About chrisreedfilm
Christopher Llewellyn Reed is a film critic, filmmaker, and educator. A member of the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA) and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, he is lead film critic at hammertonail.com, an online magazine devoted to independent cinema; a regular film critic here at filmfestivaltoday.com; the host of Dragon Digital Media’s award-winning "Reel Talk with Christopher Llewellyn Reed"; a film commentator for the "Roughly Speaking” podcast with Dan Rodricks at "The Baltimore Sun"; and the author of "Film Editing: Theory and Practice." In addition, he is one of three co-creators, along with Summre Garber of Slamdance and Bart Weiss of Dallas VideoFest, of "The Fog of Truth" (fogoftruth.com) – available on iTunes, SoundCloud and Stitcher – a podcast devoted to documentary cinema.
Galveston (Mélanie Laurent, 2018) 2½ out of 4 stars. Galveston, based on the eponymous book by Nic Pizzolatto and directed by Mélanie Laurent (Diving), is both a stylish slow-burn of a noirish thriller, meticulously acted by a cast that includes Ben … Continue reading →
Posted in Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Film Reviews, Specialty Releases
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Tagged Arnaud Potier, Beau Bridges, Ben Foster, chrisreedfilm, Christopher Llewellyn Reed, crime, drama, Elle Fanning, film noir, Galveston, Melanie Laurent, mob, Nic Pizzolatto, noir, road movie, thriller
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First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018) 2½ out of 4 stars. A slow, meditative look at America’s great space program of the 1960s, First Man is long on family drama and short on action, but this is not always a bad thing, except … Continue reading →
Posted in Breaking, Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Film Reviews
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Tagged Apollo, Apollo 11, chrisreedfilm, Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Claire Foy, Damien Chazelle, First Man, Gemini, Gemini 8, Janet Armstrong, moon landing, NASA, Neil Armstrong, Ryan Gosling, space program
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22 July (Paul Greengrass, 2018) 3 out of 4 stars. It takes a certain kind of masochist to embrace the cinematic adaptation of a horrific real-life event. This does not make Paul Greengrass (Jason Bourne), the director of 22 July – a retelling … Continue reading →
Posted in Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Film Reviews, Specialty Releases
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Tagged 22 July, chrisreedfilm, Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Jens Stoltenberg, Netflix, Norway, Norway attacks, Ola G. Furuseth, Oslo, Paul Greengrass, Utoya
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Venom (Ruben Fleischer, 2018) 1 out of 4 stars. Listen up: I have a really interesting idea for a movie. Imagine a human character inhabited by a super-intelligent, super-sensory and super-strong being, using its body as host, who initially rejects the … Continue reading →
Posted in Breaking, Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Film Reviews
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Tagged chrisreedfilm, Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Leigh Wannel, Marvel, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Ruben Fleischer, Tom Hardy, Upgrade, Venom
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Monsters and Men (Reinaldo Marcus Green, 2018) 4 out of 4 stars. A filmic triptych of intersecting lives in a Brooklyn neighborhood riven by the police shooting of an unarmed African-American man, Monsters and Men evokes powerful emotions with remarkable narrative economy. … Continue reading →
Posted in Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Film Reviews, Specialty Releases
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Tagged Anthony Ramos, chrisreedfilm, Christopher Llewellyn Reed, John David Washington, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Monsters and Men, NYPD, Patrick Scola, police, police brutality, police shooting, Reinaldo Marcus Green
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A Star Is Born (Bradley Cooper, 2018) 2½ out of 4 stars. How one reacts to Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born will very much depend on one’s tolerance for maudlin sentimentality mixed with romance. A fan of Puccini’s opera La Bohème, … Continue reading →
The Hate U Give (George Tillman Jr., 2018) 3 out of 4 stars. Based on the eponymous 2017 young-adult novel by Angie Thomas, itself inspired by the late rapper Tupac Shakur’s THUG LIFE tattoo (Shakur said the letters stood for “The … Continue reading →
Posted in Breaking, Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Film Reviews
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Tagged Algee Smith, Amandla Stenberg, Angie Thomas, Audrey Wells, chrisreedfilm, Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Common, George Tillman Jr., Issa Rae, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, The Hate U Give, The Talk, Tupac Shakur
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Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. (Steve Loveridge, 2018) 4 out of 4 stars. In a rousing documentary profile of Sri Lankan-born activist and hip-hop performer M.I.A., director Steve Loveridge (making his feature debut) – a friend of hers since their mutual time in a London art … Continue reading →
Posted in Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Film Reviews, Specialty Releases
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Tagged Arulpragasam, Bad Girls, Born Free, chrisreedfilm, Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Galang, hip hop, M.I.A., Matangi Arulpragasam, Matangi/Maya/M.I.A., Mathangi Arulpragasam, Maya Arulpragasam, Sri Lanka, Steve Loveridge, Sunshowers, Tamil, Tamils
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Fahrenheit 11/9 (Michael Moore, 2018) 3½ out of 4 stars. A frequently effective, but often equally undisciplined filmmaker, Michael Moore has made his share of powerful indictments of the deep inequalities at the root of these United States, among them Roger … Continue reading →
Posted in Breaking, Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Film Reviews
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Tagged 45th president, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ben Ferencz, chrisreedfilm, Christopher Llewellyn Reed, documentary, Donald J. Trump, Flint, Flint Water Crisis, Hillary Clinton, Leni Riefenstahl, michael moore, Nazis, Rashida Tlaib, Richard Ojeda, Triumph of the Will, United States
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Following my piece on my favorite documentaries at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), here are my Top 5 favorite fiction features, in alphabetical order, again with brief capsule reviews of each, most of which are adaptations of longer … Continue reading →
Posted in Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Featured, FFT Festival Coverage, Film Reviews
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Tagged 3 Faces, Adina Pintilie, Barry Jenkins, Beale Street, Behnaz Jafari, Beirut, Benedikt Erlingsson, Capernaum, Capharnaüm, chrisreedfilm, Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Den tid på året, Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, Iceland, If Beale Street Could Talk, Jafar Panahi, james baldwin, Kiki Layne, Kona fer í stríð, Les Salopes or the Naturally Wanton Pleasure of Skin, Loro, Nadine Labaki, narrative features, Paolo Sorrentino, Paprika Steen, Renée Beaulieu, Se rokh, Sofie Gråbøl, Stephan James, That Time of Year, TIFF, TIFF2018, toronto international film festival, Touch Me Not, Woman at War
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