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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When Denzel Washington and director Anton Fuqua collaborated on 2001's Training Day, the film won Washington an Oscar and changed the trajectory of his career. They're together again in The Equalizer.
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The late author wrote close to 50 novels, and several of them, including Get Shorty and Out of Sight, were made into films. His 1978 book The Switch has been turned into a film called Life of Crime.
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Begin Again is the latest effort by John Carney. This film and his previous Once have so much in common that you can't help asking yourself, "Can lightning strike twice?"
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Ida is a Polish film about a young woman who was raised as an orphan in a convent. She's planning to take her vows as a nun when she discovers she's Jewish and her parents were killed by the Nazis.
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Transcendence is an ambitious and provocative film about the perils and pleasures of artificial intelligence that is intriguingly balanced between being a warning and a celebration.
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The crisp and efficient thriller Non-Stop benefits from the intangibles that Liam Neeson brings to the role of a U.S. air marshal dealing with a nightmare scenario.
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Child's Pose sounds like something elementary and easy, but don't be fooled. This stunning film from Romania, a ferocious psychological drama with the pace of a thriller, is anything but simple.
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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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In World War Z, Bradd Pitt saves the world from a zombie apocalypse. When Pitt's character gets stuck in a Philadelphia traffic jam with his family, that's when the apocalypse begins.
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In 1947, April 15 was the first day Jackie Robinson played baseball as a Brooklyn Dodger. The new movie 42 tells the story of how he integrated Major League Baseball.