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 their new documentary Satan Wants You, co-directors Steve J. Adams and Sean Horlor offer a fascinating look at how the best-selling Canadian… Read More #HotDocs23 Review: Satan Wants You
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
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. Danish filmmaker Christian Einshøj digs into his family history in his symbolic, deeply personal documentary The Mountains. Einshøj draws upon a vast… Read More #HotDocs23 Review: The Mountains
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) The 2023 Canadian Film Fest runs from March 28th to April 1st, with films screening in-person at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto and virtually on Super Channel Fuse. Set in a vague, post-apocalyptic world that has turned much of the population into depressive zombies, Wintertide follows Beth (Niamh Carolan),… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: Wintertide
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2023 Canadian Film Fest runs from March 28th to April 1st, with films screening in-person at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto and virtually on Super Channel Fuse. A routine traffic stop leads to an increasingly obsessive quest to get the ticket thrown out in court in writer-director Adrian… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: Retrograde
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2023 Canadian Film Fest runs from March 28th to April 1st, with films screening in-person at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto and virtually on Super Channel Fuse. In How to Get My Parents to Divorce, a family movie from Quebec that plays like a clever inversion of The… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: How to Get My Parents to Divorce
By John Corrado ★½ (out of 4) The 2023 Canadian Film Fest runs from March 28th to April 1st, with films screening in-person at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto and virtually on Super Channel Fuse. The debut film from writer-director Connie Cocchia, When Time Got Louder is a Canadian family drama that explores how a tight-knit… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: When Time Got Louder
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2023 Canadian Film Fest runs from March 28th to April 1st, with films screening in-person at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto and virtually on Super Channel Fuse. An absurdist comedy about gender politics that segues into being a psychosexual suburban fantasy, the Quebec film Babysitter is an entertaining… Read More Canadian Film Fest Review: Babysitter
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Directed by Ukrainian filmmaker Roman Liubiy, Iron Butterflies is a documentary that sets itself up as an investigation into the downing of Malaysian airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, which was accidentally shot down by a Russian anti-aircraft missile in 2014, killing all 298 people on board. But… Read More #Sundance2023 Review: Iron Butterflies
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Slow, a very good drama from Lithuanian writer-director Marija Kavtaradze, begins with what feels like it could be a classic meet-cute. Elena (Greta Grineviciute) is a contemporary dancer hopping between sexual partners, and Dovydas (Kestutis Cicenas) is a sign language interpreter. They meet when she is teaching a… Read More #Sundance2023 Review: Slow
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The directorial debut of Belgian actress Veerle Baetens (The Broken Circle Breakdown), When It Melts is an adaptation of author Lize Spit’s book Het Smelt that explores childhood trauma through the eyes of a young woman finally confronting her past. Beatens takes an unflinching and provocative approach to… Read More #Sundance2023 Review: When It Melts
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) A madcap reimagining of the Pied Piper story centred around a swindler cat and his band of talking rats, the European animated film The Amazing Maurice – playing in the Kids section at Sundance – serves as a colourful and often amusing adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s award-winning 2001… Read More #Sundance2023 Review: The Amazing Maurice
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival ran from September 8th to 18th. In Moonage Daydream, documentary filmmaker Brett Morgan weaves an exciting and highly cinematic portrait of late music and queer icon David Bowie. The film blends concert footage with old interviews to offer a compelling window into… Read More #TIFF22 Review: Moonage Daydream (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival ran from September 8th to 18th. The directorial debut of Korean actor Lee Jung-jae (the Emmy-winning star of Squid Game), Hunt is a political thriller set at the height of tensions between North and South Korea in the 1980s. Lee stars in… Read More #TIFF22 Review: Hunt (Gala Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival ran from September 8th to 18th. British writer-director Joanna Hogg follows up her one-two punch of The Souvenir and The Souvenir Part II with The Eternal Daughter, a simmering, haunting mother-daughter story that is infused with elements of Gothic Horror. The film… Read More #TIFF22 Review: The Eternal Daughter (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival ran from September 8th to 18th. Pakistani filmmaker Saim Sadiq makes his feature debut with Joyland, firmly establishing himself as a very exciting new voice in international cinema. Adapted from his 2019 short film Darling, Sadiq’s film, which was awarded the Un… Read More #TIFF22 Review: Joyland (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival ran from September 8th to 18th. The latest film from the currently imprisoned Iranian director Jafar Panahi, No Bears is a work of meta filmmaking that weaves together two narratives. Panahi casts himself as a filmmaker who is directing his latest work… Read More #TIFF22 Reviews: No Bears (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival ran from September 8th to 18th. Nan Goldin is an artist and photographer who has set her sights on holding Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family to account for creating and pushing the drug OxyContin, and fuelling the opioid crisis ravaging America.… Read More #TIFF22 Review: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (TIFF Docs)
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8th to 18th. The Banshees of Inisherin, the latest brilliantly written character study from writer-director Martin McDonagh (In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), tells the story of two friends; farmer Pádraic (Colin Farrell) and fiddler Colm… Read More #TIFF22 Review: The Banshees of Inisherin (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8th to 18th. Director Peter Farrelly made the switch to making “serious” films in 2018 with Green Book, a career pivot that (controversially) won him the People’s Choice Award at TIFF and subsequently the Oscar for Best Picture. Farrelly… Read More #TIFF22 Review: The Greatest Beer Run Ever (Gala Presentations)
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