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)
By John Corrado In his mixing of paranoid espionage thriller and absurdist dark comedy, Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho delivers a culturally specific portrait of his country in the late 1970s in The Secret Agent, seen through the eyes of a man on the run during the waning days of the military dictatorship. The man… Read More #TIFF50 Review: The Secret Agent (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado A man gets off the subway and tries to exit the station. But every time he turns a corner, he ends up back in the same place, stuck in a seemingly endless loop. This is the premise behind the Japanese film Exit 8, a fun and suspenseful little puzzle box thriller from… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Exit 8 (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado Director Oliver Laxe’s Sirât opens on a memorably cinematic scene as a group of outcasts hold a rave in the middle of the Moroccan desert. We see evocative images of massive speakers being set up in the desert, as bodies bop and gyrate in time to the blaring techno music, the beat… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Sirât (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Sentimental Value is Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s followup to his 2021 modern classic The Worst Person in the World, reuniting him with that film’s star Renate Reinsve. If Worst Person was about a quarter-life crisis and searching for meaning in your twenties, Sentimental Value aims for something even more ambitious in scope.… Read More #TIFF50 Review: Sentimental Value (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado The Long Walk is the long-awaited film adaptation of Stephen King’s 1979 novella of the same name, an early work by the author that became part of a 1985 short story collection published under the pen name Richard Bachman. That that collection also included The Running Man and Rage, a school shooting story… Read More Movie Review: The Long Walk
By John Corrado New releases for the week of August 29th, 2025. Theatrical Releases: Splitsville (Limited Release): Director Michael Angelo Covino and his real life friend Kyle Marvin co-write, co-produce and co-star in this comedy exploring the modern concept of open relationships. Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona play the wives of their two characters, with… Read More New This Week (08/29/2025): Splitsville, Caught Stealing, & More!
By John Corrado Splitsville is the new relationship comedy from director Michael Angelo Covino and his real life friend Kyle Marvin. The two previously teamed up to make the 2020 film The Climb, a portrait of male friendship told with impressive technical precision through a series of long takes and fluid camerawork. Covino and Marvin… Read More Movie Review: Splitsville
By John Corrado Wes Anderson’s latest film, The Phoenician Scheme, is now available on physical media, following its run in theatres earlier this summer. Benicio Del Toro stars in Anderson’s latest as Zsa-zsa Korda, a corrupt businessman who decides to appoint his only daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton) – a young nun – as the sole… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Phoenician Scheme
By John Corrado Searchlight Pictures has just given us our first look at Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On?, the director and actor’s follow up to Meastro and A Star is Born. Cooper’s latest is a character dramedy starring Will Arnett as a guy going through a divorce (Laura Dern plays ex-wife), who turns to… Read More Teaser Trailer for Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On?
By John Corrado Focus Features has now released the first teaser trailer for Hamnet. This is Oscar-winning Nomadland director Chloe Zhao’s return to the awards season race, after her Marvel foray Eternals. This one stars Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare and Jessie Buckley as his wife Agnes, telling the tragic story that inspired Hamlet. Their… Read More Teaser Trailer for Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet
By John Corrado New releases for the week of August 22nd, 2025. Theatrical Releases: Honey Don’t! (Limited Release): Margaret Qualley stars as private investigator Honey O’Donahue in this second solo effort from director Ethan Coen, following last year’s Drive-Away Dolls. I was pretty mixed on this one. It’s occasionally entertaining, and Qualley has some fun… Read More New This Week (08/22/2025): Honey Don’t!, Ne Zha II, & More!
By John Corrado Ne Zha II is the Chinese blockbuster that became the highest grossing animated film of all time, beating the record previously set by Inside Out 2 just last year, almost entirely from what it grossed in China alone. The film had previously been released in North American theatres earlier this year, and now we… Read More Movie Review: Ne Zha II
By John Corrado Honey Don’t! is the second solo film from director Ethan Coen, who first split from his brother Joel to make last year’s crime comedy Drive-Away Dolls, a collaboration with his wife and co-writer Tricia Cooke. This latest, which was also co-written by Coen and Cooke and is the second in their planned… Read More Movie Review: Honey Don’t!
By John Corrado The live-action remake of DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon was a slam-dunk hit at the box office earlier this summer, and now it’s available on physical media, including 4K Ultra HD. I reviewed this one in theatres (you can read my full thoughts on the film here), and was somewhat pleasantly… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: How to Train Your Dragon (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado Netflix has just put out the first trailer for Ballad of a Small Player, the latest film from German director Edward Berger. Berger’s last two films were, of course, the Oscar heavyweights Conclave and All Quiet on the Western Front, so expectations are naturally high for this one. Colin Farrell stars as… Read More Trailer for Edward Berger’s Ballad of a Small Player
By John Corrado New releases for the week of August 15th, 2025. Theatrical Releases: Nobody 2 (Wide Release): Bob Odenkirk returns as the contract killer and family man in this sequel to his 2021 action flick. This sequel sends Odenkirk’s Hutch and his family going on vacation to an old school water park, where most… Read More New This Week (08/15/2025): Nobody 2, & More!
By John Corrado Bob Odenkirk returns as contract killer and family man Hutch Mansell in Nobody 2, the pretty good sequel to the 2021 pandemic-era action flick that did modestly well in theatres and found even more of an audience on VOD. And this slightly higher-budgeted followup kinda feels like an old school action movie… Read More Movie Review: Nobody 2
By John Corrado A24 has just released the first trailer for Marty Supreme, starring Timothée Chalamet as aspiring ping pong player Marty Mauser. It’s easily one of the most hotly anticipated films of the rest of the year, and this trailer (set to “Forever Young”) suggests the film will live up to the hype. This… Read More First Trailer for Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, starring Timothée Chalamet
By John Corrado 20th Century Studios has just put out the first trailer and poster for Swiped. Rachel Lee Goldenberg (Unpregnant) directs this based-on-a-true-story film, which stars Lily James in the role of Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of online dating apps Tinder and Bumble. Lofty comparisons to The Social Network might be unavoidable. Otherwise, this… Read More First Trailer for Swiped, premiering at TIFF
The Joy of Movies 