By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Written and directed by Jon Stewart, who left late night television to become a filmmaker, Irresistible is a political satire that is set in the current moment but feels curiously out of step. The film opens with audio of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton going at each other… Read More VOD Review: Irresistible
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Every year, over a thousand kids in Texas are selected to participate in Boys State, a conference run by the American Legion that teaches participants how to build a representative government over the course of a week. The boys are randomly split into two groups of six hundred each… Read More Review: Boys State
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Pete Davidson, the heavily tattooed Saturday Night Live star who has attracted his share of both controversy and dedicated fans over the years for his unique brand of stand-up comedy, takes centre stage in The King of Staten Island, which he co-wrote and based on his own life. The… Read More VOD Review: The King of Staten Island
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Directed by Nisha Ganatra, fresh off of helming the superior Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson vehicle Late Night which just came out last year, The Hight Note is a music-themed romantic comedy that follows a mostly predictable path but still features some enjoyable elements. The film centres around… Read More VOD Review: The High Note
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) With this year’s in-person edition of Hot Docs cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a selection of festival films are being given broadcast premieres every Thursday night from April 16th to May 28th on CBC, documentary Channel, and the CBC Gem streaming app, as part of the Hot… Read More Hot Docs At Home Review: The Walrus and the Whistleblower
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The Painter and the Thief, director Benjamin Ree’s excellent documentary about friendship and the healing power of art, documents a coming together of two people that is so remarkable and interesting that if it had been fiction, it likely would have been accused of being contrived. The painter… Read More VOD Review: The Painter and the Thief
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are back at it again in The Trip to Greece, the fourth instalment in this series that finds the two comic actors playing versions of themselves enjoying good food, having great conversations, and arguing over who does the better celebrity impressions. It all… Read More VOD Review: The Trip to Greece
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The poster for Military Wives boasts that the film comes to us “from the director of The Full Monty,” and this really is a case of there being truth in advertising. The director is Peter Cattaneo, and like his surprise Oscar nominee from 1997, this film also functions… Read More VOD Review: Military Wives
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) With this year’s edition of Hot Docs cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a selection of festival films are being given broadcast premieres every Thursday night from April 16th to May 28th on CBC, documentary Channel, and the CBC Gem streaming app, as part of the Hot Docs… Read More Hot Docs At Home Review: Influence
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) With this year’s edition of Hot Docs cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a selection of festival films are being given broadcast premieres every Thursday night from April 16th to May 28th on CBC, documentary Channel, and the CBC Gem streaming app, as part of the Hot Docs… Read More Hot Docs At Home Review: They Call Me Dr. Miami
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Damon (Kristian Bruun), the main character in the enjoyable Canadian dramedy Red Rover which opened the Canadian Film Festival last year and is being released on VOD today, is a lonely geologist in Toronto, who feels like he doesn’t have much left for him on earth. He lives… Read More VOD Review: Red Rover
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) In 1991, a group of eight men and women locked themselves inside Biosphere 2, a massive indoor recreation of the earth’s ecosystem built in the middle of the Arizona desert. The plan was to stay there for two years with no interference from the outside world, growing their… Read More VOD Review: Spaceship Earth
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) With this year’s edition of Hot Docs cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a selection of festival films are being given broadcast premieres every Thursday night from April 16th to May 28th on CBC, documentary Channel, and the CBC Gem streaming app, as part of the Hot Docs… Read More Hot Docs At Home Review: Meat the Future
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) One of the first clues we get that something is very off in The Assistant comes within the opening few minutes of the film when Jane (Julia Garner) puts on rubber gloves and gets down on her knees to scrub a stubborn stain off the couch in her… Read More VOD Review: The Assistant
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) In the opening scene of the dark Canadian dramedy Tammy’s Always Dying, we cut back and forth between a pair of legs wearing torn stockings and high heels walking along a bridge over the train tracks, as a woman drives frantically through the streets of Hamilton before coming… Read More Review: Tammy’s Always Dying
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) With this year’s edition of Hot Docs cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a selection of festival films are being given broadcast premieres every Thursday night from April 16th to May 28th on CBC, documentary Channel, and the CBC Gem streaming app, as part of the Hot Docs… Read More Hot Docs At Home Review: Finding Sally
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Director Jesse Zigelstein’s Canadian chef drama Nose to Tail, which had screened at the Canadian Film Fest in 2019, is being released on VOD this week. This at-home release follows the film’s limited theatrical run back in February, a month before the theatre shutdowns started. The film centres… Read More VOD Release: Nose to Tail
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) With this year’s edition of Hot Docs cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a selection of festival films are being given broadcast premieres every Thursday night from April 16th to May 28th on CBC, documentary Channel, and the CBC Gem streaming app, as part of the Hot Docs… Read More Hot Docs At Home Review: 9/11 Kids
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto has come to be one of the biggest showcases of documentary cinema in the world, and it’s an event that, on a personal note, I look forward to attending every spring, as I have done since 2011. But this year, the… Read More Hot Docs At Home Review: Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The latest film from Canadian director Jeremy LaLonde, who previously made the raunchy comedies The Go-Getters and How to Plan An Orgy in a Small Town, James vs. His Future Self is not only his highest concept film as of yet, but also quite possibly his sweetest. James… Read More Review: James vs. His Future Self
The Joy of Movies 