By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Marvel Comics legend Stan “The Man” Lee gets the documentary biopic treatment in Stan Lee, an officially sanctioned project that is premiering on Disney Plus. Born Stanley Martin Lieber, and coming of age during the Great Depression in New York City, the film charts how he got his… Read More Review: Stan Lee (Disney+)
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) A remake of Ron Shelton’s 1992 comedy of the same name that starred Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes, White Men Can’t Jump is an updated version of the story that strips away a lot of the original’s grit and personality. Like the original, the film is set in… Read More Review: White Men Can’t Jump (Disney+)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The year is 2257, and a group of kids are living in a mining colony on the moon. For most of them, life on the third rock from the sun is all they have ever known. This is the premise behind Crater, a new sci-fi movie being released… Read More Review: Crater (Disney+)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Dom (David Jonsson) and Yas (Vivian Oparah), the two protagonists of British filmmaker Raine Allen-Miller’s directorial debut Rye Lane, have their initial meet-cute through the dividing walls in the unisex bathroom of a South London art gallery. Dom is crying in one of the stalls after a bad… Read More Review: Rye Lane (Disney+)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Written and directed by Matt Ruskin, Boston Strangler is a pretty good direct-to-streaming serial killer thriller that dramatizes the events around the real life Boston Strangler murders, seen from the perspective of Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley), one of the female journalists who helped break the story in 1962.… Read More Review: Boston Strangler (Disney+)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Following in the footsteps of the Halloween special Werewolf by Night, Marvel Studios now switches their focus to Christmas with The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. Written and directed by James Gunn, the special is designed as a loving homage to the infamous Star Wars Christmas Special,… Read More Disney+ Review: The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Arriving fifteen years after Enchanted, Disney’s self-aware 2007 fairy tale that found an animated princess stumbling into our live action world, Disenchanted is a direct-to-streaming sequel that unfortunately struggles to recapture the same magic. Amy Adams reprises her role as Giselle, who left her home in the animated… Read More Disney+ Review: Disenchanted
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) How did Mickey Mouse go from lovable cartoon character to ubiquitous corporate symbol? That’s the question asked in the enjoyable Disney+ documentary Mickey: The Story of a Mouse, which explores the history of how Mickey’s visage – made out of three simple circles – has become one of… Read More Disney+ Review: Mickey: The Story of a Mouse
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Tim Allen is back as Scott Calvin, the single dad who inexplicably took up the mantle of Santa Claus, in the new Disney+ limited series The Santa Clauses, which is having its two-episode premiere this week. Building on the trilogy of films that began in 1994 with The… Read More Disney+ Review: The Santa Clauses (First Two Episodes)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Disney returns to the richly populated world of their 2016 animated film Zootopia in the aptly titled Disney+ series Zootopia+, a collection of six short films set in the animal metropolis. But rather than being a direct sequel to the movie, Zootopia+ is instead a collection of off-shoot… Read More Disney+ Review: Zootopia+
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Composer Michael Giacchino makes the switch to directing with the 52 minute Marvel Halloween special Werewolf by Night, a black-and-white tribute to the classic Universal monster movies that serves as a breath of fresh air in a slightly stagnant MCU. The special (which may as well begin with… Read More Disney+ Review: Werewolf by Night
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The witches are back in the new Disney+ legacy sequel Hocus Pocus 2, which sees those eccentric Sanderson Sisters – Winnie (Bette Midler), Mary (Kathy Najimy) and Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker) – returning to modern day Salem. Set 29 years after the events (and release) of Disney’s 1993… Read More Disney+ Review: Hocus Pocus 2
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Disney’s new version of Pinocchio, which is being released direct to streaming as part of this year’s Disney+ Day programming, is the studio’s latest live action remake of a beloved animated classic, and it’s maybe the weakest one they have put out yet. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, who… Read More Disney+ Review: Pinocchio
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Cars on the Road, which premieres on Disney+ tomorrow as part of their annual Disney+ Day programming, is a short episodic series from Pixar Animation Studios that finds trusty tow truck Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) and race car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) reuniting for a road trip.… Read More Disney+ Review: Cars on the Road
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) I Am Groot, the latest Marvel series premiering on Disney Plus, isn’t really a series at all, but rather a collection of brief little shorts featuring Guardians of the Galaxy breakout star Baby Groot (voiced once again by Vin Diesel) going on a series of adventures between the… Read More Disney+ Review: I Am Groot
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Directed by Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane), Prey is the fifth instalment in the Predator franchise (seventh if you count the spinoffs Alien vs. Predator and Alien vs. Predator: Requiem). The twist is that it’s actually a prequel to the 1987 original, that is set in the Comanche… Read More Disney+ Review: Prey
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Pixar’s Lightyear, a spinoff from the Toy Story film series that purports to show the origin story of the famous space ranger, opens with subtitles explaining that, in 1995, a boy named Andy saw a movie that made him want a Buzz Lightyear action figure, and “this is… Read More Review: Lightyear
The Joy of Movies 