By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Disney’s Jungle Cruise isn’t the first movie to be based on one of their theme park attractions, with the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise being the most famous example, and I’m sure it won’t be the last, either. What it is, though, is a pleasingly diverting film that… Read More Review: Jungle Cruise
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) An 18-year-old kid named Michael (Ryder McLaughlin) has ambitions of becoming a pro skateboarder in skater and filmmaker Mikey Alfred’s feature directorial debut North Hollywood, which shares some common DNA with Jonah Hill’s 2018 gem Mid90s. Alfred served as a producer on that film, which also featured McLaughlin,… Read More VOD Review: North Hollywood
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The latest Disney+ show, Behind the Attraction, is a very good ten-part docuseries that sheds light on some of the famous attractions at Disney Parks and Resorts around the world. Five of the ten episodes in the series, which features Dwayne Johnson as one of its executive producers… Read More Disney+ Review: Behind the Attraction (First Five Episodes)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Filmmaker Joshua Zemen sets out in search of the “52 Hertz Whale” in his documentary The Loneliest Whale: The Search for 52, which follows Zemen and a team of marine biologists as they try to track the elusive whale’s signal across the Pacific Ocean. Because this specific creature… Read More VOD Review: The Loneliest Whale: The Search for 52
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Shot in black-and-white and entirely free of dialogue, Russian filmmaker Viktor Kosakovskiy’s documentary Gunda is an often hypnotic piece of experiential cinema that captures the day to day lives of a group of farm animals. The film, which boasts actor and noted animal rights activist Joaquin Phoenix as an… Read More VOD Review: Gunda
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Over a decade after her big screen debut in Iron Man 2, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) has finally gotten her own long-awaited solo film in Black Widow, the latest entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And the film is indeed long-awaited by fans, especially after having its initial… Read More Disney+ Review: Black Widow
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Twenty years after the release of Monsters, Inc., which already got an official prequel in 2013 with Monsters University, we are now getting a spinoff and continuation of that Pixar classic in the form of the new Disney+ series Monsters at Work. The ten-episode series is set in… Read More Disney+ Review: Monsters at Work (First Two Episodes)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Liam Neeson has made such a career out of playing grizzled older men who are forced to become action heroes in extreme situations that you can practically copy and paste his name into any high stakes premise and have yourself a pretty bankable thriller. Earlier this year, we… Read More VOD Review: The Ice Road
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Wolfgang Puck is credited as being the first “celebrity” chef, a title that he obtained by attracting a dedicated guest list of Hollywood stars to his restaurant Spago, before gaining a broader following through charming TV appearances, and building a food empire around frozen pizzas. Puck’s story is… Read More Disney+ Review: Wolfgang
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Enrico Casarosa, the director behind Pixar’s wonderful new feature Luca, has cited the works of Hayao Miyazaki and the Japanese animated films of Studio Ghibli as sources of inspiration for his Italy-set film. While this might seem like an odd thing to say, since Pixar has its own… Read More Disney+ Review: Luca
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Jeremiasz August (Tomasz Kot) is a prominent Polish architect who is on his way to catch a flight in Paris following a speech at a conference, when a young Dutch woman, who reveals herself to be named Texel Textor (Athena Strates), knocks on his car window in the… Read More VOD Review: A Perfect Enemy
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Lin-Manuel Miranda became a household name by giving American history a hip-hop makeover in his Broadway sensation Hamilton. But, before creating a genuine cultural phenomenon with that historical musical, Miranda made his Broadway debut with In the Heights, a good-natured tribute to the mostly Latino denizens of New… Read More Review: In the Heights
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Disney’s latest live action film to be based on one of their classic animated properties, Cruella is the weirdest and most unique of the studio’s recent remakes, which is to say that it’s also one of their best. After a string of fine but needless retreads like Aladdin,… Read More Disney+ Review: Cruella
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A Canadian animated film from the Quebec company 10th Ave Productions, Felix and the Treasure of Morgäa is an enjoyable family adventure movie set in the Magdalen Islands. The film follows a 12-year-old boy named Felix (Daniel Brochu), who believes that his fisherman father, who disappeared at sea… Read More VOD Review: Felix and the Treasure of Morgäa
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The opening scene of Wrath of Man, the latest action film from director Guy Ritchie, feels like somewhat of a departure for the usually hyper-stylized filmmaker. The tense, deliberately paced sequence follows a pair of security guards having their cash truck violently hijacked by armed, masked assailants. But… Read More VOD Review: Wrath of Man
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead, the director’s new zombie heist movie that is premiering on Netflix this weekend, is the sort of genre film that is made by a filmmaker with confidence in his style. And, after Zack Snyder’s Justice League, aka the fabled Snyder Cut, was… Read More Netflix Review: Army of the Dead
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Based on the stage show Strike!, Stand! is a Canadian musical that dramatizes the events surrounding the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, an important moment in the history of labour rights in our country. The film, which was shot in Winnipeg and screened theatrically in Canada for the… Read More VOD Review: Stand!
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The Outside Story, a gentle New York City dramedy written and directed by Casimir Nozkowski, is one of those films that takes a somewhat simple premise – a man getting locked out of his apartment – and blossoms it out into something delightful and often wonderful. The main… Read More VOD Review: The Outside Story
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The fairly entertaining dark comedy Eat Wheaties! is one of those quirky indie films that is built around such an oddball premise that it pretty much automatically piques your interest. Written and directed by Scott Abramovitch, and inspired by Michael Kun’s book The Locklear Letters which focused on… Read More VOD Review: Eat Wheaties!
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The messy breakdowns of marriages and family units are fertile ground for indie films, and writer-director Robert Machoian adds an element of suspense to the genre in his sparse, minimalistic drama The Killing of Two Lovers. The film revolves around David (Clayne Crawford), a working class father of four. He… Read More VOD Review: The Killing of Two Lovers
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