Clifton Hill
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A chance encounter between two Indigenous women in Vancouver leads to an emotional study of abuse and trauma in The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, a drama that unfolds almost entirely in real time and explores how hard it can be to help someone who is reluctant… Read More Review: The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Following the outbreak of a mysterious illness that wiped out all of the grown ups, leaving just the teenagers behind, the town of Potter’s Bluff has divided into two halves. The East Siders are scrappy survivalist punks who get by on their own, and the West Siders have… Read More Review: Riot Girls
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Directed by Toronto’s own Daniel Roher, Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band is an engaging and emotional look at Robertson’s own life and career as lead guitarist and main songwriter for The Band, as well as the rise and fall of the group itself. The film… Read More Review: Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Set in Newfoundland in the 1980s, Black Conflux follows both a teenaged girl named Jackie (Ella Ballentine), who is navigating the world of high school, and a mentally unstable young man named Dennis (Ryan McDonald), who works in a brewery and has trouble with women. Jackie has started… Read More #TIFF19 Review: Black Conflux (Discovery)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Set in the tacky, tourist trap area of Niagara Falls that the film is named after, Clifton Hill follows a woman named Abby (Tuppence Middleton), who returns to her hometown of Niagara Falls after her mother dies to help facilitate the sale of their family motel, and becomes… Read More #TIFF19 Review: Clifton Hill (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) The third feature from Toronto filmmaker Kazik Radwanski, Anne at 13,000 ft is shot in his usual minimalistic style, offering a gritty and stripped down portrait of its title character, who is in the throes of a mental breakdown. Anne (Deragh Campbell) is in her late twenties and… Read More #TIFF19 Review: Anne at 13,000 ft (Platform)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A bloody, gory and socially conscious Indigenous zombie movie, Blood Quantum explores what happens when a plague that turns people into flesh-eating zombies ravages the outside world, and everyone on a First Nations reserve somehow has immunity to the virus. The film takes place on the Red Crow… Read More #TIFF19 Review: Blood Quantum (Midnight Madness)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Directed by Toronto’s own Daniel Roher, and carrying the distinction of being the first ever Canadian documentary to open the festival, Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band is an engaging and emotional look at Robertson’s own life and career as the lead guitarist and main songwriter… Read More #TIFF19 Review: Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Jenny (Hong Chau) is a young political activist in the 1970s who is laying low after bombing a draft office to protest the Vietnam War, when she forms a bond with a young heiress named Pauline (Sarah Gadon), who has gotten involved with a violent cult run by… Read More #TIFF19 Review: American Woman (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) When his estranged father Al (Christian Aldo) dies, struggling actor Wayne (Nathanael Chadwick) inherits his dad’s business, a rundown porno theatre. Wayne initially plans to sell the property, which has an apartment above it where tenants still live. But the more time he spends in the building, the… Read More #TIFF19 Review: The Last Porno Show (Contemporary World Cinema)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The latest and best film from young Canadian filmmakers Calvin Thomas and Yonah Lewis, White Lie opens with its main character, a young woman named Katie Arneson (Kacey Rohl), shaving her head with a razor. Katie doesn’t have cancer, but she wants everyone, including her girlfriend Jennifer (Amber… Read More #TIFF19 Review: White Lie (Contemporary World Cinema)
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) The latest from Alan Zweig, Coppers finds the Canadian documentary filmmaker interviewing former police officers in Ontario, who have either left the force due to retirement or for other reasons. Speaking directly to the camera, the officers open up about experiencing PTSD, tough decisions they had to make… Read More #TIFF19 Review: Coppers (TIFF Docs)
The Joy of Movies 