By John Corrado ★½ (out of 4) Based on a decades old screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen that they never produced, which has since been touched up by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, Suburbicon is the sort of uneven work that feels like it has had too many hands on it over the years. After being… Read More Review: Suburbicon
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Dramatizing the life of disability rights advocate Robin Cavendish (Andrew Garfield), Breathe is a pretty good biopic that is notable for being the directorial debut of Andy Serkis, a celebrated actor who has delivered memorable motion-capture performances in both the Lord of the Rings and Planet of the Apes series. At the… Read More Review: Breathe
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) The first feature film ever made about a single scene, the stunning documentary 78/52 offers a deep dive into the shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, a sequence so iconic that it has almost gone beyond the film itself to take on a life of its own. As a lifelong Hitchcock… Read More Review: 78/52
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) Directed by Sean Baker, who broke onto the scene in a really memorable way with the iPhone-shot Tangerine, The Florida Project is a highly empathetic and often breathtaking cinematic work, that might just go down as the best movie of the year. The film follows Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), a six-year-old girl… Read More Review: The Florida Project
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) After the Wonder Woman movie broke box office records earlier this year, we now get to explore the surprisingly kinky origins of the female superhero in the frothily entertaining and well acted biopic Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. The film dramatizes the story of Dr. William Moulton… Read More Review: Professor Marston and the Wonder Women
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Maureen (Kristen Stewart) is an American working as a personal shopper in Paris, choosing and buying clothes for her rich clients to wear. She wants to stay in Paris until she is contacted by her twin brother, who died in the city a year earlier, and promised to… Read More Review: Personal Shopper
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The image of a person dressed as a ghost wearing a white bed sheet with cutout holes for eyes could easily be fodder for laughs or cheap scares, recalling a child’s simple Halloween costume. But this image is used in ways much more sombre and sorrowful than that… Read More Review: A Ghost Story
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) At the start of Loving Vincent, a title card tells us that we are about to see the first ever fully hand painted feature film, crafted by a team of a hundred dedicated artists, many of whom spent years working on the film. The result is an astonishing… Read More Review: Loving Vincent
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) John and Amanda Leyden are an older married couple who have spent over forty years working together and teaching students at the Headfort School, the last remaining preparatory boarding school in Ireland for elementary school kids aged 7 to 13. John and Amanda are the subjects of School… Read More Review: School Life
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Francine is a young black girl living in North York’s Villaways neighbourhood. But the affordable housing units where she lives with her father, grandmother and two autistic brothers are facing a forced revitalization project set forth by the city, meaning that the residents will have to leave their homes… Read More Review: Unarmed Verses
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Stephen King’s 1986 novel It is a mammoth text that has become a definitive classic of the horror genre, following a group of friends in the small town of Derry, Maine who have to band together to defeat a terrifying demonic figure who takes the form of a… Read More Review: It
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Filmed over five years at four different donkey sanctuaries in the UK, Ireland, New York State and Guelph, Ontario, Do Donkeys Act? is an experimental art documentary that offers a quiet yet often profound exploration of animal sentience, guided along by Willem Dafoe’s poetic narration. These sanctuaries provide… Read More Review: Do Donkeys Act?
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Adapted from his memoir of the same name, Stronger recounts the true story of Jeff Bauman (Jake Gyllenhaal), who was standing near the finish line at the Boston Marathon in 2013 to cheer for his ex-girlfriend Erin (Tatiana Maslaney), when two terrorists set off a homemade pressure cooker bomb. Jeff… Read More Review: Stronger
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Brad Sloan (Ben Stiller) is living a decent life in Sacramento, with a nice home, a good job at a non-profit that he started, a loving wife (Jenna Fischer) and a teenaged son Troy (Austin Abrams) who is getting ready to forge his own path in the world.… Read More Review: Brad’s Status
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Dramatizing the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell), Battle of the Sexes sets itself up to be as much a story of chauvinism vs feminism as it is a sports movie. Billie Jean King is fresh off her win at… Read More Review: Battle of the Sexes
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) A slow burn psychological thriller turned full on horror movie freakout in the shocking and unforgettable last act, mother! is the latest work from Darren Aronofsky, and it’s the sort of film that should be seen knowing as little as possible, but with ample time to think and talk… Read More Review: mother!
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) I watched The Tragically Hip’s final concert in a movie theatre that was showing it live last summer. I couldn’t be in Kingston that night but, like a third of all Canadians, I was glued to that screen for every single song. I was thankful for the chance… Read More Review: Long Time Running
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) One of the first images we see in Good Time is a closeup of Nick Nikas’s (Ben Safdie) expressive eyes, with pain and confusion flashing behind them as he is given a mental examination. Nick is a young man with a developmental disability, and though he gives seemingly… Read More Review: Good Time
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) It’s the fall of 1995, and Ali (Abby Quinn) is a teenager who lives with her parents Alan (John Turturro) and Pat (Edie Falco) in a Manhattan apartment. Meanwhile, her older sister Dana (Jenny Slate) is living with her fiancé Ben (Jay Duplass), and on the surface their family… Read More Review: Landline
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) Named for Link Wray’s highly influential guitar piece “Rumble,” the only instrumental song to be banned for radio play in the United States for fear that the driving chord progressions and percussion might start a riot, Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World offers an extensive history of Native… Read More Review: Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World
The Joy of Movies 