Christopher Llewellyn Reed | Film Festival Today

Film Review: Fine Brushwork Can’t Hide the Forgery in “The Last Vermeer”

November 20, 2020

Film Review: In “The Test and the Art of Thinking,” We Get What We Designed

November 19, 2020

Film Review: In “Crazy Not Insane,” Knowledge Is Power

November 18, 2020

Film Review: In Inspiring “I Am Greta,” the Child Shall Lead

November 13, 2020

Film Review: “The Life Ahead” Offers Sophia Loren in High Melodrama

November 12, 2020

Film Review: “Chick Fight” Delivers Enough of a Punch to Entertain

November 12, 2020

10 Recommended Docs at DOC NYC 2020

November 11, 2020

Film Review: “Let Him Go” Offers Quiet Homage to the Western, Before All Hell Breaks Loose

November 5, 2020

Film Review: Intriguing Setup of “Come Play” Quickly Falters

October 30, 2020

Film Review: In Vivid “His House,” the Ghosts Are Real

October 29, 2020

Film Review: “Fire Will Come” Warms the Mind, If Not the Soul

October 29, 2020

TIFF Review: “A Pale View of Hills”
By Christopher Llewellyn Reed
September 15, 2025
A Pale View of Hills (Kei Ishikawa, 2025) 3 out of 5 stars Born in 1954 in Nagasaki, Japan, Nobel-prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro emigrated to England in 1960. His subsequent bicultural upbringing has given him a unique perspective on the world that has informed much of his writing, specializing in the emotional reserve that humans layer on top of experience to avoid looking closely at hard truths. His novels The Remains of the Day (1989) ... >>
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? ... >>

10 Picks for TIFF 2025
September 1, 2025
The 2025 Toronto International Film Festival (or TIFF) ...>>
Films to See at Fantasia 2025
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Five Films to See at Tribeca 2025
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Our Coverage of 2025 Oscar Nominees
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Last week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and ...>>