By John Corrado A month ago, I shared my picks for the best movies of 2020, and now it’s time to make my selections for the best documentaries of last year. This list has been a long time coming, I know, and It took me a while to put it together, from deciding on the… Read More The Best Documentaries of 2020
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) 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 ★★★ (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) 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 ★★★½ (out of 4) Directed by Spike Lee, David Byrne’s American Utopia is a film version of the Broadway show that the former frontman for the band Talking Heads staged in 2019 at the Hudson Theatre in New York. It was the opening night film at TIFF eleven days ago, and watching… Read More #TIFF20 Review: David Byrne’s American Utopia (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The Alba truffle, which grows in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy, is considered to be one of the world’s rarest and most exclusive food items, and directors Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw take us into the unique world of the men who forage for them in their… Read More #TIFF20 Review: The Truffle Hunters (Special Events)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Credited to directors Hao Wu and Weixi Chen, as well as another filmmaker who remains anonymous, 76 Days is a ripped from the headlines documentary made up entirely of candid footage that was shot in Wuhan, China earlier this year at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The… Read More #TIFF20 Review: 76 Days (TIFF Docs)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Directed by Sam Pollard, the extensively researched documentary MLK/FBI sheds light on FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s obsessive quest to take down Martin Luther King Jr., viewing the non-violent civil rights leader as a threat to the national order. Using the powers afforded to him at the Federal… Read More #TIFF20 Review: MLK/FBI (TIFF Docs)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Inspired by Thomas King’s autobiographical 2012 book The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America, the documentary Inconvenient Indian takes a very unconventional approach to adapting the source material. Using King’s book as the jumping off point, director Michelle Latimer has instead crafted a… Read More #TIFF20 Review: Inconvenient Indian (TIFF Docs)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Pete Souza, the former White House photographer for both Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan, shares his story in the documentary The Way I See It. A behind the scenes figure who previously kept quiet about his own political leanings, Souza became more vocal in the wake of Donald… Read More #TIFF20 Review: The Way I See It (Special Events)
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Billy Tipton was an American jazz musician whose career as a pianist and bandleader spanned from the 1930s to the 1970s. At the time of his death in 1989, it was revealed that Tipton was transgender, having been assigned female at birth but living and publicly presenting as… Read More #TIFF20 Review: No Ordinary Man (TIFF Docs)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The year 2016 was a very strange time to be on the internet. That’s the thought I kept having while watching Feels Good Man, director Arthur Jones’ documentary about Pepe the Frog, a comic strip character that somehow played a role in getting Donald Trump elected president. Pepe… Read More VOD Review: Feels Good Man
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) When Dutch director Paul Verhoeven, who had previously crafted Hollywood hits out of pulpy material with RoboCop, Total Recall and Basic Instinct, released Showgirls in 1995, it was universally derided and became a massive critical and commercial flop. It’s not a surprise, since Verhoeven’s NC-17 stripper melodrama is… Read More VOD Review: You Don’t Nomi
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Every year, over a thousand kids in Texas are selected to participate in Boys State, a conference run by the American Legion that teaches participants how to build a representative government over the course of a week. The boys are randomly split into two groups of six hundred each… Read More Review: Boys State
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) A selection of films from this year’s online edition of Hot Docs continue to be available to stream on their website. Tickets are $9 apiece, $8 for members, with screenings geo-blocked to Ontario. The full lineup can be found here. “If we have a husband, we won’t have a clitoris.… Read More Hot Docs Online Review: Breaking the Silence
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A selection of films from this year’s online edition of Hot Docs continue to be available to stream on their website. Tickets are $9 apiece, $8 for members, with screenings geo-blocked to Ontario. The full lineup can be found here. Tam and Bay have been living in Germany for… Read More Hot Docs Online Review: Mein Vietnam
By John Corrado This year’s special online edition of Hot Docs officially came to a close last night, and tonight the winners of the festival’s coveted Audience Award were announced during a live stream, which you can revisit on YouTube. The first place finisher was The Walrus and the Whistleblower, director Nathalie Bibeau’s film about… Read More Hot Docs Festival Online Audience Award Winners
The Joy of Movies 