By John Corrado At the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany, a group of Palestinian terrorists broke into the Olympic Village and kidnapped Israeli athletes, holding them hostage in a tense standoff. Director Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5 is a movie about this hostage crisis, but somewhat indirectly; the film is based on the true story of the ABC… Read More Movie Review: September 5
By John Corrado If you could radically change your appearance, would you? That’s the question at the centre of writer-director Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man, a fascinating mix of piercing character study and absurdist, Charlie Kaufman-esque tragicomedy. Schimberg’s film is a sort of modern riff on Flowers for Algernon, the classic book in which a man with… Read More Movie Review: A Different Man
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 Payal Kapadia, the filmmaker behind the 2021 documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing, makes her narrative feature debut with All We Imagine as Light. Kapadia’s film, which was awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes earlier this year, is a touching and very heartfelt slice-of-life portrait of women in modern India. The film mainly focuses… Read More Movie Review: All We Imagine as Light
By John Corrado Thirty years after Forrest Gump, director Robert Zemeckis reunites with stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright as well as screenwriter Eric Roth for the ambitious drama Here. An adaptation of the 2014 graphic novel by Richard McGuire, Here is built around the conceit of watching life unfold in a single location across millions of years, from… Read More Movie Review: Here
By John Corrado The first trailer has just been released for Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, which A24 acquired out of Venice. The film is an adaption of the William S. Burroughs novel of the same name, and stars Daniel Craig in the leading role as a gay man roaming about Mexico after the war. I wasn’t… Read More Trailer Released for Luca Guadagnino’s Queer
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 Saoirse Ronan takes on the role of a young alcoholic in The Outrun. It’s a role that allows the actress to deliver an incredible performance showcasing her full depth and range, as the drama depicts the addiction and recovery process as an ongoing journey. It’s based on author Amy Liptrot’s memoir of the… Read More Movie Review: The Outrun
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 from Irish director John Crowley (Brooklyn), We Live in Time mostly works as a genuine romantic tear-jerker, centred around a young couple in London. Tobias (Andrew Garfield)… Read More #TIFF24 Review: We Live in Time (Special 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 Netflix has released the first trailer for The Piano Lesson, one of their big awards contenders that will be screening at TIFF next month. The film is produced by Denzel Washington, and is the latest in his series of film adaptations of August Wilson plays, following the Oscar-winning films Ma Rainey’s Black… Read More Trailer Released for Netflix’s The Piano Lesson
By John Corrado In her confident feature directorial debut Good One, emerging filmmaker India Donaldson uses the premise of a father-daughter camping trip to offer an engaging, fascinatingly stripped down character study. The protagonist is Sam (Lily Collias), a 17-year-old girl who ends up on a weekend camping trip to the Catskills with her dad… Read More Movie Review: Good One
By John Corrado The title of Sing Sing refers to the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York, located on the Hudson River. But the film’s title, with its evocation of music and singing, also serves as a jubilant nod to the spirited performances being staged by the men within the maximum security prison. It’s… Read More Movie Review: Sing Sing
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 The latest inspirational sports movie from Disney, the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Young Woman and the Sea is based on the true story of pioneering female swimmer Trudy Ederle, who became the first woman to swim across the 21 mile English Channel in 1926. Daisy Ridley (who most notably played Rey in the Disney… Read More Movie Review: Young Woman and the Sea (Disney+)
By John Corrado The feature debut of music video director Luke Gilford, National Anthem is an engaging portrait of outcasts who desperately want their part of the American Dream, but have to carve out their own piece of it. Entrenched in the world of cowboys and rodeos, Gilford’s film is steeped in Americana, but explored… Read More Movie Review: National Anthem
By John Corrado The latest film from Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, Bones and All), Challengers is a smart, stylish tennis drama built around a trio of captivating performances from Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist. Zendaya stars in the film as Tashi Duncan, a former tennis rising star who is… Read More Blu-ray Review: Challengers
By John Corrado Directed, co-written by and starring French actress Maïwenn, Jeanne du Barry (which was the opening night film of Cannes last year) is a period biopic of Madame du Barry, the final mistress of King Louis XV. The film charts how “commoner” Jeanne Vaubernier (played by Maïwenn) rose through the ranks of French… Read More Movie Review: Jeanne du Barry
By John Corrado The 2024 Toronto Jewish Film Festival runs from May 30th to June 9th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. Noam Stein (Charlie Korman) is a closeted teenager keeping his sexuality a secret from his Orthodox family and community. After his grandfather dies, he discovers a love… Read More #TJFF2024 Review: Unspoken
By John Corrado In We Grown Now, writer-director Minhal Haig offers a vivid portrait of childhood and growing up in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects circa 1992. Malik (Blake Cameron James) and Eric (Gian Knight Ramirez) are two young Black boys who are best friends. They hang out together in an abandoned unit, and the film… Read More Movie Review: We Grown Now
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