By John Corrado I’ve always had a soft spot for classic westerns, and John Wayne is one of the stalwarts of the genre, with his iconic persona allowing him to inhabit many characters and headline countless films throughout his long career. Now two of his later works, Rio Lobo and Big Jake, are available together… Read More Blu-ray Review: John Wayne Double Feature
By John Corrado The ragtag heroes Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Baby Groot (Vin Diesel) are back in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. This time around, Peter is dealing with the return of his father Ego (Kurt Russell), and how this affects his familial relationships with the… Read More Blu-ray Review: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
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) Set in late 2007, The Wall follows two American soldiers who are stationed in Iraq. Matthews (John Cena) is a sniper and Isaac (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is his spotter, and when the film opens, they have spent 22 hours lying in the dirt in the blazing sun, waiting for… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Wall
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) When Mae Holland (Emma Watson) gets a job at a powerful tech company known as The Circle, she ends up discovering the true intentions of the company that controls everyone’s lives through their devices and social media platforms. At first, the company seems like an oasis of possibilities,… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Circle
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Maddy (Amandla Stenberg) is a teen girl who lives with her mother (Anika Noni Rose) in a completely sterile house, cut off from the rest of the physical world and not allowed to leave for fear that she will become dangerously sick due to a rare immune deficiency… Read More Blu-ray Review: Everything, Everything
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Directed by Guy Ritchie, following his entertaining pair of Sherlock Holmes films and his fun reboot of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., King Arthur: Legend of the Sword updates the classic tale of the man who freed the sword in the stone, with mostly disappointing results. This version of the… Read More Blu-ray Review: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
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) After finding out that their pensions have been frozen at the steel factory where they worked for years, and faced with more bills than they can pay, Joe Harding (Michael Caine), Willie Davis (Morgan Freeman) and Albert Garner (Alan Arkin) make the decision to turn to crime in… Read More Blu-ray Review: Going in Style
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) When Julia Banks (Rosario Dawson) moves out of the city and into the home of her new fiancé David (Geoff Stults), becoming a stepmother to his young daughter Lily (Isabella Kai Rice), things seem to finally be going well in her life. But when David’s obsessive and possessive… Read More Blu-ray Review: Unforgettable
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
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The first fully animated Smurfs movie, Smurfs: The Lost Village finds Smurfette (Demi Lovato) struggling with the fact that she was created by the dark wizard Gargamel (Rainn Willson), and searching for her true identity and purpose as the only female in a world of male Smurfs. When… Read More Blu-ray Review: Smurfs: The Lost Village
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) After having her human brain successfully implanted in a robotic body, making her the first of her kind in a future world where humans have melded with machines, Major (Scarlett Johansson) is sent to work as part of Section 9, fighting terrorism alongside the cybernetically enhanced Batou (Pilou… Read More Blu-ray 3D Review: Ghost in the Shell
By John Corrado Following their initial airing as part of the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse in 1959, the first two episodes of the popular TV series The Untouchables were edited together into a single feature length film that was released theatrically in 1962, under the subtitle of The Scarface Mob. The film dramatizes the Prohibition-era exploits of federal agent Eliot Ness… Read More DVD Review: The Untouchables: The Scarface Mob
War for the Planet of the Apes Review By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) One of the greatest moviegoing experiences I’ve ever had was going to a press screening of Rise of the Planet of the Apes back in 2011 not really knowing what to expect from the franchise reboot, and realizing early on… Read More Three Views: War for the Planet of the Apes
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The year is 1971, and monster researcher Bill Randa (John Goodman) has convinced the Nixon administration, still reeling from the Vietnam War, to fund his research trip to a hidden island in the South Pacific to investigate claims of an otherworldly beast. To help him explore and map… Read More Blu-ray Review: Kong: Skull Island
By John Corrado Set in 1978, Free Fire follows Justine (Brie Larson), who is overseeing a weapons sale between the IRA’s Chris (Cillian Murphy) and Frank (Michael Smiley), and gun dealers Ord (Armie Hammer) and Vernon (Sharlto Copley). They are selling a shipment of automatic rifles in an abandoned Boston warehouse, but things quickly escalate into an… Read More Blu-ray Review: Free Fire
Baby Driver Review By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver is like the cinematic equivalent of a guitar solo, an example of a singular filmmaker showing complete control over his craft, while riffing on a wide variety of genres and proving the full extent of what he is capable of. It’s thrilling… Read More Three Views: Baby Driver
By John Corrado Taking place during WWII, Their Finest follows Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton), a Welsh writer who is hired to work on a propaganda film about the Battle of Dunkirk, to boost the morale of British audiences. Although initially brought in to write the female dialogue, Catrin becomes an invaluable part of the project, and even starts… Read More DVD Review: Their Finest
By John Corrado Based on the fascinating true story of Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam), James Grey’s The Lost City of Z dramatizes the three expeditions that the British soldier turned explorer took into the Amazon between 1906 and 1925. Although initially going for colonialist purposes, Fawcett brought back valuable evidence of a lost civilization that was way more advanced than anyone… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Lost City of Z
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