By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The penultimate entry into the wildly successful cinematic saga, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 is the sort of film that is only really worth seeing if you were gripped by the previous instalments, and are already eagerly anticipating next year’s final chapter. And I mean this… Read More Review: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1

By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Produced by Terrence Malick, and directed by his collaborator A.J. Edwards, The Better Angels takes a unique approach to the usual biopic formula, focusing on the rural Indiana childhood of Abraham Lincoln (Braydon Denney), years before he became the Sixteenth President. This couldn’t be farther from the expansive… Read More Review: The Better Angels

By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The title of The Theory of Everything refers to Stephen Hawking’s (Eddie Redmayne) ongoing search for a “simple, elegant equation to explain everything,” and prove without question that time and space have a beginning. This provides a profound backdrop to the moving romance that makes up the film,… Read More Review: The Theory of Everything

By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) I went into Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar trying to keep an open mind, not wanting to be influenced by either the positive or negative side of the increasingly unavoidable buzz.  As a whole, I liked the film, and my recommendation comes easily. Shot on glorious 70mm, this is a stunning visual… Read More Review: Interstellar

By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) “Think of our newscast as a screaming woman running down the street with her throat cut,” ruthless news director Nina (Rene Russo) tells budding freelance crime journalist Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) in Nightcrawler, one of many provocatively relevant observations that the film offers. There is such exhilarating energy… Read More Review: Nightcrawler

By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) The experience of seeing Birdman is often like witnessing a sustained magic trick.  We watch the movie in awe of how director Alejandro G. Innaritu is pulling everything together, and are left wanting to see it again just to get a closer look at how perfectly all the… Read More Review: Birdman

By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The trio at the centre of writer-director Lynn Shelton’s wonderful 2012 film Your Sister’s Sister provided one of the most strangely believable and oddly endearing three handers in recent memory. Now comes Laggies, the latest dramedy from the quietly perceptive voice of Lynn Shelton, and the unlikely trio… Read More Review: Laggies

By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) When you search the word “whiplash” in the dictionary, one of the definitions that comes up is to “move suddenly and forcefully, like a whip being cracked.” And what better way to describe Whiplash, a music film from promising young director Damien Chazelle that unfolds with the force… Read More Review: Whiplash

By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) “Ideals are peaceful, history is violent,” the tough Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Brad Pitt) tells shy new recruit Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman) in Fury, a very well made film that eschews the more idealistic views of some World War II movies with impressive historical accuracy and unwavering realism. This… Read More Review: Fury

By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Right from the opening title card, which lands on screen with a boom clearly meant to elicit the first jump scare of the film, The Guest positions itself as a throwback to the classic genre busting horror comedies and action thrillers of the 1980s. And everything that follows… Read More Review: The Guest

By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) At the beginning of The Skeleton Twins, we watch as failed actor Milo (Bill Hader) drops a picture of his boyfriend into his fish tank, turns up the volume on his stereo and lies down in the bathtub.  The water slowly turns red with the blood of his… Read More Review: The Skeleton Twins

By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) “A saint is a human being we celebrate for the sacrifices that they make, for their commitment to making the world a better place,” Father Geraghty (Chris O’Dowd) tells his Catholic school class in the wonderful dramedy St. Vincent. And this definition of a saint not only provides… Read More Review: St. Vincent

By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Because of the title, it would be very easy to take a cheap shot at Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and just use those words to describe the film.  But I’m not going to do that, because this new Disney movie is actually… Read More Review: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) “We still love each other, right?”  Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon) asks his mother Diane (Anne Dorval) during a pivotal dramatic moment in Mommy.  “That’s what we’re best at, buddy,” she tells him, and these words become the heart of the story. The fifth film from Quebec director Xavier Dolan, who at… Read More Review: Mommy

By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) On the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) comes home to find a coffee table mysteriously broken and his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) missing.  The police are notified, a missing person case is opened, and soon the whole town is out looking for her.… Read More Review: Gone Girl