By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Directed by Eric Warin and Tahir Rana, Charlotte is an animated biopic of German-Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon (voiced by Keira Knightley), whose magnum opus was a biography in pictures titled Life? Or Theatre? painted during World War II, that is often credited as being the first graphic novel.… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Charlotte (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is the French Canadian filmmaker’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic 1965 sci-fi novel of the same name. And the movie, which focuses on the beginning half of Herbert’s book and is intended as the first in a two-part saga (the opening title card says Dune:… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Dune (Special Events)
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Nostalgia and ghosts of the past collide in Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho, the British filmmaker’s very dark, stylish, and gloriously entertaining tribute to both London in the Swinging Sixties and Italian giallo films. This fondness for the past is represented through the movie’s heroine, Eloise (Thomasin… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Last Night in Soho (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The feature debut of writer-director Haya Waseem, who has made a number of short films, Quickening is a young adult drama told from the unique perspective of a young Pakistani-Canadian woman in the GTA suburbs. The film centres around Sheila (Arooj Azeem), who is in her first year… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Quickening (Discovery)
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 ★★★ (out of 4) Stephen Chbosky’s big screen take on Dear Evan Hansen, the Broadway musical with songs by Benji Pasek and Justin Paul that swept the Tonys in 2017, is a pretty good stage to screen adaptation. Even if the material is not quite as impactful onscreen as it was onstage,… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Dear Evan Hansen (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A new short film written, directed and produced by Canadian filmmaker Albert Shin, Together focuses on two anonymous strangers, a younger woman (Ahn So Yo) and an older man (Kim Jae-Rok), who meet up in a motel room by the sea in South Korea. Shin made this film… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Together (Short Cuts)
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) The latest film from Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Memoria is his first film made outside his home country of Thailand. But the film, which is set in Colombia and unfolds through a mix of English and Spanish, still feels at one with the rest of his filmography. Tilda… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Memoria (Special Events)
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) Julia Ducournau’s Titane surprised a lot of people when it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes a few months ago, becoming not only the second female-directed film to win, but also the rare genre flick to take home the top prize. Now that I’ve seen the film I… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Titane (Midnight Madness)
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) There was always some question as to how French filmmaker Céline Sciamma would follow up her acclaimed 2019 film Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which has been lauded by many as one of the finest films of the past decade. Now we have the answer with Petite… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Petite Maman (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) In his unconventional but excellent new documentary Flee, Danish filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen interviews his high school friend Amin Nawabi, an Afghan refugee who reveals for the first time the harrowing story of how he escaped Afghanistan as a child and fled to Europe. The twist is that… Read More #TIFF21 Review: Flee (TIFF Docs)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The 2021 Inside Out Film Festival is running virtually from May 27th to June 6th, all films are available to stream for audiences across Ontario The music documentary Alone Together, which screened virtually last night as the closing night film of Inside Out, takes us behind the scenes… Read More #InsideOut21 Review: Alone Together
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2021 Inside Out Film Festival is running virtually from May 27th to June 6th, all films are available to stream for audiences across Ontario The narrative feature debut of documentary filmmaker Heidi Ewing, I Carry You With Me is an often poignant immigrant drama that offers a… Read More #InsideOut21 Review: I Carry You With Me
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The 2021 Inside Out Film Festival is running virtually from May 27th to June 6th, all films are available to stream for audiences across Ontario Directed by Carlos López Estrada, Summertime is a sprawling, at times inspiring film that follows a wide-ranging mix of young people over a… Read More #InsideOut21 Review: Summertime
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2021 Inside Out Film Festival is running virtually from May 27th to June 6th, all films are available to stream for audiences across Ontario Over a decade after their breakup in college, Kris (Pooya Mohseni) and Naomi (Lynn Chen) decide to meet up for dinner, the first… Read More #InsideOut21 Review: See You Then
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2021 Inside Out Film Festival is running virtually from May 27th to June 6th, all films are available to stream for audiences across Ontario Set against the luscious backdrop of the South of France, writer-director Marion Hill’s sensual debut feature Ma Belle, My Beauty explores the aftermath… Read More #InsideOut21 Review: Ma Belle, My Beauty
By John Corrado Hot Docs has officially come to a close, with the final announcement of the coveted Audience Awards revealing the top twenty films that resonated the most with viewers during the virtual festival. In first place is director Franz Böhm’s Dear Future Children, which follows three young female activists in Chile, Hong Kong… Read More #HotDocs21 Audience Award Winners
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 Titled after his old motto “we are as gods and might as well get good at it,” the documentary We Are As Gods offers… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: We Are As Gods
The Joy of Movies 