By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Joy Ride, the directorial debut of Crazy Rich Asians co-writer Adele Lim, is the story of a Chinese adoptee getting reacquainted with her birth country. It’s also a raunchy, proudly R-rated road trip comedy about four friends having their bonds tested through a series of escapades involving drugs… Read More Review: Joy Ride
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) In the summer of 2020, after having to cancel their tour due to COVID, the Canadian indie rock band July Talk decided to do a concert at the Stardust Drive-In in Sharon, Ontario. But this came with its own unique set of challenges, including figuring out the logistics… Read More Review: July Talk: Love Lives Here
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Directed by Julie Cohen (Julia, RBG), the fascinating and highly engaging documentary Every Body explores the people who make up the I in LGBTQIA, which stands for intersex. The term intersex is used to describe those born with elements of both male and female sex characteristics, with over… Read More Review: Every Body
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) Past Lives, the gorgeous directorial debut of playwright Celine Song, opens with its trio of main characters Nora (Greta Lee), Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) and Arthur (John Magaro) sitting together at a bar, as an off-screen voice wonders what their connections are to each other. From here, Song’s… Read More Review: Past Lives
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Written and directed by Marie Clements, Bones of Crows is an ambitious Canadian drama that follows the life of a residential school survivor over many years, and the scars that remain from the trauma that she has experienced. The film spans multiple decades in the life of Aline… Read More Review: Bones of Crows
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2023 Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival runs from May 25th to June 4th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. The Spanish coming of age drama 20,000 Species of Bees, which won the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, is… Read More #InsideOut2023 Review: 20,000 Species of Bees
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2023 Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival runs from May 25th to June 4th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. In the documentary Supporting Our Selves, director Lulu Wei looks at the history of Community One, a Toronto organization that was founded… Read More #InsideOut2023 Review: Supporting Our Selves
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) What do you do when you accidentally overhear a loved one giving their honest opinion about something you’ve done? This is the basic setup for You Hurt My Feelings, the latest film from writer-director Nicole Holofcener (Enough Said). The main character is Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), a writer in… Read More Review: You Hurt My Feelings
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) In Cocaine Bear, director Elizabeth Banks takes the inspired by a true story premise of a bear in the 1980s who consumed copious amounts of cocaine that had been dumped from a drug runner’s plane, and fashions it into an absurdly gory and intentionally cheesy B-movie creature feature… Read More Blu-ray Review: Cocaine Bear
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Writer-director Laurel Parmet explores the push and pull between religion and sexuality in her confident debut film The Starling Girl, which centres around an inappropriate relationship between a teen girl and her youth pastor, and the circumstances that allow it to develop. Jem Starling (Eliza Scanlen) is a… Read More Review: The Starling Girl
By John Corrado In honour of its 25th anniversary this year, Paramount has released the 1998 summer blockbuster Deep Impact for the first time on 4K Ultra HD. Directed by Mimi Leder, and executive produced by Steven Spielberg, the film unfolds in the twelve months leading up to when a massive comet is expected to… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Deep Impact: 25th Anniversary
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Aaju Peter, the subject of filmmaker Lin Allluna’s documentary Twice Colonized (which recently had its world premiere as the opening night film of Hot Docs), is an Inuit lawyer who was born in Greenland, but moved to the Canadian Arctic. Living in Iqaluit, Aaju is perhaps most notable… Read More Review: Twice Colonized
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2023 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 27th to May 7th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. Against the Tide, which won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Vérité Filmmaking at Sundance, is a compelling slice-of-life documentary from… Read More #HotDocs23 Review: Against the Tide
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The 2023 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 27th to May 7th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. Ella Glendining’s Is There Anybody Out There? is a remarkable documentary about disability and ableism, starting as the filmmaker’s own personal journey of… Read More #HotDocs23 Review: Is There Anybody Out There?
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2023 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 27th to May 7th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. Logan Red Crow is a young Blackfoot woman from Siksika First Nation in Alberta, who grew up helping with the horses on her… Read More #HotDocs23 Review: Aitamaako’tamisskapi Natosi: Before the Sun
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2023 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 27th to May 7th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. Directed by Megan Wennberg (Drag Kids), the documentary Unsyncable follows a group of seniors, ranging from their sixties to their eighties, who have… Read More #HotDocs23 Review: Unsyncable
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2023 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 27th to May 7th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. When Reyhaneh Jabbari was nineteen years old, she was sentenced to death in Iran for stabbing Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, to stop him from… Read More #HotDocs23 Review: Seven Winters in Tehran
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2023 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 27th to May 7th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. In her investigative documentary Cynara, director Sherien Barsoum reexamines the case of Cindy Ali, a Trinidadian immigrant in Toronto who was convicted of… Read More #HotDocs23 Review: Cynara
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2023 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 27th to May 7th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. Filmmaker Cecilia Aldarondo digs into her adolescent memories of first crushes and awkward school dances in You Were My First Boyfriend, which unfolds… Read More #HotDocs23 Review: You Were My First Boyfriend
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2023 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 27th to May 7th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here. There has been somewhat of a modern resurgence in witchcraft and Wicca from women who see reclaiming these ancient spiritual practises as part… Read More #HotDocs23 Review: Coven
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