By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Aaju Peter, the subject of filmmaker Lin Allluna’s documentary Twice Colonized (which recently had its world premiere as the opening night film of Hot Docs), is an Inuit lawyer who was born in Greenland, but moved to the Canadian Arctic. Living in Iqaluit, Aaju is perhaps most notable… Read More Review: Twice Colonized
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The rise and fall of Waterloo, Ontario tech company Research in Motion, and their once-mighty BlackBerry, is charted in Canadian director Matt Johnson’s energetic and fast-paced film BlackBerry. This latest feature from Johnson, who previously showed what he is capable of with his DIY indies Operation Avalanche and… Read More Review: BlackBerry
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Writer-director James Gunn completes his gonzo space adventure trilogy with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, a fitting end to the saga that plays with the same colourful mix of action, humour, and heart that made the first two movies such standouts of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And… Read More Review: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. This is the deceptively simple question being asked by the 11-year-old protagonist of Judy Blume’s classic 1970 novel of the same name, a book for middle school readers that was groundbreaking for its frank discussions of taboo topics ranging from religion… Read More Review: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Beau Is Afraid, the wildly ambitious, three-hour-long third film from writer-director Ari Aster, has been described as a “nightmare comedy,” and that’s a pretty apt description for what the filmmaker has cooked up this time around. I also saw the film last week and am still not entirely… Read More Review: Beau Is Afraid
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Director Daniel Goldhaber’s provocatively titled second feature How to Blow Up a Pipeline – which has garnered a lot of buzz since it premiered at TIFF last year, and also (unsurprisingly) stirred up controversy – is a tautly paced thriller following a group of eco-terrorists plotting to blow up… Read More Review: How to Blow Up a Pipeline
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The eighth feature from American indie auteur Kelly Reichardt, Showing Up is recognizably a part of her impressive oeuvre of slice-of-life films about ordinary people going about their lives in Oregon, while also adding some levity to it. The film stars Michelle Williams as Lizzy, a struggling sculptor… Read More Review: Showing Up
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) The feature directorial debut of Toronto filmmaker Joseph Amenta, Soft is a gritty and atmospheric coming-of-age film. It follows Julien (Matteus Lunot), Otis (Harlow Joy) and Tony (Zion Matheson), three adolescent kids in the city who are hanging out together over summer break. The kids, who are all… Read More Review: Soft
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Writer-director A.V. Rockwell’s debut feature A Thousand and One, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in January, is a mother-son drama defined by its complex lead character, with the filmmaker eschewing easy emotion for something far thornier. The film, which begins in the 1990s, centres around… Read More Review: A Thousand and One
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a movie based on the classic fantasy roleplaying game, and it offers a surprisingly enjoyable mix of comedy and adventure that has a fun, playing with a group of friends feel to it that I imagine will be quite appealing to… Read More Review: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Keanu Reeves returns to the titular role of John Wick in John Wick: Chapter 4, which doubles as the best entry yet in this already very good action movie franchise. This fourth instalment puts Reeves’ former assassin Wick, who is now a marked man, at the centre of… Read More Review: John Wick: Chapter 4
John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Brother, the Scarborough-set drama from writer-director Clement Virgo that is up for fourteen Canadian Screen Awards, follows two brothers, Francis (Aaron Pierre) and Michael (Lamar Johnson), over the course of more than a decade. Much of the film takes place in the 1990s, with the Jamaican-Canadian brothers living in… Read More Review: Brother
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Set in Toronto’s Tibetan community, Tenzin is a Canadian social issue drama that takes a moody, minimalistic approach to telling a story and exploring its themes. Directed by Michael LeBlanc and Josh Reichmann, the film centres around Tenzin (Tenzin Kelsang), a young Tibetan man dealing with the grief… Read More Review: Tenzin
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) After older brother Peter Farrelly, one half of the 1990s and 2000s comedy titans the Farrelly Brothers, went solo to direct the Oscar-winning Green Book, younger brother Bobby Farrelly now branches out on his own with the feel-good sports movie Champions. A remake of the 2018 Spanish film… Read More Review: Champions
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Scream VI is a direct sequel to last year’s quasi-reboot Scream, which served as a belated continuation of Wes Craven’s original slasher series and passed the torch to a new cast of characters. Like last year’s “requel” (or whatever you want to call it), Scream VI is co-directed… Read More Review: Scream VI
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) The first film in the Irish language to be nominated for Best International Feature at the Oscars, The Quiet Girl is a tender and poignant coming of age film that shows a painfully shy young girl finally blossoming in the right care, and it’s a thing of quiet… Read More Review: The Quiet Girl
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Shot on a tight budget in Alberta, Guitar Lessons is a small Canadian drama from writer-director Aaron James (Hank Williams First Nation). The film stars Canadian country singer Corb Lund in his first leading role as Ray Mitchell, a former musician turned ornery oilfield worker who is befriended… Read More Review: Guitar Lessons
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) The latest film from M. Night Shyamalan, Knock at the Cabin is an adaptation of Paul G. Tremblay’s 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World. Shyamalan has crafted the material into a solid chamber piece thriller that is infused with Biblical allegories, and builds tension… Read More Review: Knock at the Cabin
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) Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is the 31st film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (the first in Phase Five), and I’d have to give a few others a rewatch to say for sure, but it might just be the weakest and most disappointing entry yet in the long-running… Read More Review: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
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