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 In the opening scene of The Face of Anonymous, novelist Ian Thornton recounts how he met a panhandler in Toronto some years back. He… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: The Face of Anonymous
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 The “ISIS brides” as they are called, the Western woman who travelled overseas from Europe and North America to join the terrorist group in… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: The Return: Life After ISIS
By John Corrado ★★★½ (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 Based on the book by Michael Davis, Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street is a heartwarming documentary that explores the history of… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street
By John Corrado ★★½ (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 June and Jean Millington are sisters who moved to California from the Philippines in the early 1960s, and formed a band as teenagers, with… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: Fanny: The Right to Rock
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 In the 1960s, brothers Kingsley and Charles Ward fulfilled their dream of becoming music producers when they turned their family farm in Wales into… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: Rockfield: The Studio on the Farm
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 Directed by Margaret Byrne, a filmmaker who herself is living with mental illness, Any Given Day is a candid portrait of people struggling to… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: Any Given Day
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 Shawn Bath, the main subject of the engaging and appropriately titled documentary Hell or Clean Water, is a commercial diver in Newfoundland who has… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: Hell or Clean Water
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 Documentary filmmaker Jesse McCracken returns to his hometown of Markdale, Ontario in Grey Roads, to explore how the town has changed since he grew… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: Grey Roads
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 Director Ann Shin explores the concept of “digital immortality” in A.rtifical I.mmortality, the opening night film of this year’s virtual Hot Docs, a thought-provoking… Read More #HotDocs21 Review: A.rtificial I.mmortality
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) When we first meet Frankie (Alana Hawley Purvis) in the very good homegrown drama Range Roads, which is closing the virtual Canadian Film Fest tonight, her face is painted white and she is wearing a bright red wig, playing the over the top role of a queen on… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: Range Roads
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Sugar Daddy, which is premiering tonight as the opening film of the virtual Canadian Film Fest on Super Channel, serves as a compelling showcase for its star Kelly McCormack. McCormack, who also wrote the film’s screenplay, stars as Darren, a classic “starving artist” living in Toronto. She works… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: Sugar Daddy
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 ★★★ (out of 4) Following the death of his parents, Kit (Henry Golding) returns home to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam to find a place to scatter their ashes, and discovers that he barely remembers the country that he was forced to leave as a young boy. Having grown up in… Read More Inside Out 2020 Review: Monsoon
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) Directed by Denis Theriault, expanding upon his 2014 short film of the same name, the six-part web series I Am Syd Stone follows a popular but washed up actor struggling with his sexuality during the production of a new film. The series begins with Syd (Travis Nelson), whose… Read More Inside Out 2020 Review: I Am Syd Stone (Web Series)
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Troy (Steve Zahn) is the father of Joe (Sasha Knight), who was assigned female at birth but has recently revealed that he is transgender and was born in the wrong body. When Joe’s mother Sally (Jillian Bell) refuses to accept who he is, Troy escapes with him into… Read More Inside Out 2020 Review: Cowboys
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Eddie (Fionn O’Shea) and Amber (Lola Petticrew) are two closeted gay teenagers in Ireland circa 1995, who are tired of the constant homophobic taunts from their classmates and decide to put rumours about their sexuality to rest by pretending to date each other. Despite the destined to be… Read More Inside Out 2020 Review: Dating Amber
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) 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)
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