Christopher Llewellyn Reed | Film Festival Today

Film Review: In Moving “Sing Me a Song,” Past, Present and Future Collide

January 1, 2021

Christopher Llewellyn Reed’s Top 10 Films of 2020

December 28, 2020

Film Review: No Matter How You Spell It, “Tenet” Is a Dud

December 26, 2020

Film Review: Cute “We Can Be Heroes” Oversweetens a Bit, but Children Will Love It

December 25, 2020

Film Review: “Wonder Woman 1984” Is an Epic Fail

December 24, 2020

Film Review: “Soul” Mostly Crushes

December 23, 2020

Film Review: “The Midnight Sky” Never Shines

December 23, 2020

Film Review: Joyful and Fast-Paced “Give Me Liberty” Is Best at Slower Speeds

December 20, 2020

Film Review: Often Entertaining “Another Round” Doesn’t Quite Survive the Hangover

December 17, 2020

Film Review: “Wolfwalkers” Enchants with Unique Magic

December 10, 2020

Film Review: “Minari” Takes Strong Cinematic Root in Our Hearts

December 10, 2020

TIFF Interview: “Steal Away” Co-Writer Tamara Berger and Director Clement Virgo
By Christopher Llewellyn Reed
September 14, 2025
Toronto-based director Clement Virgo just premiered his latest feature, Steal Away, which he co-wrote with wife Tamara Berger, at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival (where I reviewed it). They previously collaborated on the 2005 Lie with Me. This new project is an adaptation of Karolyn Smardz Frost’s 2017 nonfiction book Steal Away Home and is set in a world that is neither the here nor the now, but possibly both, an amalgam of times ... >>
TIFF Review: “Franz”
By Christopher Llewellyn Reed
September 10, 2025
Franz (Agnieszka Holland, 2025) 4 out of 5 stars The writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924), though he died far too young (of tuberculosis), left behind a literary legacy that has lasted into our present. Works such as his story “In the Penal Colony,” his novella The Metamorphosis, and his novel The Trial have proved enormously influential, even though most of his works were only published after his death. We have his friend Max Brod to thank for us ... >>
TIFF Review: “Steal Away”
By Christopher Llewellyn Reed
September 9, 2025
Steal Away (Clement Virgo, 2025) 4 out of 5 stars Set in a land that exists outside of a specific era and place, yet suggestive of many different locations and moments (including the here and now), director Clement Virgo’s Steal Away plunges the viewer into a simultaneous idyll and nightmare. The freshness of youth—and youthful desire—runs directly into the brutality of human greed, destroying the innocent dreams of our teenage protagonists. ... >>
TIFF Review: “Good Boy”
By Christopher Llewellyn Reed
September 8, 2025
Good Boy (Jan Komasa, 2025) 3½ out of 5 stars Tommy is a problem child (young adult, really, at 19). A hard-drinking and drug-taking bully—violent and oversexed, to boot—he provides no service to the world beyond making a mess that others have to clean up. So if he were to vanish, who would miss him? ... >>
TIFF Review: “Wake Up Dead Man”
By Christopher Llewellyn Reed
September 7, 2025
Wake Up Dead Man (Rian Johnson, 2025) 3½ out of 5 stars With the 2019 film Knives Out, writer/director Rian Johnson (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) added the whodunit to his repertoire, continuing with the 2022 sequel, Glass Onion, and now the 2025 follow-up, Wake Up Dead Man. All three movies tell entirely standalone stories, with their only connecting tissue the presence of preening private detective Benoit Blanc (played each time by James Bond ... >>

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