By John Corrado In Rosemead, the well-crafted but disturbing feature directorial debut of cinematographer Eric Lin, Lucy Liu stars as a widowed Chinese-American mother in Southern California who is struggling to support her mentally ill teenaged son. Liu’s Irene is terminally ill from cancer, the same disease that took her husband. Meanwhile, she is struggling… Read More Movie Review: Rosemead
By John Corrado In his latest film, the triptych anthology movie Father Mother Sister Brother which was awarded the Golden Lion at Venice, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch offers another collection of observations on human nature and interaction. The film itself unfolds in three separate chapters that aren’t connected, per se, but all share narrative beats and… Read More Movie Review: Father Mother Sister Brother
By John Corrado In We Bury the Dead, Australian writer-director Zak Hilditch offers his own take on the zombie movie and survival thriller. The film opens with news reports of a magnetic pulse weapon accidentally being deployed by the United States military during testing, killing half-a-million people in Tasmania. Daisy Ridley, continuing her post Disney… Read More Movie Review: We Bury the Dead
By John Corrado Ethan Hawke returns as The Grabber in Black Phone 2, director Scott Derrickson’s followup to his 2021 film The Black Phone. This poses a unique challenge for the horror sequel, seeing as Hawke’s mask-wearing, child-napping serial killer was already killed in the first film. But, as we know from this genre, there… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Black Phone 2 (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado The music biopic has become a way for films to capitalize off the recognizable song catalogues of their respective musical artists. This brings us to Song Sung Blue, which does a similar thing with the music of Neil Diamond (it’s named for one of his catchiest songs, after all). But, despite following… Read More Movie Review: Song Sung Blue
By John Corrado In Is This Thing On?, Bradley Cooper’s third film as director following A Star is Born and Maestro, the actor-turned-filmmaker in some ways goes back to basics. Cooper’s latest film is an intimate, stripped down character study of a middle-aged dad going through a divorce, who discovers the healing power of doing… Read More Movie Review: Is This Thing On?
By John Corrado Director Paul Feig is probably best known for his comedy work like Bridesmaids, but dipped his toes into the thriller genre with his darkly comic 2018 mystery film A Simple Favor and its sequel Another Simple Favor, released earlier this year. It’s this energy that Feig now brings to The Housemaid, his… Read More Movie Review: The Housemaid
By John Corrado James Cameron returns to the world of Avatar in Avatar: Fire and Ash, the third film in his sci-fi saga that began all the way back in 2009. And this latest instalment essentially delivers more of what fans of the first two want, with Cameron giving us another immersive, visually dazzling trip… Read More Movie Review: Avatar: Fire and Ash
By John Corrado A young girl has to confront the monster under her bed in Dust Bunny, the imaginative feature directorial debut of TV writer and producer Bryan Fuller, who is best known for series like Star Trek: Discovery, Pushing Daisies, and fan favourite Hannibal. Despite reuniting him with his Hannibal star Mads Mikkelsen, Fuller… Read More Movie Review: Dust Bunny
By John Corrado Aside from his role as co-creator and producer of The Simpsons, which is certainly enough of a legacy on its own, James L. Brooks is also best known for writing and directing a trio of beloved, all-timer romantic dramedies with Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News and As Good As It Gets. Brooks… Read More Movie Review: Ella McCay
By John Corrado In her new documentary The Tale of Silyan, the follow-up to her Oscar-nominated Honeyland, director Tamara Kotevska once again explores the balance between people and nature in North Macedonia. In Honeyland, Kotevska focused on an elderly beekeeper having her traditional way of life – and her livelihood – threatened by a new family… Read More Movie Review: The Tale of Silyan
By John Corrado In his acceptance speech at the SAG Awards earlier year, when he won the Best Actor trophy for his uncanny portrayal of Bob Dylan in music biopic A Complete Unknown, Timothée Chalamet unabashedly spoke about wanting to be one of the greats. The young actor took some heat for it online. Surely… Read More Movie Review: Marty Supreme
By John Corrado When Zootopia came out in 2016, it took a lot of people by surprise (myself included) with how sharp and relevant it was. Set in an anthropomorphic world of talking animals designed like a bustling metropolis, the Disney film delivered a timely message about stereotypes and discrimination between “predators” and “prey,” told… Read More Movie Review: Zootopia 2
By John Corrado The Conjuring: Last Rites is the fourth and supposedly final film in The Conjuring series that began in 2013, and the ninth (or tenth) film in the horror franchise if you count the various spinoffs we have gotten over the years. The series peaked with the first film and its 2016 sequel,… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: The Conjuring: Last Rites
By John Corrado Named for the most well known song from the second half of the Broadway musical, Wicked: For Good is the grand finale of director Jon M. Chu’s two-part film adaptation, and it delivers on the dramatic promise of the story. If it’s maybe not quite as good as the first movie, which… Read More Movie Review: Wicked: For Good
By John Corrado Him, the new football-themed horror movie from producer Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions, is a prime example of a film that has some theoretically interesting ideas, but ultimately fails because they are so poorly executed. The film follows a young football player named Cameron “Cam” Cade (Tyriq Withers), who is given the opportunity… Read More Blu-ray Review: Him (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado The Jonas Brothers are back in A Very Jonas Christmas Movie, the Disney Plus Original that finds the boyband brothers trying to get back home for Christmas. The film opens with brothers Kevin, Joe and Nick Jonas finishing up their tour in London just days before Christmas, and looking forward to getting… Read More Movie Review: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie (Disney+)
By John Corrado Do you know how hard it is to be yourself? That’s the quippy answer that George Clooney’s movie star character Jay Kelly, the titular protagonist of director Noah Baumbach’s latest film, gives when someone asks him what it feels like to be accused by critics of always playing himself. Of course, Clooney… Read More Movie Review: Jay Kelly
By John Corrado All of Edgar Wright’s movies, known for their kinetic, genre-bending style, have a propulsive, forward momentum to them. This makes him a good fit for The Running Man, a new adaptation of the Stephen King story that was already made into a 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger picture, which basically offers a premise of… Read More Movie Review: The Running Man
By John Corrado Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is the third film in the magic heist franchise, arriving nearly a decade after the second instalment to complete the trilogy that began with 2013’s Now You See Me and its 2016 sequel. The fact that there is some hype for a third movie in… Read More Movie Review: Now You See Me: Now You Don’t
The Joy of Movies 