By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Following up his Oscar-winning masterpiece Moonlight, Barry Jenkins brings James Baldwin’s work to the screen with a highly lyrical sensibility in his latest film If Beale Street Could Talk. Based on Baldwin’s 1974 novel of the same name, the film tells the story of Tish Rivers (Kiki Layne)… Read More #TIFF18 Review: If Beale Street Could Talk
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) When an anonymous hacker starts leaking the personal data of everyone in the town of Salem, four high school girls – Lily (Odessa Young), Bex (Hari Nef), Sarah (Suki Waterhouse) and Em (Abra) – end up having their worlds upended after their photos and texts are made public.… Read More #TIFF18 Review: Assassination Nation
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Colette is a biopic of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (Keira Knightley), a French writer at the turn of the 20th Century who marries into money when she meets the charismatic Willy (Dominic West). Seeking new material for his publishing house, Willy puts out a novel written by Colette, but he… Read More #TIFF18 Review: Colette
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Dreams, memories and cinema collide in Chinese director Bi Gan’s second feature Long Day’s Journey Into Night, a hypnotic and transfixing neo-noir that eschews a traditional narrative structure in favour of deep symbolism and metaphor. The film follows Luo Hongwu (Huang Jue), a man who returns to his… Read More #TIFF18 Review: Long Day’s Journey Into Night
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) When rogue LAPD detective Erin Bell (Nicole Kidman) starts investigating the reemergence of Silas (Toby Kebbell), the leader of a brutal California gang, she is forced to finally confront the past trauma of a sting operation gone wrong that involved her former partner Chris (Sebastian Stan). Director Karyn… Read More #TIFF18 Review: Destroyer
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Vincent (Jesse Eisenberg) and Anton Zalesky (Alexander Skarsgård) are cousins who hatch a scheme to make money by drilling a four inch wide tunnel running fiber optic cables from Kansas to New York that will speed up transactions on the Stock Exchange by a millisecond, but they face… Read More #TIFF18 Review: The Hummingbird Project
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The directorial debut of Paul Dano, who co-wrote the script with his wife Zoe Kazan, Wildlife is told from the point of view of Joe Brinson (Ed Oxenbould), a young teenager in 1960s Montana who is forced to watch his family fall apart when his father Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) loses… Read More #TIFF18 Review: Wildlife
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) When Ben (Lucas Hedges) cuts out of rehab to return home for Christmas, his mother Holly (Julia Roberts) agrees to let him stay the night despite disasters over the past two holidays, but she goes into panic mode and tries desperately to help him stay clean overnight. Written… Read More #TIFF18 Review: Ben is Back
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Based on a pair of memoirs written by father and son, Beautiful Boy depicts the struggles faced by writer David Sheff (Steve Carell) to help his drug-addicted young adult son Nic (Timothée Chalamet) get clean, after he started using crystal meth as a teenager. The English language debut… Read More #TIFF18 Review: Beautiful Boy
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The latest film from Dan Fogelman, best known as the creator of the hit show This Is Us, Life Itself follows a collection of characters who are all connected in various ways, with the through line being Will (Oscar Isaac) and Abby (Olivia Wilde), a New York couple… Read More #TIFF18 Review: Life Itself
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Based on Canadian author Patrick deWitt’s acclaimed book of the same name, The Sisters Brothers follows Eli (John C. Reilly) and Charlie Sisters (Joaquin Phoenix), a pair of outlaw brothers in 1851, Oregon who are hired to kill an eccentric prospector (Riz Ahmed), who is also being tracked… Read More #TIFF18 Review: The Sisters Brothers
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The second feature by Brady Corbet, Vox Lux focuses on the anatomy of a modern pop star whose life has been impacted by violence. The first half shows us our protagonist Celeste as a teenager (Raffey Cassidy) who survives a school shooting, and finds fame as a pop… Read More #TIFF18 Review: Vox Lux
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) TIFF decided to embrace streaming services by choosing the Netflix-produced Outlaw King to officially open the festival last night, and even though I still have some reservations about the predominantly non-theatrical distribution model used by the company – which notably got them blacklisted from Cannes this year –… Read More #TIFF18 Review: Outlaw King
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Lou (Michaela Kurimsky) and Chantal (Karena Evans) are best friends who are both trapped in the small Ontario town where they grew up, and they are trying to save up enough money so that they can hitch a ride to New York. But their plans to escape are… Read More #TIFF18 Review: Firecrackers
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Adapted from Lee-Anne Poole’s stage play, Splinters follows Belle (Sofia Benzhaf), a young woman who returns to Nova Scotia for her father’s funeral, forcing her to finally confront her overbearing mother (Shelley Thompson), who became distant after she came out as a teenager. But this time Belle has… Read More #TIFF18 Review: Splinters
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The latest short film directed by Zack Russell and starring Kayla Lorette – who previously collaborated on the fascinating She Stoops to Conquer which played at the festival in 2015 – 7A takes place in a single location and involves a young woman (Lorette) who is alone in… Read More #TIFF18 Review: 7A
By John Corrado The 25th edition of the Hot Docs Film Festival came to a close yesterday, with Transformer taking home both the Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary, and the general Audience Award as well. Below are my final reviews from the festival. Enjoy! The Reckoning: Hollywood’s Worst Kept Secret – ★★★ (out of… Read More Hot Docs Reviews: The Reckoning, Andy Irons: Kissed By God, Inventing Tomorrow, Roll Red Roll, MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A., Wind of Swabia
By John Corrado The 25th edition of the Hot Docs Film Festival is on until May 6th in Toronto. More information on tickets and showtimes can be found through the links in the film titles. Enjoy! The Feeling of Being Watched – ★★★ (out of 4) The close-knit and predominantly Muslim community of Bridgeview, Illinois has been… Read More Hot Docs Reviews: The Feeling of Being Watched, Letter From Masanjia, Believer, More Human Than Human, Pick of the Litter
By John Corrado The 25th edition of the Hot Docs Film Festival is on until May 6th in Toronto. More information on tickets and showtimes can be found through the links in the film titles. Enjoy! United We Fan – ★★½ (out of 4) The dedicated fans who have put together letter writing campaigns and started… Read More Hot Docs Reviews: United We Fan, Behind the Curve, 306 Hollywood, Bathtubs Over Broadway, Minding the Gap, Bachman
By John Corrado The 25th edition of the Hot Docs Film Festival is on until May 6th in Toronto. More information on tickets and showtimes can be found through the links in the film titles. Enjoy! The Devil We Know – ★★★ (out of 4) When DuPont brought Teflon onto the market in the 1940s, it… Read More Hot Docs Reviews: The Devil We Know, The White World According to Daliborek, The Cleaners, The Bill Murray Stories, Recovery Boys
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