By John Corrado The latest film from director Gus Van Sant, Dead Man’s Wire dramatizes a 1977 kidnapping that saw a disgruntled Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) take mortgage banker Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery) hostage in his apartment. Hall is the son of the man (played by Al Pacino) who owns the mortgage firm that Kiritsis… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Dead Man’s Wire (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Director Raoul Peck’s new documentary Orwell: 2+2=5 is less biography of George Orwell, and more heavily slanted video essay that struggles to thread the needle between the British author’s work and selected modern events. It’s a major disappointment. The film’s title, of course, is a reference to Orwell’s most famous book 1984,… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Orwell: 2+2=5 (TIFF Docs)
By John Corrado The latest film from Derek Cianfrance (The Place Beyond the Pines, Blue Valentine), Roofman is based on the true story of Jeffrey Manchester, a convicted criminal who became known in the media as “Roofman” for robbing a series of McDonalds by cutting a hole through the roof. Manchester was doing this to… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Roofman (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado Poetic License is the delightful directorial debut of Maude Apatow, best known as an actress on Euphoria and in her father Judd Apatow’s films. Working from a perceptive screenplay by Raffi Donatich, the younger Apatow’s behind-the-camera debut is confident and funny, while also exploring the complexities of friendship. The film feels like… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Poetic License (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, the director’s long-awaited adaptation of the Mary Shelley novel, begins in the icy Arctic. Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) is being hunted by the monster of his own creation (played by Jacob Elordi), taking refuge on a Viking ship. In telling the combined stories of the mad scientist, and… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Frankenstein (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Despite being the latest case for Daniel Craig’s Southern detective Benoit Blanc, director Rian Johnson’s third Knives Out whodunnit Wake Up Dead Man actually shifts the focus to a young priest played by Josh O’Connor. It’s a bit of a reset that works for the Netflix franchise. In fact, Blanc is mostly… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Chloé Zhao’s emotional period piece Hamnet, based on the personal life of William Shakespeare, explores the art that comes through grief. The film, which is adapted from a book by Maggie O’Farrell (who co-wrote the script with Zhao), also finds the filmmaker back in the intimate, character-driven space of her Oscar-winning Nomadland,… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Hamnet (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado The feature directorial debut of French animators Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han, Little Amélie or the Character of Rain is a gorgeous animated film that lets us view the world through a child’s eyes. The film is based on The Character of Rain, a short novel by Belgian author Amélie Nothomb, which… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado In his documentary You Had to Be There – full subtitle How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution, Spread Love & Overalls, and Created a Community That Changed the World (In a Canadian Kind of Way) – filmmaker Nick Davis explores a legendary 1972 Toronto production of the Stephen Schwartz musical… Read More #TIFF50 Review: You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution… (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Ballad of a Small Player is the latest film from German director Edward Berger, who broke out in a big way and became an Oscar heavyweight with his past two films Conclave and All Quiet on the Western Front. Berger’s latest, a Macau-set gambling film, can’t live up to his previous two.… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Ballad of a Small Player (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado The attention-grabbing title of director Todd Rohal’s perverted and profane X-rated satire Fuck My Son!, with its full expletive and exclamation point, is what will bring many into the theatre, seeking the next midnight staple. But the absurd title can only push it so far, and it stops being that funny early… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Fuck My Son! (Midnight Madness)
By John Corrado In The Last One for the Road, Italian filmmaker Francesco Sossai crafts a delightful hangout movie around Carlobianchi (Sergio Romano) and Doriano (Pierpaolo Capovilla), two hapless, middle-aged vagabonds bopping around their hometown of Veneto. Their nights are spent drifting between local bars, trying to find a spot for one last drink. They pick… Read More #TIFF50 Review: The Last One for the Road (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado On the morning of October 7th, 2023, Hamas terrorists broke through the border between Israel and Gaza, and began indiscriminately murdering innocent civilians, including women and children, many of them executed in their homes. It was the worst mass murder of Jewish people since the Holocaust, and nearly two years later, there… Read More #TIFF50 Review: The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue (TIFF Docs)
By John Corrado The setup for Normal, the latest film from director and auteur of ultra-violence Ben Wheatley, involves a lot of “Chekov’s gun” (or, perhaps, Chekov’s explosives); that being the rule that a gun shown in the first act must go off by the third. As much as the first half of this ninety… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Normal (Midnight Madness)
By John Corrado The latest work from Inuk filmmaker Zacharies Kinuk, Uiksaringitara (Wrong Husband) is a mix of Indigenous legend and storytelling. Set thousands of years in the past, the film follows Sapa (Haiden Angutimarik) and Kaujak (Theresia Kappianaq), a boy and girl who are betrothed to each other, gaining them the names “future husband”… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Uiksaringitara (Wrong Husband) (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Out Standing is Quebec filmmaker Mélanie Charbonneau’s well-acted biopic of Sandra Perron, who became Canada’s first female infantry officer. The film is adapted from her 2017 memoir, Out Standing in the Field. A proud member of a military family, Perron (who is played in the film by Nina Kiri) joined the Canadian… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Out Standing (Discovery)
By John Corrado In his narrative feature debut Tuner, Oscar-winning Navalny director (and Toronto local) Daniel Roher delivers a delightful surprise. Roher’s first fiction film finds its own rhythm, with a carefully calibrated mix of tones that blends drama, romantic comedy, and thriller, set to a fitting, jazzy score. The film’s premise is also an… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Tuner (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Nouvelle Vague is American director Richard Linklater’s playful look at the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s groundbreaking 1959 film Breathless, done in the spirit of a French New Wave film. A Texas filmmaker shooting in France, in the French language no less, might seem like a stretch. But the indie auteur attitudes of… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Nouvelle Vague (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Richard Linklater’s wistful period piece Blue Moon finds the filmmaker back in Me and Orson Welles mode, delivering a series of beautifully written and performed scenes in his portrait of former creative partners Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) and Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott). The year is 1943, and the setting is Sardi’s, the… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Blue Moon (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, Eleanor the Great, is a competent enough filmmaking start for the actress, that is held back by a questionable and awkwardly handled story. The film features a decent performance from June Squibb, with Johansson providing a much-deserved leading role for the actress in her mid-90s. But the screenplay… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Eleanor the Great (Gala Presentations)
The Joy of Movies 