By John Corrado The Dog Stars is the latest film from director Ridley Scott, a legendary filmmaker now in his late eighties who has earned his stripes with a number of classics over the decades, but whose output has been decidedly more hit or miss in recent years. This post-apocalyptic drama, which is adapted from… Read More Movie Review: The Dog Stars
By John Corrado Directed by Kent Jones, the film Late Fame mainly exists to give a formidable late career role to Willem Dafoe, an actor whose own current standing among young cinephiles could be seen as being mirrored in the film’s narrative. Dafoe stars in the film as Ed Saxberger, a poet living in New… Read More Movie Review: Late Fame
By John Corrado Sheep in the Box, named for a passage in The Little Prince, is the latest work from Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, who has proven himself a master of quietly observed character studies that raise thorny emotional questions. On paper, at least, this makes Kore-eda, serving as both writer and director, a natural fit… Read More Movie Review: Sheep in the Box
By John Corrado It becomes clear early on in Couture, the latest film from French director Alice Winocour, that Angelina Jolie will be giving one of her most personal performances. Jolie stars in the film as Maxine Walker, an American horror filmmaker who is in France for Paris Fashion Week. She has been commissioned to… Read More Movie Review: Couture
By John Corrado In the fantastic new World War II movie Pressure, Australian director Anthony Maras (Hotel Mumbai) finds a fresh angle to explore the events surrounding D-Day, by focusing specifically on the weather forecasts required to pull off the attack. It’s a surprisingly gripping setup for this film, which Maras co-wrote with David Haig. Based… Read More Movie Review: Pressure
By John Corrado The title of The Wizard of the Kremlin, the latest film from French filmmaker Olivier Assayas, refers to Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), a fictional, composite figure who is shown to be at the centre of Putin’s rise in post-Soviet Russia. Adapted from Emmanuel Carrère’s 2022 novel of the same name, the film… Read More Movie Review: The Wizard of the Kremlin
By John Corrado Director Cole Webley’s debut feature Omaha is a quiet heartbreaker of a film that delivers a huge emotional impact as it mixes road movie and family drama. The film opens in the early morning, with a dad (John Magaro) bringing his sleeping son Charlie (Wyatt Solis) out to the car, and waking… Read More Movie Review: Omaha
By John Corrado Amidst the modern biopic boom, the Michael Jackson biopic has finally arrived. Directed by Antoine Fuqua (The Equalizer trilogy, Training Day), and starring the late King of Pop’s real life nephew Jaafar Jackson, who is uncanny as his uncle, Michael is about the rise of Michael Jackson, and really only the rise.… Read More Movie Review: Michael
By John Corrado Dreams is the latest film from Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco, and his second collaboration with actress Jessica Chastain following their 2023 dementia drama Memory. In Dreams, Chastain takes on the role of Jennifer McCarthy, a rich socialite in San Francisco who is having a forbidden affair with a much younger ballet dancer… Read More Movie Review: Dreams
By John Corrado In Midwinter Break, the feature directorial debut of British National Theatre director Polly Findlay, Lesley Manville and Ciarán Hinds star as an older married couple on vacation in Amsterdam. Stella (Manville) and Gerry (Hinds) are originally from Ireland, but have lived together in Glasgow for years. It’s clear from the opening scenes… Read More Movie Review: Midwinter Break
By John Corrado Director Craig Brewer’s Song Sung Blue is now available on Blu-ray, following a run in theatres. The film, of course, netted Kate Hudson an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, which I personally feel is well-deserved. Hudson stars in the film alongside Hugh Jackman, who portray the real life husband and wife Neil… Read More Blu-ray Review: Song Sung Blue (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado The Choral is a British period drama set during World War I. But instead of taking us to the Western Front, the story stays focused on the best efforts of a choir in a small English town that is desperate to deliver a distraction from the ongoing war. It’s an approach that… Read More Movie Review: The Choral
By John Corrado In Rosemead, the well-crafted but disturbing feature directorial debut of cinematographer Eric Lin, Lucy Liu stars as a widowed Chinese-American mother in Southern California who is struggling to support her mentally ill teenaged son. Liu’s Irene is terminally ill from cancer, the same disease that took her husband. Meanwhile, she is struggling… Read More Movie Review: Rosemead
By John Corrado The music biopic has become a way for films to capitalize off the recognizable song catalogues of their respective musical artists. This brings us to Song Sung Blue, which does a similar thing with the music of Neil Diamond (it’s named for one of his catchiest songs, after all). But, despite following… Read More Movie Review: Song Sung Blue
By John Corrado In Nuremberg, director James Vanderbilt dramatizes the Nuremberg trials, when members of the Nazi high command were arrested and put on trial for crimes against humanity in the wake of World War II. The result is a rock solid old school historical drama that works surprisingly well on every level. Rami Malek… Read More Movie Review: Nuremberg
By John Corrado As an actor, Harris Dickinson has already impressed us with his performances in Babygirl and Triangle of Sadness. So it’s fitting that, in his confident feature directorial debut Urchin, a stripped down drama about poverty and addiction, he gives another young performer the chance to take centre stage. That actor is Frank… Read More Movie Review: Urchin
By John Corrado Regretting You is an adaptation of the Colleen Hoover book, that comes to us from The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone. These two things should tell you what to expect from this film, which is a mix of dramatic weepie and teen romance. Morgan Grant (Allison Williams) and her husband… Read More Movie Review: Regretting You
By John Corrado The opening shot of writer-director Mary Bronstein’s intense and suffocating but occasionally darkly funny If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is a tight closeup on lead actress Rose Byrne’s face. She is in a doctor’s appointment for her sick daughter (Delaney Quinn), with some disagreement about her treatment plan. The doctor… Read More Movie Review: If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
By John Corrado Anemone, the feature directorial debut of Ronan Day-Lewis, is notable for bringing the filmmaker’s father, actor Daniel Day-Lewis, out of retirement. This is his first acting role since starring in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, a film that has only grown in stature in the near-decade since it was released. This already… Read More Movie Review: Anemone
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