Kenneth Turan Movie Reviews & Previews

Critics » Kenneth Turan

Kenneth Turan

Agrees with the Tomatometer 79% of the time.

Publications:: Journal News (Westchester, NY) , Los Angeles Daily News , Los Angeles Times , Newsday , NPR's Morning Edition
Critics' Group:: Los Angeles Film Critics Association, National Society of Film Critics

Total Reviews:: 1636

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Showing 1 - 50 of 1636

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
2.5/5	41%	Dark Shadows (2012)	" An uncertain combination of elements that unsuccessfully tries to be half-scary, half-funny and all strange..." — Los Angeles Times Posted May 10, 2012
4/5	95%	First Position (2012)	" These performers are so young, so serious, so full of dreams and so hard on themselves that it is difficult not to be moved by their striving." — Los Angeles Times Posted May 3, 2012
4/5	93%	Marvel's The Avengers (2012)	" Whedon is the key reason why this $220-million behemoth of a movie is smartly thought out and executed with verve and precision. It may be overly long at two hours, 23 minutes, but so much is going on you might not even notice." — Los Angeles Times Posted May 2, 2012
3.5/5	89%	The Pruitt-igoe Myth: An Urban History (2012)	" The personal stories told by former residents add a poignancy to the broad trends the film examines." — Los Angeles Times Posted Apr 26, 2012
4/5	87%	The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012)	" A clever piece of business that is a complete pleasure to experience." — Los Angeles Times Posted Apr 26, 2012
4/5	93%	Headhunters (2012)	" "Headhunters" is a dark adult entertainment, a wild and bloody adrenaline rush of a movie that deals in gleeful grotesqueness and over-the-top implausibilities." — Los Angeles Times Posted Apr 26, 2012
4/5	81%	Goodbye First Love (2012)	" When we watch Hansen-L�ve's films, we're not only experiencing a life unfolding before us, we're also realizing what a great privilege it is to be able to do that." — Los Angeles Times Posted Apr 19, 2012
4/5	94%	Marley (2012)	" The enormous popularity of the transcendent reggae superstar shows no signs of abating, a situation"Marley," a moving and authoritative new documentary, takes as its mission to illustrate and explain." — Los Angeles Times Posted Apr 19, 2012
4/5	100%	Scenes of a Crime (2012)	" If you watch "Scenes of a Crime" - and you very much should - be prepared to be outraged." — Los Angeles Times Posted Apr 12, 2012
4/5	96%	Monsieur Lazhar (2012)	" This film deals almost casually with a range of issues and themes, handling with a light and even affectionate touch weighty subjects like grief, guilt, community and love." — Los Angeles Times Posted Apr 12, 2012
4/5	98%	The Island President (2012)	" "The Island President"is heartening and unsettling by turns." — Los Angeles Times Posted Apr 5, 2012
3.5/5	83%	Comic-Con: Episode IV - A Fan's Hope (2012)	" "A Fan's Hope" is a look at the annual San Diego convention that is sweetly empathetic where previous Spurlock works have been brash and confrontational. Plus, it's a lot of fun." — Los Angeles Times Posted Apr 4, 2012
4/5	87%	Bully (2012)	" If you feel like you've already read quite a bit about the documentary "Bully," you have. But that still won't prepare you for the experience of seeing it." — Los Angeles Times Posted Mar 29, 2012
4/5	79%	The Deep Blue Sea (2012)	" Exceptionally well-made and completely fearless in its depiction of the widest range of romantic emotions, this is a film as fiercely committed to passion as its heroine, and that's saying a lot." — Los Angeles Times Posted Mar 22, 2012
3.5/5	84%	The Hunger Games (2012)	" If, as the ads suggest, the whole world will be watching this, viewers will likely be satisfied with what they see." — Los Angeles Times Posted Mar 21, 2012
4/5	98%	Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2012)	" "Jiro Dreams of Sushi"is as elegant and tasty as the splendid sushi prepared by the man in the title, and that is saying a lot" — Los Angeles Times Posted Mar 15, 2012
4/5	91%	Footnote (2012)	" This is brainy, bravura filmmaking of the highest level, a motion picture that is as difficult to pigeonhole as it is a pleasure to enjoy." — Los Angeles Times Posted Mar 15, 2012
4/5	82%	The Salt of Life (2012)	" Rueful, funny and wise, "The Salt of Life" is a comedy not of errors but of the tiniest of missteps." — Los Angeles Times Posted Mar 8, 2012
2/5	56%	The Lorax (2012)	" This movie version adds a whole lot of other stuff, most of it not very good and not in keeping with the spirit of the Seuss original." — Los Angeles Times Posted Mar 1, 2012
4/5	100%	This Is Not a Film (2012)	" Fascinating for what it signifies as much as what it shows, "This Is Not a Film" illustrates how Panahi is struggling to stay alive creatively and, paradoxically, can't help but demonstrate how much of a natural filmmaker he is." — Los Angeles Times Posted Mar 1, 2012
2.5/5	25%	Act of Valor (2012)	" While the action is always crisp and to the point, the rest of the storytelling and the acting that goes along with it are pro forma at best." — Los Angeles Times Posted Feb 23, 2012
4/5	94%	The Secret World of Arrietty (2012)	" Beautiful, gentle and pure - but not without elements of genuine menace - it will make believers out of adults and children alike." — Los Angeles Times Posted Feb 16, 2012
4/5	95%	Undefeated (2012)	" "Undefeated" presents itself as a look at a single season in the life of a striving high school football team in impoverished North Memphis, Tenn., but really it's about so much more." — Los Angeles Times Posted Feb 16, 2012
