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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Book fans can be picky about how Hollywood treats their favorite reads. How does a new movie of Marc Helprin's Winter's Tale fare? (This story originally aired onMorning Editionon Feb. 17.)
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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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"Los Angeles Times" and "Morning Edition" movie critic Kenneth Turan calls the Sundance standout "Like Crazy" a simple love story. It's about a young couple divided by geography.
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Roman Polanski's deliciously unsettling new film, The Ghost Writer, is a dark pearl of a movie, made with the flair and precision of a director suddenly returned to the height of his powers. Kenneth Turan says it could spark a creative renaissance for the controversial filmmaker.
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The new movie Coraline is the story of a little girl who follows a secret passage into an alternate universe. It is the first stop-motion animated film to be conceived and shot in 3-D.
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Tell No One is a French thriller that was a hit in Europe, but it had a hard time finding distribution in the United States. Now it's been out for some weeks, and its audience is growing through strong word-of-mouth.
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TV's beloved secret-agent spoof gets a big-screen update — but like its bumbling hero, the film is constantly trying to be something it's not. The result: an unfunny comedy spliced with an unexciting spy caper.
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Critic Kenneth Turan says Marvel Entertainment's resurrection of The Incredible Hulk is solid and efficient, if not particularly adventurous. And it has a problem ending.
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Morning Edition and Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan reviews The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, the second installment of the fantasy series by C.S. Lewis to be adapted into a film.
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Brilliant arms-merchant playboy dons advanced battle armor to save the world from evil plot. Latest Marvel Comics adaptation wants to be this summer's first blockbuster, but it's too overloaded for takeoff.