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
By John Corrado French filmmaker Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast is a sweeping romantic drama starring Léa Seydoux and George MacKay as lovers reconnecting and being torn apart across moments in time. Bonello’s film is set in a future where AI controls the world, and strong feelings are discouraged. Seydoux’s Gabrielle is undergoing a process to… Read More Movie Review: The Beast
By John Corrado Irena’s Vow dramatizes the inspiring true story of Irena Gut Opdyke (Sophie Nélisse), a Polish nurse who helped shelter a group of Jewish workers during World War II. At a factory in occupied Poland, Irena is put in charge of supervising a group of Jewish workers in the laundry, who wash and… Read More Movie Review: Irena’s Vow
By John Corrado Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera, the Italian filmmaker’s latest following The Wonders and Happy as Lazzaro, is itself a bit of a chimeric creature. The film unfolds with a loose, shifting narrative structure that morphs between magical realism, absurdist comedy and character drama, shone through with a wistful nostalgia for the past. The… Read More Movie Review: La Chimera
By John Corrado The latest and possibly final film from British director Ken Loach, The Old Oak is another poignant social realist drama exploring themes of unrest in modern England, this time centred around the migrant crisis. Done in his usual neorealist style, the film focuses on the clash between a group of Syrian immigrants… Read More Movie Review: The Old Oak
By John Corrado A group of students fall under the sway of their new teacher Miss Novak (Mia Wasikowska) in Club Zero, Austrian director Jessica Hausner’s offbeat and unsettling satire of cliques, social pressure, and radical movements. Miss Novak arrives as the new teacher at the Talent Campus, an international private school where she is… Read More Movie Review: Club Zero
By John Corrado The 2024 Canadian Film Fest runs from March 18th to 23rd, with films screening in-person at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto. The latest collaboration between director Sean Garrity and star Jonas Chernick, The Burning Season is a simmering romantic drama with a dark secret at its centre that starts at the end and… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: The Burning Season (Closing Night Film)
By John Corrado The 2024 Canadian Film Fest runs from March 18th to 23rd, with films screening in-person at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto. Named after the beloved Trinidadian street food, the Canadian drama Doubles follows Dhani (Sanjiv Boodhu), a humble street vendor living with his mother (Leela Sitahal) in Trinidad, who is growing tired of… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: Doubles (Opening Night Film)
By John Corrado Napoleon is Nominated for Best Production Design, Best Costume Design and Best Visual Effects at the 96th Academy Awards Throughout his long career as a director, Ridley Scott has been no stranger to big budget filmmaking and risk-taking, and his latest film Napoleon – the result of a complicated, months-long production –… Read More Movie Review: Napoleon (Apple TV+)
By John Corrado The latest work from Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan, whose Winter Sleep won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2014, About Dry Grasses is an involving character drama that uses its lengthy running time to absorb us in the lives its of its subjects. The film follows Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu), a middle-aged… Read More Movie Review: About Dry Grasses
By John Corrado The feature directorial debut of Canadian filmmaker Meredith Hama-Brown, Seagrass is a patient character drama that captures the slow deterioration of a biracial family unit. Judith (Ally Maki) is a Japanese-Canadian woman who is experiencing difficulties in her marriage to non-Asian husband Steve (Luke Roberts). These challenges are amplified by Judith’s mother… Read More Movie Review: Seagrass
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