Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan is the film critic for the Los Angeles Times and NPR's Morning Edition, as well as the director of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. He has been a staff writer for the Washington Post and TV Guide, and served as the Times' book review editor.
A graduate of Swarthmore College and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, he is the co-author of Call Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke. He teaches film reviewing and non-fiction writing at USC and is on the board of directors of the National Yiddish Book Center. His most recent books are the University of California Press' Sundance to Sarajevo: Film Festivals and the World They Made and Never Coming To A Theater Near You, published by Public Affairs Press.
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A new documentary tells the story of the first all-female crew to enter the Whitbread Round the World sailing race in 1989. The crew was led by a 24-year-old and the boat was called Maiden.
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There has already been a high-profile documentary about Edward Snowden. Now comes a drama from a filmmaker known for dramatizing the Vietnam war and the Kennedy assassination.
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Jeff Nichols has made a few other films, but his latest, Midnight Special, is him moving up to another level — reminiscent of Steven Spielberg, says our film critic.
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Meet the Patels began as a home movie and ended up a warm and funny feature. It is a humorous new documentary about a first generation Indian-American man trying to find a wife.
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The Los Angeles Times and Morning Edition film critic, Kenneth Turan, reviews "Southpaw," a new movie about a boxing champion starring Jake Gyllenhaal and directed by Antoine Fuqua.
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The British drama is based on the best-selling World War I memoir of Vera Brittain, who gives up her studies at Oxford to enlist as a nurse in the war.
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The movie is based on the 2010 nonfiction book by Laura Hillenbrand about a U.S. Olympic track star who survives a plane crash during World War II only to be taken prisoner by the Japanese.
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Wadjda tells the story of a 10-year-old Saudi girl determined to have a bicycle in a culture that frowns on female riding. Writer-director Haifaa al-Mansour says she wanted to put a human face on the situation of women in Saudi Arabia, where driving is not permitted.
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The big movie opening this week is Pacific Rim. Morning Edition's critic says that it has plenty of explosions and special effects — but there's more to it than most blockbusters this summer.
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The story of Jack and his beanstalk has been filmed innumerable times by people as diverse as Gene Kelly, Chuck Jones and the Three Stooges. While he's been through the Hollywood shuffle before, there's never been a Jack tale that's delivered so little pleasure for so many dollars.