4/5	83%	Bullhead (2012)	" Starts out like a thriller and turns into a disturbing tragedy in an unlikely and unexpected key." — Los Angeles Times Posted Feb 16, 2012
3.5/5	54%	Safe House (2012)	" It ... shows how much can be done with a business-as-usual CIA-thriller script when it's bolstered by effective acting and expert direction." — Los Angeles Times Posted Feb 9, 2012
4/5	84%	Crazy Horse (2012)	" It is a deft revelation of shared humanity, the kind of thing no one does better than Frederick Wiseman." — Los Angeles Times Posted Feb 2, 2012
4/5	94%	Pina (2011)	" Whether you're familiar with Pina Bausch's work or not, the new film "Pina" is a knockout." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jan 12, 2012
4/5	83%	In Heaven Underground: The Weissensee Jewish Cemetery (2011)	" A playful, poetic and all-around charming documentary, an off-center look at an unusual institution." — Los Angeles Times Posted Jan 12, 2012
4/5	99%	A Separation (2011)	" It's a thrilling domestic drama that offers acute insights into human motivations and behavior as well as a compelling look at what goes on behind a particular curtain that almost never gets raised." — Los Angeles Times Posted Dec 29, 2011
2.5/5	55%	In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011)	" Unfortunately, "Blood and Honey" has script problems: Its core story is less compelling than its overall atmosphere." — Los Angeles Times Posted Dec 22, 2011
2.5/5	87%	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)	" This film's cold, almost robotic conception of Salander as a twitchy, anorexic waif feels more like a stunt than a complete character, and so the best part of the reason we care enough to endure all that mayhem has gone away." — Los Angeles Times Posted Dec 20, 2011
3.5/5	72%	Carnage (2011)	" This kind of material is never going to warm anyone's heart, but done as well as it is here, this pitiless verbal farce can provide bleak satisfactions of its own." — Los Angeles Times Posted Dec 15, 2011
3.5/5	93%	Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol (2011)	" Bird has done a stylish and involving job here, turning in an entertaining production that's got considerable visual flair, especially in its action-heavy Imax sections." — Los Angeles Times Posted Dec 15, 2011
4/5	76%	We Need to Talk About Kevin (2012)	" It's a domestic horror story that literally gets to us where we live, a disturbing tale told with uncompromising emotionality and great skill by filmmaker Lynne Ramsay." — Los Angeles Times Posted Dec 9, 2011
—	58%	Edge of Darkness (2010)	— Los Angeles Times Posted Dec 9, 2011
4/5	90%	In Darkness (2012)	" In a world where everyone was looking for an angle, hoping to survive the nightmare and maybe even turn other people's misery into a tidy profit, the fact that a fragile humanity survived at all is little short of a miracle." — Los Angeles Times Posted Dec 8, 2011
4/5	83%	Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)	" This is a film to which very close attention must be paid, but the rewards of doing so are considerable." — Los Angeles Times Posted Dec 8, 2011
4/5	80%	Shame (2011)	" This is a psychologically claustrophobic film that strips its characters bare literally and figuratively, leaving them, and us, nowhere to hide." — Los Angeles Times Posted Dec 1, 2011
3/5	54%	Crazy Wisdom (2011)	" Demetrakas has decided to simply present the man in all his demanding complexities and let him and his encounters with associates speak for themselves." — Los Angeles Times Posted Dec 1, 2011
4/5	98%	The Artist (2011)	" "The Artist" is the wonder of the age, as much a miracle as "Avatar," though it comes at things from the totally opposite direction." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 25, 2011
3.5/5	94%	Hugo (2011)	" "Films have the power to capture dreams," M�li�s said, and the way they've captured Scorsese's can't be denied." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 22, 2011
3.5/5	78%	A Dangerous Method (2011)	" It's fascinating to see the exceptionally charismatic Fassbender squeeze himself into the role of the aristocratic, restrained Jung, and it's just as enjoyable to see Mortensen bring an unexpected virility to his sybaritic, cigar-chomping Freud." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 22, 2011
4/5	86%	Eames: The Architect And The Painter (2011)	" There couldn't be a better time to examine the complex and absorbing history of this designing couple, and "Eames: The Architect and the Painter" couldn't be a better vehicle for that examination." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 17, 2011
2/5	44%	Happy Feet Two (2011)	" It's hard to resist dancing penguins, but "Happy Feet Two" may make you want to try." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 17, 2011
—	82%	The Other Conquest (2007)	— Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 11, 2011
4/5	100%	An African Election (2011)	" The film team had a gift for being where the electoral action was, and for seeing what was transpiring with an astute eye." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 11, 2011
4/5	73%	The Conquest (2011)	" A smart, involving and strikingly adult drama about Sarkozy's rise to power..." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 10, 2011
4/5	44%	J. Edgar (2011)	" "J. Edgar" is a somber, enigmatic, darkly fascinating tale, and how could it be otherwise?" — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 8, 2011
3.5/5	80%	Pianomania (2011)	" All those months spent following Kn�pfer pay off in this crisis, because the filmmakers have complete access to the most sensitive artistic discussions." — Los Angeles Times Posted Nov 3, 2011

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