By John Corrado The latest film directed by Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone (Gomorrah), the Oscar-nominated International Feature Io Capitano largely serves as a dramatization of the challenges faced by African refugees who make the long, perilous trek to reach the shores of Europe. The film tells the fictional story of Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and Moussa… Read More Movie Review: Io Capitano
By John Corrado Please note that this is a review of the 4K Ultra HD release of Wonka. For my full thoughts on the film itself, you can read my original review right here. Fashioned as a prequel to the 1971 Gene Wilder film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Paddington director Paul King’s Wonka… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Wonka
By John Corrado The latest animated feature from Illumination (the studio behind the Despicable Me movies), Migration is the story of a family of ducks living on a peaceful lake who venture out into the world. And it’s honestly pretty cute. Mack (Kumail Nanjiani) and Pam (Elizabeth Banks) are parents to ducklings Dax (Caspar Jennings)… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Migration (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado The feature directorial debut of Canadian filmmaker Meredith Hama-Brown, Seagrass is a patient character drama that captures the slow deterioration of a biracial family unit. Judith (Ally Maki) is a Japanese-Canadian woman who is experiencing difficulties in her marriage to non-Asian husband Steve (Luke Roberts). These challenges are amplified by Judith’s mother… Read More Movie Review: Seagrass
By John Corrado The Taste of Things, the latest work from French-Vietnamese filmmaker Trần Anh Hùng who was awarded the Best Director prize at Cannes for his work, is a piece of high-class “food porn” mixed with a swooning, bittersweet culinary romance. In the grand tradition of other “foodie” films, The Taste of Things offers many beautifully… Read More Review: The Taste of Things
By John Corrado The 1984 film Footloose is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and Paramount is honouring the occasion by releasing it for the first time on 4K Ultra HD this week. Kevin Bacon stars as Ren McCormack, the rebel kid from Chicago who moves to the small town of Bomont, where loud music… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Footloose: 40th Anniversary Edition
By John Corrado The Promised Land is a historical drama set in Denmark in the mid-1700s, with director Nikolaj Arcel spinning a near-epic tale out of a humble man trying to carve out his own piece of the land while going up against an arrogant nobleman. The protagonist is Captain Ludvig Kahlen (Mads Mikkelsen), who… Read More Review: The Promised Land
By John Corrado British filmmaker Molly Manning Walker’s directorial debut How to Have Sex, which won the Un Certain Regard prize at last year’s Cannes, is an often vibrant mix of party movie and subtle social commentary on the post-#MeToo generation. Walker’s film centres around Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce), Em (Enva Lewis) and Skye (Lara Peake), three… Read More Review: How to Have Sex
By John Corrado Fran (Daisy Ridley) is an office worker in Oregon who thinks a lot about dying. She sits in a daze at her cubicle, imagining her dead body decaying in the woods or being hung from the crane outside her window. Fran’s morbid daydreams provide the basis for the title of director Rachel… Read More Review: Sometimes I Think About Dying
By John Corrado The Teachers’ Lounge is Nominated for Best International Feature at the 96th Academy Awards Stolen cash leads to accusations of racial profiling and a growing culture of distrust between faculty and students in director Ilker Çatak’s Oscar-nominated film The Teachers’ Lounge, a tautly executed middle school drama that often moves like a… Read More Review: The Teachers’ Lounge
By John Corrado The latest work from Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania (the Oscar-nominated The Man Who Sold His Skin), the Oscar-nominated documentary Four Daughters is a chilling and fascinating study of how radicalization takes hold. The film is formally audacious in its mix of documentary and dramatic reenactments, blending subjects and actors to tell… Read More Review: Four Daughters
By John Corrado Estonian filmmaker Anna Hints’ artful, unconventional documentary Smoke Sauna Sisterhood follows a group of women in Southern Estonia, who are gathered together in a traditional smoke sauna hidden deep in the woods. Shot over several years, Hints follows a variety of subjects over the backdrop of changing seasons. As they sit naked… Read More Review: Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
By John Corrado Director Thomas von Steinaecker’s documentary Radical Dreamer: Werner Herzog offers an enjoyable overview of the iconic German filmmaker’s career, known both for his accent and bold, inquisitive filmmaking style. The documentary chronologically explores Herzog’s early films as part of the New German Cinema movement, which gave way to his reputation as a… Read More Review: Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer
By John Corrado The title of Memory, the latest film from Mexican writer-director Michel Franco, takes on a few different meanings throughout the course of this tender, stripped down character drama. It refers to repressed memories and the lingering impacts of childhood trauma that Sylvia (Jessica Chastain) carries with her every day, as well as… Read More Review: Memory
By John Corrado Ava DuVernay’s Origin is an ambitious film that aims to adapt Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson’s bestselling non-fiction book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents for the screen. It serves as both an exploration of the ideas within Wilkerson’s book, and a dramatization of Isabel’s experiences while writing it. DuVernay’s film finds… Read More Review: Origin
By John Corrado The third film in DreamWorks Animation’s popular Trolls franchise, Trolls Band Together explores more of this vibrant animated world, while adding a slew of boyband jokes into the mix. The story revolves around Poppy (Anna Kendrick) discovering that her boyfriend Branch (Justin Timberlake) used to be a member of the boyband BroZone,… Read More Blu-ray Review: Trolls Band Together (Sing-Along Edition)
By John Corrado The 1999 coming-of-age sports movie Varsity Blues is now available for the first time on 4K Ultra HD, in honour of the film’s 25th anniversary this month. The film is set in West Canaan, Texas, a fictional all-American small town that revolves around their high school football team, the Coyotes. James Van… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Varsity Blues
By John Corrado It’s been twenty years since Tina Fey released her high school satire Mean Girls in 2004, and now we have a new version of the modern teen classic being released in theatres. Directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. (taking over for Mark Waters who directed the 2004 film), the 2024… Read More Review: Mean Girls
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The latest work from writer-director Andrew Haigh, whose 2011 breakout film Weekend remains an essential piece of queer cinema, All of Us Strangers is a tender, dreamlike meditation on grief and loneliness. Working from the 1987 Japanese novel Strangers by Taichi Yamada, Haigh’s film is a ghost story… Read More Review: All of Us Strangers
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) When Paul King stepped away from directing the third Paddington movie to direct a Willy Wonka origin story, after helming the critically acclaimed first two movies about the bear from Peru, it seemed like a curious move. But the moral of Wonka is that we never should have… Read More Review: Wonka
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