By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Directors Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce explore the rise and fall of infamous automobile mogul John DeLorean in Framing John DeLorean, a hybrid of documentary and narrative film that shifts between interviews and dramatic reenactments featuring Alec Baldwin wearing prosthetics and a wig to portray DeLorean. The… Read More Review: Framing John DeLorean
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Dexter Fletcher, the director who was brought on to patch up last year’s massively popular Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody after Bryan Singer was fired from the project, reinvigorates the usual biopic formula by turning Elton John’s life into a full-on musical in Rocketman. Tonally, the film is similar to… Read More Review: Rocketman
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Filmmaker Tasha Hubbard uses the tragic case of Colton Boushie, a young man from the Red Pheasent Cree Nation who was shot to death by white farmer Gerald Stanley on his Saskatchewan farm back in 2016, to explore how Canada’s legal system is still stacked against Indigenous peoples… Read More Review: nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A lot of actors have successfully made the jump to directing over the past few years. In no short order, it’s a list that includes Jordan Peele (Get Out), Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird, her solo debut), Jonah Hill (Mid90s), and Bradley Cooper (A Star is Born). Now we… Read More Review: Booksmart
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind, a documentary about the beloved Canadian folk musician co-directed by Joan Tosoni and Martha Kehoe, opens with Lightfoot watching old footage of himself performing his classic song “For Loving You,” and commenting on how he wishes he hadn’t written something… Read More Review: Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Disney’s new live action take on their 1992 animated classic Aladdin opens with Will Smith as a mariner out in the middle of the sea. His two kids ask him to tell them a story, and Smith starts flatly singing an updated version of “Arabian Nights,” recounting the… Read More Review: Aladdin
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Werner Herzog sits down with Mikhail Gorbachev in his latest documentary, Meeting Gorbachev, which he co-directed with André Singer, offering a portrait of the former and final leader of the USSR that allows him to reflect upon how his monumental political legacy helped bring about the end of the… Read More Review: Meeting Gorbachev
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) A registered sex therapist turned talk show host, first on the radio and then TV, Dr. Ruth Westheimer changed the way that sex was talked about in pop culture throughout the 1980s. Already in her fifties when she gained notoriety, Dr. Ruth’s frank, no-nonsense way of speaking gave… Read More Review: Ask Dr. Ruth
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) It was a rescue dog named Todd that inspired filmmaker John Chester and his wife Molly to give up their urban life in the city and buy an old farm in California, a story that is recounted in his documentary The Biggest Little Farm. John was working as… Read More Review: The Biggest Little Farm
By John Corrado The 2019 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 26th to May 6th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. Scheme Birds – ★★★ (out of 4) Early on in the documentary Scheme Birds, our teenaged subject Gemma describes her hometown of Motherwell, Scotland, where she was… Read More #HotDocs19: Fifth Set of Capsule Reviews
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Marvel has succeeded at bringing back the event movie with Avengers: Endgame. The culmination of 21 blockbusters dating back over a decade to 2008, many of them must see movies in their own right, this film clocks in at just over three hours long, and is already sold… Read More Review: Avengers: Endgame
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Claire Denis does sci-fi in High Life, and the results are as confounding and maybe even weirder than you expect from the French auteur, who is also working in English for the first time. The film opens with Monte (Robert Pattinson) alone on a spaceship, tending to his… Read More Review: High Life
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The directorial debut of actor Max Minghella, Teen Spirit follows Violet (Elle Fanning), a 17-year-old in a small town on the Isle of Wight in the UK who dreams of becoming a pop star. Despite her mother’s (Agnieszka Grochowska) best wishes, who would rather that her daughter just remain… Read More Review: Teen Spirit
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Disneynature’s Earth Day releases have become somewhat of a tradition over the last decade, starting with Earth in 2009. While we haven’t gotten one every year, this year the studio is back with Penguins. The film opens with our protagonist, an adorable Adélie penguin named Steve, waddling across… Read More Review: Disneynature’s Penguins
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The latest stop motion animated film from Laika, Missing Link continues their perfect track record, while also being somewhat of a departure for the Portland, Oregon studio. While the studio’s first four films – Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls and Kubo and the Two Strings – all focused on… Read More Review: Missing Link
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) There are some films where the very existence of them and the fact that they are even being released at all is cause for celebration, and the concert documentary Amazing Grace is one of those films. Shot over two nights in January of 1972, the film documents the… Read More Review: Amazing Grace
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The idea of rescuing Mary Magdalene from her reputation as a prostitute, and instead portraying her as a sincere follower of Jesus Christ, is an interesting one. But the film Mary Magdalene, as genuine as its intentions may be, unfortunately fails to fully live up to this premise.… Read More Review: Mary Magdalene
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The DC Extended Universe has delivered some good movies like Wonder Woman and Aquaman over the past few years, but the Warner Bros. superhero franchise has also been largely hit and miss, often struggling with consistency and tone. Now Shazam! is here to inject a much needed jolt… Read More Review: Shazam!
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Ron Mann’s latest documentary, Carmine Street Guitars, takes us inside Rick Kelly’s custom guitar shop located at 42 Carmine Street in New York’s Greenwich Village. Many of their guitars are built out of reclaimed wood stripped from old buildings that has been salvaged from construction sites, and the… Read More Review: Carmine Street Guitars
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Franky (Josh Wiggins) is a popular high schooler who has his world upended after his 17th birthday party leads to a drunken but reciprocal sexual encounter with his best friend, Ballas (Darren Mann). The encounter leaves Franky struggling to define his own sexuality, and bullying amps up at… Read More Review: Giant Little Ones
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