By John Corrado The 2019 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 26th to May 6th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up – ★★★½ (out of 4) Filmmaker Tasha Hubbard uses the tragic case of Colton Boushie, a young man from the Red Pheasent… Read More #HotDocs19: Fourth Set of Capsule Reviews
By John Corrado The 2019 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 26th to May 6th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. Midnight Family – ★★★½ (out of 4) High stakes and high speed ambulance chases abound in Midnight Family, a compelling and beautifully shot vérité portrait of a… Read More #HotDocs19: Third Set of Capsule Reviews
By John Corrado The 2019 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 26th to May 6th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. In My Blood It Runs – ★★★½ (out of 4) Dujuan is a 10-year-old Aboriginal Australian boy of Arrernte descent who lives in Mparntwe (Alice Springs), and… Read More #HotDocs19: First Set of Capsule Reviews
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Marvel has succeeded at bringing back the event movie with Avengers: Endgame. The culmination of 21 blockbusters dating back over a decade to 2008, many of them must see movies in their own right, this film clocks in at just over three hours long, and is already sold… Read More Review: Avengers: Endgame
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Based on the 2017 novel by W. Bruce Cameron, who also wrote the book behind the film A Dog’s Purpose, A Dog’s Way Home is another story of the bond between humans and animals told from the point of view of its canine lead, this time focused on… Read More Blu-ray Review: A Dog’s Way Home
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Claire Denis does sci-fi in High Life, and the results are as confounding and maybe even weirder than you expect from the French auteur, who is also working in English for the first time. The film opens with Monte (Robert Pattinson) alone on a spaceship, tending to his… Read More Review: High Life
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The directorial debut of actor Max Minghella, Teen Spirit follows Violet (Elle Fanning), a 17-year-old in a small town on the Isle of Wight in the UK who dreams of becoming a pop star. Despite her mother’s (Agnieszka Grochowska) best wishes, who would rather that her daughter just remain… Read More Review: Teen Spirit
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Disneynature’s Earth Day releases have become somewhat of a tradition over the last decade, starting with Earth in 2009. While we haven’t gotten one every year, this year the studio is back with Penguins. The film opens with our protagonist, an adorable Adélie penguin named Steve, waddling across… Read More Review: Disneynature’s Penguins
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Directed by Ben Stiller, the Showtime miniseries Escape at Dannemora dramatizes the real life escape of two prisoners from the Clinton Correctional Facility in the small town of Dannemora, New York near the Canadian border in 2015. The series follows inmates Richard Matt (Benicio Del Toro) and David… Read More DVD Review: Escape at Dannemora
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass serves as an interesting and somewhat unexpected conclusion to the unlikely trilogy that the filmmaker started with Unbreakable in 2000 and its surprise sequel Split in 2017, bringing together characters from both films for a final showdown. Nineteen years after becoming the sole survivor of… Read More Blu-ray Review: Glass
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The latest stop motion animated film from Laika, Missing Link continues their perfect track record, while also being somewhat of a departure for the Portland, Oregon studio. While the studio’s first four films – Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls and Kubo and the Two Strings – all focused on… Read More Review: Missing Link
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) There are some films where the very existence of them and the fact that they are even being released at all is cause for celebration, and the concert documentary Amazing Grace is one of those films. Shot over two nights in January of 1972, the film documents the… Read More Review: Amazing Grace
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The idea of rescuing Mary Magdalene from her reputation as a prostitute, and instead portraying her as a sincere follower of Jesus Christ, is an interesting one. But the film Mary Magdalene, as genuine as its intentions may be, unfortunately fails to fully live up to this premise.… Read More Review: Mary Magdalene
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Clint Eastwood is a filmmaker and actor who has dabbled in many genres over the years, from heavy dramas like Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River, to war movies like Letters from Iwo Jima and American Sniper, and even sweeping romance in The Bridges of Madison County. So it’s fitting that… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Mule
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The DC Extended Universe has delivered some good movies like Wonder Woman and Aquaman over the past few years, but the Warner Bros. superhero franchise has also been largely hit and miss, often struggling with consistency and tone. Now Shazam! is here to inject a much needed jolt… Read More Review: Shazam!
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Ron Mann’s latest documentary, Carmine Street Guitars, takes us inside Rick Kelly’s custom guitar shop located at 42 Carmine Street in New York’s Greenwich Village. Many of their guitars are built out of reclaimed wood stripped from old buildings that has been salvaged from construction sites, and the… Read More Review: Carmine Street Guitars
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A prequel to Michael Bay’s five film strong Transformers franchise, Bumblebee takes what the other films did and generally does the opposite, offering an enjoyable movie that is just as focused on telling a character-driven story with real heart as it is on delivering gigantic action scenes. The… Read More Blu-ray Review: Bumblebee
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Franky (Josh Wiggins) is a popular high schooler who has his world upended after his 17th birthday party leads to a drunken but reciprocal sexual encounter with his best friend, Ballas (Darren Mann). The encounter leaves Franky struggling to define his own sexuality, and bullying amps up at… Read More Review: Giant Little Ones
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Lou (Michaela Kurimsky) and Chantal (Karena Evans) are best friends who are both trapped in the small Ontario town where they grew up, and they are trying to save up enough money so that they can hitch a ride to New York. But their plans to escape are… Read More Review: Firecrackers
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Tim Burton’s Dumbo, the latest in Disney’s lineup of live action retellings of their earlier classics, serves as more of a reimagining of the 1941 animated film than it does a straight up remake. This is not to say that the film strays quite as far from the… Read More Review: Dumbo
The Joy of Movies 