By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Encanto is Disney’s 60th animated feature, and it’s a bright and colourful film that feels like somewhat of a return to the studio’s musical roots, while also pushing things forward in terms of cultural representation by setting its story in Colombia. While this is technically not Disney’s first film to… Read More Review: Encanto
By John Corrado Arriving just in time for American Thanksgiving, Paramount is releasing a new SteelBook Edition of Planes, Trains and Automobiles on Blu-ray this week. The John Hughes classic follows family man Neal Page (Steve Martin) as he tries to get home to Chicago for Thanksgiving, only to end up stuck on the road… Read More Blu-ray Review: Planes, Trains and Automobiles: SteelBook Edition
By John Corrado Frank Capra’s beloved 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, and Paramount is honouring the occasion with a new Blu-ray edition. The film, of course, tells the story of George Bailey (James Stewart) who is visited by an angel named Clarence (Henry Travers) on Christmas Eve… Read More Blu-ray Review: It’s a Wonderful Life: 75th Anniversary Edition
By John Corrado Barry Sonnenfeld, who got his start in the industry as a cinematographer, made his directorial debut in 1991 with The Addams Family, a big screen adaptation of the classic 1960s TV show (which was itself based on a comic strip by Charles Addams). Despite a troubled production (with the film going over-budget… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: The Addams Family (With More Mamushka!)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the long-awaited canonical followup to the iconic 1984 horror comedy about a group of four ghost catchers in New York City and its 1989 sequel, is a movie that really embraces its status as a legacy sequel. Not only does it tell a story about legacy, establishing… Read More Review: Ghostbusters: Afterlife
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) An Indigenous community in rural Alberta that is in the process of being surveyed for a mining project is the evocative setting for Don’t Say Its Name, a Canadian supernatural horror movie from first time feature director Rueben Martell. A shadowy mining corporation called WEC has just struck… Read More VOD Review: Don’t Say Its Name
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) Leave it to Jane Campion, the filmmaker behind 1993’s The Piano who hasn’t directed a feature since Bright Star in 2009, to craft one of the finest explorations of so-called toxic masculinity in her stunning Western The Power of the Dog. Masterfully directed by Campion, who understands how long… Read More Review: The Power of the Dog
By John Corrado The Haunting of Bly Manor is creator Mike Flanagan’s followup to his 2018 Netflix miniseries The Haunting of Hill House. This second instalment in the anthology series brings back some of the same actors in different roles to tell a whole new, completely unconnected story. The series, which premiered on Netflix in 2020… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Haunting of Bly Manor
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The stress of turning thirty, and measuring yourself against other artists who found success at a young age, is one of the prevailing themes in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s very good directorial debut tick, tick…BOOM!, a musical film adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical stage show of the same name. This… Read More Review: tick, tick…BOOM!
By John Corrado ★½ (out of 4) The inevitable downside of the Disney-Fox merger was always going to be that the Mouse House would take advantage of having even more beloved franchises in their roster to capitalize on with remakes, reboots and retreads, all the “re’s” that studios turn to in order to make a… Read More Disney+ Review: Home Sweet Home Alone
By John Corrado A hundred years ago in 1921, Paramount released The Sheik in theatres. It’s a pretty special thing to be celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of a motion picture like this, and in honour of the occasion, Paramount has released a newly restored version of the film on Blu-ray. Directed by George Melford,… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Sheik (1921)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Jennifer Hudson takes on the role of Aretha Franklin in Respect, a biopic of the late soul singer that is completely standard in its construction but comes alive thanks to Hudson’s performance. Directed by Liesl Tommy, a TV director making her feature debut, the film begins with Aretha as… Read More Blu-ray Review: Respect
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Based on Norman Bridwell’s classic children’s books that date back to the 1960s, (which also spawned an animated PBS series in the early 2000s), Clifford the Big Red Dog is a modern big screen adaptation that brings the adventures of a young girl and her gigantic red puppy… Read More Review: Clifford the Big Red Dog
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A twisty Hollywood-set thriller involving purple envelopes and anonymous sexual encounters, The Beta Test is the latest feature from innovative DIY filmmaker/actor Jim Cummings, and it’s a darkly enjoyable and engaging showbiz satire that has something to say. Cummings stars in the film as Jordan, a slick Hollywood… Read More VOD Review: The Beta Test
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Eternals is both the newest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and also the latest project from indie filmmaker Chloé Zhao, who of course is fresh off of winning the Best Director and Best Picture Oscars for Nomadland. If it seems like a strange mix of styles to… Read More Review: Eternals
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad is a soft reboot of David Ayer’s 2016 film Suicide Squad (sans the “The”), a film that had potential but was massacred by studio interference and reshoots to add more humour. This was ironically done by Warner Bros. in an attempt to make… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: The Suicide Squad
By John Corrado Nearly a century ago, Universal Pictures revolutionized the monster movie genre, and set the high bar for how iconic characters like Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and The Wolf Man would be portrayed onscreen. Now the studio has released four of their classic monster movies on 4K Ultra HD in the Universal Classic… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Universal Classic Monsters: Icons of Horror Collection
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The feature narrative debut of documentary filmmaker Evan Jackson Leong, Snakehead is a gritty crime drama set in the underworld of New York City’s Chinatown. The film opens with title cards explaining that, despite the “walls of entry,” illegal migration is still thriving and Chinese human smugglers known… Read More VOD Review: Snakehead
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Director Adam Robitel’s 2019 film Escape Room wasn’t exactly great cinema, but it was still somewhat of a pleasant surprise. It was a guilty pleasure sort of movie that offered a decent amount of self-contained thrills in a short amount of time, playing out like a PG-13 riff… Read More Blu-ray Review: Escape Room: Tournament of Champions
By John Corrado This is a review of the Blu-ray release. For my full thoughts on the film itself, including my star rating, please read my original review right here. Director Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater was one of the better movies I saw in theatres this summer, and the film is being released on Blu-ray and… Read More Blu-ray Review: Stillwater
The Joy of Movies 