By John Corrado With 2019 officially in the rearview mirror, and 2020 already a few days in, it’s time for my countdown of the best movies of last year. It was a year that saw the release of some great movies, and also closed out a decade of moviegoing that saw the release of some… Read More The Best Movies of 2019
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Some movies get better the second time you watch them and, for me at least, Uncut Gems, the latest film from brothers Josh and Benny Safdie following up their brilliant, live-wire 2017 thriller Good Time, is absolutely one of them. In fact, my rating jumped up by a… Read More Review: Uncut Gems
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Despite the fact that it takes place over a hundred years ago, 1917 is a World War I drama that has an immediacy to it, heightened by the fact that the film is presented entirely in the form of one single take, shot with stunning dynamism by the… Read More Review: 1917
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, a semi autobiographical book about four sisters growing up in New England during the Civil War, was initially published in the late 1860s, and it has been adapted for the screen multiple times since then. Perhaps the most famous of these adaptations include… Read More Review: Little Women
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The latest film from Blue Sky Studios, and the first to be released by Disney following the Fox merger, the long-delayed flick Spies in Disguise is an animated action comedy that follows the adventures of Lance Sterling (Will Smith), a superstar spy who gets turned into a pigeon… Read More Review: Spies in Disguise
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Terrence Malick used to take long hiatuses between his films, but the reclusive director has become quite prolific in the years since his 2011 magnum opus The Tree of Life, having released multiple films since then. Since The Tree of Life at the start of this decade, the filmmaker… Read More Review: A Hidden Life
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Following the detour that was Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi in 2017, J.J. Abrams returns to the director’s chair with frustratingly mixed results in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the third and final piece of the new trilogy that he started for Disney with The Force Awakens in 2015.… Read More Review: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A chance encounter between two Indigenous women in Vancouver leads to an emotional study of abuse and trauma in The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, a drama that unfolds almost entirely in real time and explores how hard it can be to help someone who is reluctant… Read More Review: The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world in 2013 when he stepped down as head of the Catholic Church, becoming the first pope to resign since the 1400s. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected as the successor to Pope John Paul II in 2005, and was chosen by the church… Read More Review: The Two Popes
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, a return to the mob movies that have defined his career, opens with a steadicam tracking shot that calls to mind the one from his 1990 classic Goodfellas. Only his camera here moves at a slower pace, taking us through the halls of a… Read More Review: The Irishman
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) There has been a bit of a Mister Rogers revival going on over the past few years, thanks in part to the release of Morgan Neville’s lovely documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, which was my pick for the best non-fiction film of last year. But I think… Read More Review: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, crafting a companion piece of sorts to his acclaimed 2005 breakout film The Squid and the Whale, Marriage Story is an incredibly powerful, brilliantly written and extremely well acted film that is both believable and incisive in its wrenching portrait of a… Read More Review: Marriage Story
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) The third film from director Trey Edward Shultz, following up his acclaimed debut Krisha and his divisive horror film It Comes at Night, Waves is an electric piece of filmmaking that is frequently bold and audacious in its stylistic choices. Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) is an all-American teenager who has the façade of… Read More Review: Waves
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) It’s a little hard to believe that six years have passed since Disney released Frozen into the world. When that film was coming out back in 2013, I don’t know if anyone really predicted that it would permeate the pop cultural landscape in the way that it did,… Read More Review: Frozen II
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Directed by James Mangold, following up his dark and brilliant X-Men spinoff Logan, Ford v Ferrari is a solid piece of mainstream entertainment that feels muscular in its construction. Based on a true story, the film focuses on the friendship between Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), a race car… Read More Review: Ford v Ferrari
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Despite receiving mixed reviews upon its release in 1980, and famously being disavowed by Stephen King himself who felt that it wasn’t an accurate adaptation of his book, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is now rightfully regarded as one of the greatest horror films of all time and is… Read More Review: Doctor Sleep
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Set in the 1950s in New York City, Motherless Brooklyn follows Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton), a private detective with Tourette syndrome. He twitches and tics, his mind obsessing over certain phrases and making him repeat them, only getting reprieve from this when he self-medicates with marijuana and other… Read More Review: Motherless Brooklyn
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Satire is a tricky thing to properly pull off, but New Zealand actor and filmmaker Taika Waititi mostly succeeds in his latest film Jojo Rabbit, an original and daring World War II satire that is equal parts funny and moving. The film had its world premiere at the… Read More Review: Jojo Rabbit
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) The latest from master filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, Pain and Glory is a beautiful work filled with colour and emotion that is carried by a powerful, career-defining performance from Antonio Banderas, who won the Best Actor prize at Cannes for his role. The story centres around an aging filmmaker… Read More Review: Pain and Glory
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Bruce Springsteen’s latest album, Western Stars, which was released earlier this year, is an introspective, often bittersweet concept album of sorts that tells the story of a fading Western movie star, and finds the iconic American rocker branching out to country music and performing with a thirty piece… Read More Review: Western Stars
The Joy of Movies 