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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Star Wars: The Force Awakens takes place 30 years after Return of the Jedi. The evil Empire has been replaced by the even more ruthless First Order, and the Republic continues to fight the good fight.
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Creed is billed as a Rocky spinoff but it's actually something more interesting. It's a spiritual remake of the 1976 film that retells the original story in an unexpected and involving way.
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The new movie Spotlight is about the team of investigative reporters at the Boston Globe that broke the story of sexual abuse in Boston's Catholic Archdiocese.
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The movie is based on Emma Donoghue's best-selling book about a woman who's been kidnapped and had to raise her son in captivity. Room is directed by Irish filmmaker Lenny Abrahamson.
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Another movie about Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is in theaters. It is inspired by the best-selling biography that came out in 2011. The new biopic is simply called Steve Jobs.
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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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Fifty Shades of Grey is an R-rated fairy tale, a kind of Cinderella tale with restraints. It's about as believable as Jack and the Beanstalk but considerably kinkier in intent.
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The new documentary is not a film about Soviet-era military machines. It is the story of the legendary Soviet hockey team of the 1970s and 80s — one of the greatest dynasties in all of sports.