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) 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 his informative documentary Commitment to Life, filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz (I Am Devine, Tab Hunter Confidential), explores the history of the… Read More #InsideOut2023 Review: Commitment to Life
By John Corrado The 2023 edition of the Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival starts tonight, and runs until June 4th, with a mix of in-person screenings at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto and some online viewing options. I will be publishing reviews throughout the festival, and below is a preview of some films I’m looking… Read More The 2023 Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival starts tonight!
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. Ivan and Marvin are a married couple living in Sweden with their two young kids, whose relationship is evolving as Marvin undergoes gender… Read More #HotDocs23 Review: A Happy Man
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. Simon Chambers was in India trying to finish a documentary about car culture in the country when he got a call from his… Read More #HotDocs23 Review: Much Ado About Dying
By John Corrado Presented by GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Film Critics (of which I am a fairly new member), the winners of the 14th Dorian Film Awards have just been announced. Leading the pack is Everything Everywhere All at Once, which swept with wins for Film of the Year and LGBTQ Film of the… Read More Winners of the 14th Dorian Film Awards, presented by GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Film Critics
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Set in Australia at the turn of the new millennium, writer-director Goran Stolevski’s sophomore feature Of An Age is an engaging and poignant portrait of two young men, Kol (Elias Anton) and Adam (Thom Green), who connect over a whirlwind 24 hours in the last few weeks of… Read More Review: Of An Age
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Being made to feel self-conscious about who are as a child is a hell of a thing. Belgian director Lukas Dhont powerfully explores this feeling in his Oscar-nominated coming of age drama Close, which tells the story of Léo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav de Waele), two 13-year-old… Read More Review: Close
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 Please note that this is a review of the Blu-ray release of Bros. For my full thoughts on the film itself, you can read my original review from TIFF right here. Following its world premiere at TIFF and release in theatres at the end of September, the Judd Apatow-produced rom-com Bros is… Read More Blu-ray Review: Bros (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Based on Michael Ausiello’s autobiographical book Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies, the point of the movie Spoiler Alert (and the book that preceded it) is to tell a sweeping love story where we already know the tragic outcome. The film succeeds at this with mostly satisfying but somewhat… Read More Review: Spoiler Alert
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 ★★★ (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 ★★★½ (out of 4) The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8th to 18th. Starring, co-written and executive produced by Billy Eichner, Bros is the first big romantic comedy from a major studio to focus on a gay couple, starring a cast of queer actors, and you know what? This… Read More #TIFF22 Review: Bros (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8th to 18th. The People’s Joker, which had its already infamous premiere at Midnight Madness the other night, is an ambitious art project that finds its creator Vera Drew messing around in the DC Comics universe to tell the… Read More #TIFF22 Review: The People’s Joker (Midnight Madness)
By John Corrado ★★★★ (out of 4) The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8th to 18th. Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, an adaptation of writer Samuel D. Hunter’s 2012 play, finds the director back in the same stripped down character study mode as his 2008 masterpiece The Wrestler. And where that film gave… Read More #TIFF22 Review: The Whale (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8th to 18th. Documentary filmmaker Elegance Bratton makes his narrative directorial debut with The Inspection, a good autobiographical drama that he wrote based on his own experiences as a young gay black man joining the Marine Corps to try… Read More #TIFF22 Review: The Inspection (Discovery)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8th to 18th. Something You Said Last Night, the evocative debut film from writer-director Luis De Filippis, follows an Italian-Canadian family on vacation in a beach town. Ren (Carmen Madonia) and her younger sister Siena (Paige Evans) are spending… Read More #TIFF22 Review: Something You Said Last Night (Discovery)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8th to 18th. The title character in Rosie, the feature debut of Métis filmmaker Gail Maurice, is an Indigenous girl (Keris Hope Hill) living in Montreal in the 1980s, who gets taken in by her Francophone aunt Frédèrique (Mélanie… Read More #TIFF22 Review: Rosie (Discovery)
The Joy of Movies 