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 ★★★ (out of 4) Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All is a love story between Maren (Taylor Russell) and Lee (Timothée Chalamet), two lonely young cannibals who are both on the run from family problems and their own desires, when they meet on a road trip through the Midwest in the 1980s. After… Read More Review: Bones and All
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Strange World, the latest feature from Walt Disney Animation Studios, is a throwback to old school adventure movies from the 1930s to 1950s that works as a somewhat slight but mostly entertaining animated film. The film centres around the Clades, who are a legendary family of explorers. The… Read More Review: Strange World
By John Corrado In honour of its 35th anniversary this year, the 1987 John Hughes classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles is making its 4K Ultra HD debut this week from Paramount, just in time for American Thanksgiving. The film, of course, stars Steve Martin as Neal Page and John Candy as Del Griffith, two men… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Planes, Trains and Automobiles
By John Corrado Following a SteelBook Blu-ray release back in February, Paramount Home Entertainment is now releasing the 1992 comedy Wayne’s World for the first time on 4K Ultra HD in honour of the film’s 30th anniversary. Mike Myers and Dana Carvey star as Wayne and Garth, slacker hosts of the public-access TV show Wayne’s… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Wayne’s World: 30th Anniversary Edition
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Arriving fifteen years after Enchanted, Disney’s self-aware 2007 fairy tale that found an animated princess stumbling into our live action world, Disenchanted is a direct-to-streaming sequel that unfortunately struggles to recapture the same magic. Amy Adams reprises her role as Giselle, who left her home in the animated… Read More Disney+ Review: Disenchanted
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Spirited is far from the first adaptation of A Christmas Carol, let alone the first comedic or musical one. But the film, which serves as a full-on reimagining of the Charles Dickens story done as a modern musical complete with Broadway-style songs by Benji Pasek and Justin Paul… Read More Review: Spirited (Apple TV+)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The latest film from Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Bardo (full title Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths) finds the Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker in introspective mode and working in the Spanish language for the first time since Biutiful in 2010, to craft a semi-autobiographical tale of identity and belonging,… Read More Review: Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) How did Mickey Mouse go from lovable cartoon character to ubiquitous corporate symbol? That’s the question asked in the enjoyable Disney+ documentary Mickey: The Story of a Mouse, which explores the history of how Mickey’s visage – made out of three simple circles – has become one of… Read More Disney+ Review: Mickey: The Story of a Mouse
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The South African-set survival thriller Beast is a movie that is basically built around the prospect of seeing Idris Elba fight a lion. Sure, you could maybe argue there’s a little more to it, but barely, as the film’s pulpy thrills are essentially built around seeing man versus,… Read More Blu-ray Review: Beast (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Jerry & Marge Go Large is the vaguely “based on a true story” tale of Jerry Selbee (Bryan Cranston) and his wife Marge (Annette Bening), an older married couple who discover a loophole that lets them win the lottery every three weeks without fail. Jerry has just retired… Read More DVD Review: Jerry & Marge Go Large
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) How do you go about making a sequel to a blockbuster film when the star of said film has tragically and unexpectedly passed away? That’s the moral conundrum faced by director Ryan Coogler with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, a follow up to his 2018 Marvel film that arrives… Read More Review: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
By John Corrado To mark the film’s 45th anniversary this year, Paramount is releasing the classic Saturday Night Fever for the first time in 4K Ultra HD. Directed by John Badham, the 1977 film stars John Travolta in an Oscar-nominated role as Tony Manero, a working class Italian-American kid from Brooklyn who blows what money… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Saturday Night Fever: 45-Year Anniversary Edition
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) James Gray’s Armageddon Time finds the writer-director digging into his own childhood experiences to craft a mostly engaging coming of age story set during the Reagan-era. The year is 1980, and Paul Graff (Banks Repeta, playing the film’s stand-in for a young Gray) is an 11-year-old Jewish boy… Read More Review: Armageddon Time
By John Corrado Please note that this is a review of the 4K Ultra HD release of Top Gun: Maverick. For my full thoughts on the film itself, you can read my original theatrical review right here. It’s the biggest movie of the year so far, and now Top Gun: Maverick is arriving on 4K… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Top Gun: Maverick
By John Corrado Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and Universal Pictures Home Entertaining is releasing a new Blu-ray edition of the film in honour of this milestone. I first saw E.T. as a nine-year-old kid in 2002, when the film was released on DVD for the first time… Read More Blu-ray Review: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial: 40th Anniversary Edition
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Halloween Ends is the third film in director David Gordon Green’s reboot trilogy that began with Halloween in 2018, a legacy sequel that saw Jamie Lee Curtis return to the role of Laurie Strode, the babysitter who first evaded masked killer Michael Myers in John Carpenter’s 1978 original.… Read More Review: Halloween Ends
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Drinkwater is a 1980s-inspired Canadian coming of age film set in Penticton, B.C. that centres around Mike Drinkwater (Daniel Doheny), an awkward teen boy who wants to get the girl and hopefully get into college to get out of his small town. The Bruce Lee-obsessed Mike is stuck… Read More Review: Drinkwater
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Wendell & Wild, which is being released directly to Netflix for Halloween following its premiere at TIFF, is the latest stop motion film from director Henry Selick, the creative mastermind behind classics like The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline. This is Selick’s first film since the Neil Gaiman… Read More Review: Wendell & Wild (Netflix)
By John Corrado Please note that this is a review of the Blu-ray release of Nope. For my full thoughts on the film itself, you can read my original theatrical review right here. After being released in theatres over the summer, Universal Pictures is releasing Jordan Peele’s (Get Out, Us) third film Nope on Blu-ray… Read More Blu-ray Review: Nope (Collector’s Edition)
The Joy of Movies 