By John Corrado In time for the film’s 20th anniversary this year, Paramount is releasing the 2002 teen comedy Orange County for the first time on Blu-ray this week. The film centres around a kid named Shaun Brumder (Colin Hanks), a high schooler in the titular California suburb who is growing tired of the “surfer… Read More Blu-ray Review: Orange County (2002)
By John Corrado On April 5th, Paramount released the star-studded 1991 showbiz satire Soapdish on Blu-ray. The film stars Sally Field as Celeste Talbert, the demanding star of a hugely popular daytime soap opera called The Sun Also Sets. The story mainly focuses on the behind the scenes feud between Celeste, who takes all of… Read More Blu-ray Review: Soapdish (1991)
By John Corrado On April 5th, Paramount released a new Blu-ray edition of the surprisingly entertaining 1989 comedy Let It Ride, a film that has flown somewhat under the radar but deserves to be viewed with a fresh pair of eyes. Richard Dreyfuss stars as Jay Trotter, a cab driver and recovering gambling addict who… Read More Blu-ray Review: Let It Ride (1989)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Polar Bear is the latest Earth Day release from Disneynature, this time following a polar bear family in the Arctic, with a strong focus on how climate change is impacting their environment. Narrated by Catherine Keener, the film takes on the perspective of a young female “ice bear”… Read More Disney+ Review: Polar Bear
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) “I will avenge you, father. I will save you, mother. I will kill you, Fjölnir.” This is the mantra that Prince Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) repeats throughout the Viking epic The Northman, a muscular piece of filmmaking from director Robert Eggers that is both his biggest creative swing and… Read More Review: The Northman
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The Jackass gang is back together again in Jackass Forever, a belated sequel that sees Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O and the rest of their merry band of pranksters reuniting twenty years after the release of Jackass: The Movie in 2002 for more purposeful stupidity. There isn’t much to say… Read More Blu-ray Review: Jackass Forever
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) At the heart of All My Puny Sorrows, the latest emotional work from Canadian filmmaker Michael McGowan (Saint Ralph, One Week, Still Mine), is the push and pull between one person not wanting to live and another trying to show them that there is a reason to go… Read More Review: All My Puny Sorrows
By John Corrado Last week, Paramount re-released the 2012 crime thriller Jack Reacher on 4K Ultra HD, in a new limited edition SteelBook package. In terms of actual content, this release is identical to the 4K set put out in 2018 (reviewed here). The main upgrade is the SteelBook packaging, which is very sleek, with… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Jack Reacher (SteelBook Edition)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Partway through Scream, the fifth film in the horror comedy series that somewhat confusingly adopts the same name as the 1996 original, one of the film’s new characters explains the concept of a “requel.” It’s not a full remake or reboot, they explain, or else fans won’t be… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Scream (2022)
By John Corrado Spider-Man: No Way Home was one of the biggest and most buzzed about movies of last year, and now the film is being released on Blu-ray, 4K and DVD this week. Directed by Jon Watts, the film serves as both the 27th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as well as the… Read More Blu-ray Review: Spider-Man: No Way Home
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Writer-director Martin Edralin’s debut feature Islands is a simmering and powerful portrait of the loneliness epidemic as seen through the eyes of Joshua (Rogelio Balagtas), a very shy Filipino immigrant living in Toronto. Joshua is a middle-aged man who still lives with his elderly parents. He’s never had… Read More Review: Islands
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Minamata, the new film starring Johnny Depp, got a publicity boost recently when fans of the actor helped make it the third place winner in the ill-conceived Oscars Fan Favourite category presented during this year’s Academy Awards. That the actor’s supporters could essentially game the online voting system… Read More VOD Review: Minamata
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The second film from co-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who are credited collectively as Daniels, Everything Everywhere All at Once is an audacious sophomore feature that puts a variety of genres, filmmaking styles and sci-fi ideas into a blender, and hits spin to create a singularly entertaining… Read More Review: Everything Everywhere All at Once
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Nate Foster (Rueby Wood), the title character in Disney’s surprisingly charming Better Nate Than Ever, is an honest to goodness theatre kid. You know, the sort that sings into his hairbrush, memorizes Fiddler on the Roof, and fantasizes about winning a Tony. He has big Broadway dreams, if… Read More Disney+ Review: Better Nate Than Ever
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Did Richard Linklater really go to the moon as a kid? Not likely, but his latest film, the very charming and sweetly nostalgic Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood, will make you believe he might have for a little over ninety minutes. Done in a similar rotoscoped animation… Read More Netflix Review: Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Director Justin Kurzel’s film Nitram follows in the footsteps of Paul Greengrass’s 22 July, Denis Villeneuve’s Polytechnique and Gus van Sant’s Elephant (a fictionalized take on Columbine), as a film that dramatizes a real life mass shooting. In the case of Kurzel’s film, it dramatizes the events surrounding… Read More Review: Nitram
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2022 Canadian Film Fest runs in two segments from March 22nd to 26th and March 29th to April 2nd, exclusively on Super Channel. Director Marie-Geneviève Chabot’s documentary Beneath the Surface follows three adult brothers who reunite with their father for a fishing trip in Quebec, in hopes… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: Beneath the Surface
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2016 film Sing was a cute and colourful animated jukebox musical from Illumination, the studio best known for the Despicable Me movies. It was a crowdpleaser that knew exactly what it was trying to be; you know, a bunch of animated animals performing a variety of upbeat… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Sing 2
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2022 Canadian Film Fest runs in two segments from March 22nd to 26th and March 29th to April 2nd, exclusively on Super Channel. In horseback riding terms, a “long rider” is someone who has done over a thousand miles in a single equestrian trip. Director Sean Cisterna’s… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: The Long Rider
By John Corrado What the hell was that? That is honestly my only reaction to the 94th Academy Awards. Not because of the winners themselves, which for the most part were safe and predictable, with Jane Campion taking home Best Director (deservedly so) for The Power of the Dog, and CODA prevailing in the Best… Read More Winners of the 94th Academy Awards
The Joy of Movies 