By John Corrado A century after it was first published, Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway gets a contemporary adaptation from filmmaker brothers Arie and Chuko Esiri, who find a fresh angle by setting their version in modern day Lagos, Nigeria. Sophie Okonedo stars in the film as the titular Clarissa Dalloway, who is preparing… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Clarissa (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Director, writer and star Jordan Firstman delivers an accomplished debut feature with Club Kid, a major crowdpleaser which plays like the gay, indie, A24-backed answer to Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy. And it’s something special. Firstman stars in the film as Peter, a club promoter in New York City who is living a… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Club Kid (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado In Fjord, his second Palme d’Or-winner following 2007’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu crafts a complex film that masterfully balances being a family drama, coming-of-age story, and courtroom procedural. This is a film that exists purely in shades of grey, even literally with the washed out… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Fjord (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Toy Gun Bandit, the new film from Quebec writer-director Rémi St-Michel, is a work that feels inspired by the scrappy, propulsive filmmaking of the Safdie brothers. That’s a lofty comparison, to be sure, but their influence is felt throughout this frenetic Québécois crime movie, which serves as both an entertaining and suspenseful… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Toy Gun Bandit (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado In Coward, his third and most ambitious feature yet, Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont (Girl, Close) takes us back to World War I. Dhont’s works all explore gender identity and burgeoning sexuality, and those themes get fine-tuned here as he explores the homoerotic tensions between young Belgian soldiers who arrive on the front… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Coward (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado The latest from Japanese filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, All of a Sudden is primarily a film about the different ways we care for each other, weaving themes about the bureaucratic power structure of a nursing home into a character drama. It’s an ambitious undertaking, even more so when you account for the fact… Read More #TIFF26 Review: All of a Sudden (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Before Noel and Liam Gallagher, the rockstar brothers behind Oasis, actually took the stage again for the first show of their 2025 reunion tour in Cardiff, the idea that they would ever truly make amends, let alone walk out on the same stage holding hands, didn’t seem like a sure thing until… Read More Movie Review: Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger
By John Corrado Illumination’s Minions & Monsters, this summer’s spinoff of the Despicable Me and Minions franchises, is now available on physical media, including 4K Ultra HD. This prequel is set during the Golden Age of Hollywood, and focuses on the Minions inadvertently becoming silent film stars. The main Minion this time around is James,… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Minions & Monsters (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado Onslaught is director Adam Wingard’s return to the horror-thriller genre following his forays into monster movie blockbusters with Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. In fact, Onslaught is such a return to form for Wingard that he has said it takes place in the same universe as his… Read More Movie Review: Onslaught
By John Corrado Following a run in theatres at the start of the summer, Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day was released on physical media last week, including 4K Ultra HD. Spielberg’s latest finds him going back to his roots in the sci-fi genre, crafting a UFO movie by way of whistleblower thriller. The film is carried… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Disclosure Day (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado It’s hard to review Coyote vs. Acme without first talking about the long, strange journey that the film has been on to actually reach theatres. After it was completed in 2023, Warner Bros. made the controversial (and quite frankly shameful) decision to not release it, and instead permanently shelve the film as… Read More Movie Review: Coyote vs. Acme
By John Corrado The romantic comedy formula is tried and true at this point, but every so often a new one comes along that reminds us just how satisfying this formula can be when done well. Such is the case with director Alicia MacDonald’s Finding Emily, a British romantic comedy that is produced by heavy… Read More Movie Review: Finding Emily
By John Corrado The Dog Stars is the latest film from director Ridley Scott, a legendary filmmaker now in his late eighties who has earned his stripes with a number of classics over the decades, but whose output has been decidedly more hit or miss in recent years. This post-apocalyptic drama, which is adapted from… Read More Movie Review: The Dog Stars
By John Corrado Adapted from the classic children’s novels by Enid Blyton, The Magic Faraway Tree is a British live-action family film that works mostly as a cute and charming adventure. The story follows Tim Thompson (Andrew Garfield) and his wife Polly (Claire Foy), as they move to the countryside with their three kids. The… Read More Movie Review: The Magic Faraway Tree
By John Corrado Directed by Kent Jones, the film Late Fame mainly exists to give a formidable late career role to Willem Dafoe, an actor whose own current standing among young cinephiles could be seen as being mirrored in the film’s narrative. Dafoe stars in the film as Ed Saxberger, a poet living in New… Read More Movie Review: Late Fame
By John Corrado Director Andrew Patterson’s The Rivals of Amziah King, the long awaited follow up to his 2019 breakout film The Vast of Night, is finally arriving in theatres after premiering at SXSW in 2025, nearly a year-and-a-half ago. This delay isn’t because the movie isn’t good (because it is good), but likely due… Read More Movie Review: The Rivals of Amziah King
By John Corrado The film Tony, Canadian director Matt Johnson’s new biopic of Anthony Bourdain, opens with a quote from the celebrity chef’s bestselling 2000 memoir Kitchen Confidential. “I was – to be frank – a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking,” the screen reads. And… Read More Movie Review: Tony
By John Corrado Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, the third film from director Jane Schoenbrun, is a tribute to 1980s slasher movies channeled through a meta, queer lens. In this way, Camp Miasma serves as an interesting companion piece to Schoenbrun’s haunting 2023 sophomore film I Saw the TV Glow, which also operated… Read More Movie Review: Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
By John Corrado Eli Roth’s latest bad-taste splatter flick Ice Cream Man is a passion project that the horror filmmaker has been trying to get made for years, and finally had to self-produce under the banner of his new production company The Horror Section. The result is an idiotic horror comedy (?) that is never… Read More Movie Review: Ice Cream Man
By John Corrado When Spider-Man: No Way Home was released back in 2021, it felt like a culmination of things in so many ways, not only as a capper to the Tom Holland trilogy, but also as a thrilling, two-decades-in-the-making crossover event (and celebration) for cinematic Spidey fans. It was always going to be a… Read More Movie Review: Spider-Man: Brand New Day
