By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Directed by Phyllis Ellis, who takes an investigative approach to the material, the documentary Toxic Beauty explores how harmful ingredients like phthalates, parabens and even formaldihyde are lurking in a lot of the soaps, deodorants, creams and shampoos that many women use on their bodies every single day.… Read More Review: Toxic Beauty
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) Started as an eco-friendly alternative to the fuel-burning of Formula 1, Formula E is a racing series that has been going strong since 2014, in which the drivers compete against each other in battery operated cars, offering a carbon neutral alternative to the high emissions of traditional motorsports.… Read More #TIFF19 Review: And We Go Green (TIFF Docs)
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 ★★★★ (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)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Since moving to England from Algeria in 2001, Fahed has been living in the working class town of Grimsby. While he is settled in the UK, working late hours at a restaurant in order to support himself, he still feels the pull of his home country, and dreams… Read More #TIFF19 Review: My English Cousin (TIFF Docs)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Directed by Pat Collins, Henry Glassie: Field Work is a documentary portrait of the renowned scholar and American folklorist Henry Glassie, who has spent over fifty years travelling around the world to study the work that other artists create, from religious statues to clay pots. For much of the… Read More #TIFF19 Review: Henry Glassie: Field Work (Contemporary World Cinema)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) In this era of fake news, independent journalist Robert Fisk stands tall as a champion of finding the truth and standing up for those who are oppressed, even if it means going against the official narratives and holding those who hold power to account. With a long, storied… Read More #TIFF19 Review: This is Not a Movie (TIFF Docs)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 53rd film from Alanis Obomsawin, Jordan River Anderson, The Messenger continues the Canadian filmmaker’s long history of documenting the injustices faced by Indigenous people in Canada and the fight for equal treatment under the law. This film focuses on the case of Jordan River Anderson, a baby… Read More #TIFF19 Review: Jordan River Anderson, The Messenger (Masters)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Back in 1969, after local religious authorities ordered that all of the totem poles be cut down as part of Canada’s widespread erasure of Indigenous culture, the celebrated Haida artist Robert Davidson became responsible for carving the first new totem pole to be put up in nearly a century in his village… Read More #TIFF19 Review: Now is the Time (Short Cuts)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Directed by Sandra Ignagni, Highway to Heaven: A Mosaic in One Mile is a mix of visual essay and short documentary that takes us inside the twenty five faith-based spaces that exist along the old No. 5 road in Richmond, British Columbia, including a variety of Christian churches,… Read More #TIFF19 Review: Highway to Heaven: A Mosaic in One Mile (Short Cuts)
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) After closing their doors during the recession and leaving thousands of workers without a job, a former General Motors plant in Dayton, Ohio got taken over by a Chinese company and was able to reopen in 2014 as Fuyao Glass America. What happened next is documented in American… Read More Review: American Factory
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) Back in 1961, the United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, who was openly fighting for the decolonization of Africa at the time, was killed in a plane crash in Northern Rhodsia, and the common belief was that it was a simple engine failure. But for years an alternate… Read More Review: Cold Case Hammarskjöld
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Born in 1985, six years after China’s communist government brought in their one child policy in 1979 as a way to combat overpopulation, filmmaker Nanfu Wang grew up intimately effected by the law, which stayed in place until 2015. Now having a child of her own, Wang explores… Read More Review: One Child Nation
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) Haditze Muratova is the last of the wild bee keepers in Macedonia. Living in an old hut in the Balkan mountains, she spends her time tending to a colony of wild bees, and is careful not to disturb them as she extracts pieces of honeycomb from their hive,… Read More Review: Honeyland
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) When Kevin Hearn, the keyboard player and guitarist for the beloved Canadian band the Barenaked Ladies, bought a painting by Indigenous artist Norval Morrisseau for twenty thousand dollars, he was shocked to find out that the painting was actually a fake, just one of many fake Morrisseau paintings… Read More Review: There Are No Fakes
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) With housing prices at record highs in cities around the world, including here in Toronto, many young people are no longer able to even dream about one day owning a house. This multi-pronged issue is explored in director Fredrik Gertten’s documentary Push, which follows Leilani Farha, the UN’s… Read More Review: Push
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Canadian filmmaker Larry Weinstein sets his sights on how propaganda is used to effect political change in his broad-based and often enjoyable new documentary Propaganda: The Art of Selling Lies, which ponders if all art is propaganda, and how we can tell what’s true in this age of… Read More Review: Propaganda: The Art of Selling Lies
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The Dutch filmmaker Heddy Honigmann looks at the bond between six people and their service dogs in her latest documentary Buddy. The subjects here include an elderly German lady who was blinded by an explosion in World War II and has had many service dogs over the years;… Read More Review: Buddy
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Directors Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce explore the rise and fall of infamous automobile mogul John DeLorean in Framing John DeLorean, a hybrid of documentary and narrative film that shifts between interviews and dramatic reenactments featuring Alec Baldwin wearing prosthetics and a wig to portray DeLorean. The… Read More Review: Framing John DeLorean
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