By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival ran from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto This is Going to Be Big is a very heartwarming and inspiring documentary that follows a group of neurodiverse high schoolers in Australia preparing for a school play, and is refreshingly told from the perspectives of the… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: This is Going to Be Big
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto In 2003, a collective of eight artists in Rhode Island stealthily moved into a hidden space within the Providence Place Mall, and lived there undetected for four years. The story of their elaborate ruse is told in… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: Secret Mall Apartment
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto The documentary Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story is a very sweet and beautifully filmed portrait of a childless couple and the wild otter they adopt into their lives. Billy and his wife Susan live in… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto In their documentary Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted, co-directors Isaac Gale and Ryan Olson take us into the world of Swamp Dogg, an aging musician with a storied, unconventional career. Born Jerry Williams, he adopted the… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto In his latest documentary, Canadian filmmaker Larry Weinstein offers a wide-ranging exploration of the enduring legacy of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, a piece that has remained recognizable over the past two hundred years with its fourth movement Ode… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: Beethoven’s Nine: Ode to Humanity
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto Maria Gros Vatne and her husband Nik Payne were homeschooling their four kids on a farm in Norway, giving their children a free-range upbringing that included growing their own food and subsisting off the land as much… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: A New Kind of Wilderness
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto Barry Avrich’s Born Hungry is a wonderful portrait of Sash Simpson, and his journey from homeless street kid in India to top chef in Toronto. Sash’s earliest memories are of getting lost in India and being unable… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: Born Hungry
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto In their documentary Daughters, co-directors Natalie Rae and Angela Patton offer a moving, tender look at a daddy-daughter dance for girls whose fathers are in prison. Patton is the creator of Date with Dad, a program run… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: Daughters
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto Standing on the edge of a cliff or tall building and taking the leap with only a parachute or wingsuit to catch you might not be everyone’s idea of a good time. But it’s the regular pursuit… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: Fly
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto In her latest documentary Look Into My Eyes, Director Lana Wilson (Miss Americana) introduces us to a selection of New York City psychics as well as their clients. While psychics are usually thought to be the domain… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: Look Into My Eyes
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto What if the designs on playing cards actually represent the answer to a long-lost mystery about the real cause of death for France’s King Charles VIII? This is the question that the Vancouver sleight-of-hand magician Shawn Farquhar… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: Lost in the Shuffle
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto Director David Hinton’s expansive new documentary Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger offers an absorbing mix of film essay and tribute to these cinematic masters, guided by Martin Scorsese’s enlightening narration. Hinton’s documentary offers… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto Gorgeously shot on 35mm film, Irish filmmaker Ken Wardrop’s latest documentary So This is Christmas is a tender portrait of lonely people in Ireland trying to make it through the holidays. The observational film goes beyond showing… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: So This is Christmas
By John Corrado Please note that this is a review of the 4K Ultra HD release of Mean Girls (2024). For my full thoughts on the film itself, you can read my original review right here. This musical reimagining of Mean Girls, the modern classic teen comedy from 2004, is receiving a 4K Ultra HD… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Mean Girls (2024)
By John Corrado The high school comedy Mean Girls was released in theatres exactly twenty years ago today on April 30th, 2004, and Paramount is marking the occasion by releasing the film for the first time on 4K Ultra HD, in a brand new 20th anniversary edition. The film, which just received a musical remake… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Mean Girls (2004): 20th Anniversary Edition
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto Director Pamela Hogan’s documentary The Day Iceland Stood Still recounts the events of October 24th, 1975, when the majority of women in Iceland decided to protest by taking the day off work, to prove their importance to… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: The Day Iceland Stood Still
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto Directed by Michel Gondry’s friend and longtime assistant François Nemeta, the documentary Michel Gondry, Do It Yourself provides a delightful retrospective of the French music video director turned filmmaker’s career, and a joyful ode to the creative… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: Michel Gondry, Do It Yourself
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto During the COVID-19 lockdowns in England, out-of-work actors turned gamers Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen found themselves spending their days playing Grand Theft Auto, and decided to stage a production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet entirely within the… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: Grand Theft Hamlet
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto In Echo of You, filmmaker Zara Zerny interviews a variety of elderly people in Denmark (both straight and gay) who have lost their life partners. They reminisce about how they met, the longevity of their relationships, how… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: Echo of You
By John Corrado The 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto In the New York Times short documentary My Disability Road Map, Samuel Habib and his filmmaker dad Dan offered a wonderful portrait of trying to navigate the world as a young adult with a physical disability, who… Read More #HotDocs24 Review: The Ride Ahead
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