By John Corrado Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska is and was not like other Springsteen albums. Stripped down, acoustic, recorded in a bedroom on a 4-track tape recorder, it was a collection of ten deeply personal songs that had him baring his soul in a poetic, sometimes cryptic way. It’s fitting, then, that director Scott… Read More Movie Review: Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
By John Corrado Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson stars in The Smashing Machine, a very good biopic of early UFC fighter Mark Kerr, that finds the wrestler-turned-actor giving it his all in his first big, meaty dramatic role. The film, which also serves as the first solo outing of director Benny Safdie, after splitting from his… Read More Movie Review: The Smashing Machine
By John Corrado Swiped is director Rachel Lee Goldenberg’s glossy biopic of Whitney Wolfe (played by Lily James), a co-founder of ubiquitous dating app Tinder and the creator of Bumble. We first meet Wolfe at a Los Angeles meet-up for tech investors, trying to get financial backers for an app that connects orphanages in other… Read More Movie Review: Swiped (Disney+)
By John Corrado The first trailer has just been released for Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere. This is, of course, the Bruce Springsteen biopic (kind of unmistakable now that they added his name to the title), starring Jeremy Allen White as the iconic musician. It’s directed by Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart). We get a glimpse… Read More First Trailer for Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
By John Corrado In his latest film I’m Still Here, which received a surprise Best Picture nomination at the Oscars, Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) offers a portrait of life during Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1970s through the lens of mainly being a family drama. Salles’ film serves as a biography of… Read More Movie Review: I’m Still Here
By John Corrado Director James Mangold arguably perfected the modern biopic structure with Walk the Line, his Oscar-winning 2005 portrait of country singer Johnny Cash. Mangold now returns to this genre and time period with his Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown (in fact, Cash is even featured here as well, as a contemporary of Dylan’s). Dylan, one… Read More Movie Review: A Complete Unknown
By John Corrado The third entry in Pablo Larraín’s unofficial trilogy depicting the interior lives of famous women (following the one-two punch of Jackie and Spencer), Maria is the Chilean filmmaker’s portrait of the Italian opera singer Maria Callas. Larraín aims to do for Callas what he did for Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Diana in his previous films, which boasted… Read More Movie Review: Maria
By John Corrado The choice to make a Donald Trump biopic at this point in time, when the man himself is already so ubiquitous and overexposed in our media landscape, is both an obvious and somewhat curious one. In our polarized age, the mere presence of a film like this raises questions about what audience… Read More Movie Review: The Apprentice
By John Corrado Searchlight Pictures has just released the full “official trailer” for A Complete Unknown, director James Mangold’s (Walk the Line) upcoming biopic of Bob Dylan starring Timothée Chalamet. The film charts his rise from folk singer in New York’s Greenwich Village to infamously “going electric,” as we see a bit in this trailer… Read More Full Trailer Released for A Complete Unknown
By John Corrado The movie Lee is a biopic of photojournalist Elizabeth “Lee” Miller (played by Kate Winslet), who worked as a photographer for Vogue magazine during World War II. The film serves as the feature directorial debut of cinematographer Ellen Kuras (who first worked with Winslet on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and… Read More Movie Review: Lee
By John Corrado The 2024 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 5th to 15th, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. The latest film directed by The Greatest Showman’s Michael Gracey, Better Man is a biopic of British pop star Robbie Williams, from his boy band days to his solo career.… Read More #TIFF24 Review: Better Man (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado ”Peace through strength.” That was the famous adage of President Ronald Reagan when it came to his foreign policy approach, and taking on the “evil empire” of the Soviet Union during the final stages of the Cold War. This motto also provides the backbone for director Sean McNamara’s Reagan, a new biopic that… Read More Movie Review: Reagan
By John Corrado Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson (Nowhere Boy, Fifty Shades of Grey), Back to Black is a biopic of British singer Amy Winehouse, who passed away at age 27 from alcohol poisoning. The film is named after her (still incredible) Grammy-winning 2006 album Back to Black, which catapulted her from working-class Camden girl to… Read More Blu-ray Review: Back to Black (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard), Bob Marley: One Love is a biopic of iconic reggae artist Bob Marley that features a dedicated performance by Kingsley Ben-Adir, but is otherwise a mixed bag. Ben-Adir, who masterfully portrayed civil rights leader Malcolm X in One Night in Miami, now takes on the… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Bob Marley: One Love
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Director Michael Mann returns with Ferrari, a biopic of Italian automaker Enzo Ferrari, that focuses more on his relationships and personal life. The film is set in 1957, a decade after Enzo (a silver-haired Adam Driver) opened the factory with his wife Laura Ferrari (Penelope Cruz) in post-War… Read More Review: Ferrari
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The title of Dreamin’ Wild, the new music drama from writer-director Bill Pohlad, comes from the name of an album first recorded by teenage brothers Donnie and Joe Emerson on their rural Washington farm in the late 1970s. The album flew under the radar, before finding unexpected success… Read More Review: Dreamin’ Wild
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Baz Luhrmann, the Australian filmmaker who turned the words of William Shakespeare into the most ’90s movie imaginable in his 1996 film Romeo & Juliet and last delivered a glitzy 3D take on The Great Gatsby in 2013, is a director who is known as much for his… Read More Review: Elvis
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