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 Her Private Hell is the latest film from Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn, whose 2011 thriller Drive starring Ryan Gosling is the closest thing he’s had to a mainstream hit, and a far better movie than anything he’s made since. This is Refn’s first film in a decade since 2016’s The Neon… Read More Movie Review: Her Private Hell
By John Corrado The horror movie Leviticus, which serves as the feature directorial debut of Australian writer-director Adrian Chiarella, plays almost like an explicitly queer take on It Follows, David Robert Mitchell’s STD-themed indie horror flick from 2014. This slow-burn film follows Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen), two closeted teen boys in rural… Read More Movie Review: Leviticus
By John Corrado A lot has already been made about the fact that Kane Parsons, the director of Backrooms, is only 20-years-old, and for good reason. It’s impressive because this is such an assured feature debut from him, with Parsons showing a clear vision throughout this liminal spaces horror movie. Expanded from the series of… Read More Movie Review: Backrooms
By John Corrado I Love Boosters, musician turned writer-director Boots Riley’s followup to his 2018 film Sorry to Bother You, is another “surrealist critique of capitalism” that only cost $20 million to produce, and has all the subtlety or nuance of a sledgehammer. We are left with a film that is candy-coloured and, well, kind… Read More Movie Review: I Love Boosters
By John Corrado In Mile End Kicks, the very enjoyable sophomore feature from former Toronto film critic Chandler Levack following her excellent directorial debut I Like Movies, we follow a young music critic trying to figure things out in her early twenties. In many ways, Mike End Kicks plays like a companion piece to I… Read More Movie Review: Mile End Kicks
By John Corrado Alpha is the third feature from French filmmaker Julia Ducournau, whose previous films Raw and Titane both shocked and repulsed audiences while drawing critical acclaim. For Ducournau to follow up a film as thrilling and visionary as her sophomore feature Titane was always going to be a nearly impossible task, especially after… Read More Movie Review: Alpha
By John Corrado In Cold Light, the English-language debut of Quebec filmmaker Maxime Giroux, is a mix of crime drama and thriller that stars Maika Monroe as a young ex-convict in Alberta trying to get her life back on track, but being dragged right back into the criminal underworld. The film opens with Ava (Monroe)… Read More Movie Review: In Cold Light
By John Corrado The Oscar-nominated French animated film Arco, which serves as the feature directorial debut of artist Ugo Bienvenu, imagines a future world where time travel is not only possible, but involves colourful jumpsuits that use rainbows and refracted light. The film opens in the distant future, with a boy named Arco (voiced by… Read More Movie Review: Arco
By John Corrado The official trailer has just been released for Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, Canadian filmmaker Matt Johnson’s wildly entertaining time travel comedy. This one premiered at SXSW last year, and also got a hometown welcome as the opening night film of TIFF’s Midnight Madness section, where it very easily won… Read More Official Trailer for Matt Johnson’s Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie!
By John Corrado There you have it, folks. We have reached the end of 2025. Another year has officially come and gone, which means that it’s time for my countdown of the best movies of 2025. Or, perhaps more correctly, my favourite movies released this year. This includes, in no short order, a trio of… Read More The Best Movies of 2025
By John Corrado In his acceptance speech at the SAG Awards earlier year, when he won the Best Actor trophy for his uncanny portrayal of Bob Dylan in music biopic A Complete Unknown, Timothée Chalamet unabashedly spoke about wanting to be one of the greats. The young actor took some heat for it online. Surely… Read More Movie Review: Marty Supreme
By John Corrado NEON has just released a new trailer for Sentimental Value. This is Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s follow up to The Worst Person in the World, reuniting him with that film’s star Renate Reinsve. I saw this one during TIFF, and it’s easily one of the best movies of the year, if not… Read More New Trailer for Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value
By John Corrado Shelby Oaks is a horror movie that serves as the crowdfunded feature directorial debut of YouTuber and film critic Chris Stuckmann, now fully dipping his toes into the world of genre filmmaking. It’s easy to root for a film critic making the jump to actually directing (for me at least), and Stuckmann’s… Read More Movie Review: Shelby Oaks
By John Corrado Director Raoul Peck’s new documentary Orwell: 2+2=5 is less biography of George Orwell, and more heavily slanted video essay that struggles to thread the needle between the British author’s work and selected modern events. It’s a major disappointment. The film’s title, of course, is a reference to Orwell’s most famous book 1984,… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Orwell: 2+2=5 (TIFF Docs)
By John Corrado In her sophomore feature Blood Lines, Métis writer, director, and actress Gail Maurice (Rosie) crafts a family melodrama steeped in Métis culture. This cultural specificity is the main point of intrigue for Maurice’s film, which is also presented largely in the traditional Michif language. The main character is Beatrice (Dana Solomon), a… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Blood Lines (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado The latest film from Korean director Park Chan-wook, following up the gauzy, neo-noir, romantic mystery of 2022’s stunning Decision to Leave, No Other Choice is a wildly entertaining film that moves so seamlessly between dark comedy, drama, and murderous thriller, that it seems to defy genre itself. The story centres around Man-soo… Read More #TIFF50 Review: No Other Choice (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado There is something objectively funny about Canadian filmmaker and actor Matt Johnson using the money and industry cred that he received from his 2023 movie BlackBerry to make Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, an idiosyncratic and gloriously entertaining big screen resurrection of his cult web series from 2008. In doing… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (Midnight Madness)
By John Corrado The Canadian genre film Honey Bunch serves as both the latest collaboration between actors and real life partners Grace Glowicki and Ben Petrie, and the sophomore feature from co-directors Madeline Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli. In their debut film, the ultra-gritty revenge thriller Violation, Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli showed an appetite for extreme violence.… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Honey Bunch (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado In his latest film, the Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident, formerly imprisoned Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi crafts another complex and involving portrait of modern day Iran. The film follows a group of people who find themselves at the centre of a moral dilemma, when a worker named Vahid (Vahid… Read More #TIFF50 Review: It Was Just an Accident (Special Presentations)
The Joy of Movies 