Ella Taylor Movie Reviews & Previews

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Ella Taylor

Agrees with the Tomatometer 74% of the time.

Publications:: City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul , L.A. Weekly , Los Angeles Times , New York Times , NPR , NPR.org , The Atlantic , Village Voice
Critics' Group:: Los Angeles Film Critics Association

Total Reviews:: 928

Best Reviewed Films

Showing 1 - 50 of 791

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
5/5	57%	Last Days (2005)	" Van Sant's startlingly beautiful and original film serves precisely to rescue Cobain from the clutches of the mawkish biopic that, sooner or later, will be made about him." — L.A. Weekly Posted Jul 21, 2005
4.5/5	32%	Pretty Persuasion (2005)	" This is a very funny film about a creepy, excruciatingly lonely world." — L.A. Weekly Posted Aug 11, 2005
	97%	Mugabe and the White African (2010)	" Tthis incendiary documentary showcases Mugabe's corrupt use of land reform to further polarize a fragile nation already divided along racial lines." — Village Voice Posted Jul 20, 2010
	85%	Kisses (2010)	" The movie's ending may be less satisfying than that of Slumdog Millionaire, but Kisses is truer to the tragedy of a generation of children whom we have utterly failed." — Village Voice Posted Jul 13, 2010
	96%	Restrepo (2010)	" The warrior drama unfolds organically, without artificial suspense." — Village Voice Posted Jun 22, 2010
	80%	Cyrus (2010)	" A freakishly engrossing black comedy about excessively mothered men and the women who enable them." — Village Voice Posted Jun 15, 2010
	70%	Ondine (2010)	" Ondine plumbs the country's most resonant fairy tale and plays impishly along the borders of postcard fantasies of Ireland." — NPR.org Posted Jun 3, 2010
	94%	Whiz Kids (2010)	" Dwelling as much on setbacks and hurdles as on the glitter of competition, this quietly absorbing film is finally more about character formation -- curiosity, persistence, endurance -- than about achievement as a means to some extrinsic social end." — Village Voice Posted Jun 1, 2010
	96%	Breathless (À bout de souffle) (By a Tether) (1961)	" Breathless makes alienation look like it was a lot more fun in 1960 than in the ponderous gravitas or ante-upping brutality of indie film today." — Village Voice Posted May 26, 2010
	91%	The Father of My Children (Le pere de mes enfants) (2010)	" Hansen-Loveâ(TM)s fevered mix of love and resentment toward this man lends urgency and eros to his professional and personal unraveling." — Village Voice Posted May 26, 2010
	90%	The Oath (2010)	" In its roundabout way, this usefully meandering documentary probes the enduring stain of Guantánamo on its victims and on America." — Village Voice Posted May 4, 2010
	73%	Children Of Invention (2010)	" The young director Tze Chun is not a flashy filmmaker, but he understands the vulnerability of immigrant workers in the sleazy sub-rosa economies of a floundering 21st-century America." — Village Voice Posted Mar 9, 2010
	91%	The Secret of Kells (2010)	" Flowery meadows, wafting dandelion clocks, packs of baying wolves -- all are grist for the film's palette of beauty." — City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul Posted Mar 2, 2010
	92%	American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein (2010)	" "American radical" may be a misnomer for an intellectual whose life, thought, and rhetoric have been forcefully shaped by a mother whose concentration-camp experience turned her into a fiery booster for every available underdog." — Village Voice Posted Feb 9, 2010
	97%	Ajami (2010)	" Untidy, despairing, oddly exhilarating." — Village Voice Posted Feb 2, 2010
	87%	Off And Running (2010)	" Opper doesn't angle for a climactic group hug, but she sticks around long enough to allow us to exhale while this intelligent young woman begins to set herself, quite literally, back on track." — Village Voice Posted Jan 26, 2010
	94%	A Room and a Half (2009)	" Ecstatically fanciful." — Village Voice Posted Jan 19, 2010
	79%	Waiting for Armageddon (2010)	" [A] terrific documentary about end-times evangelical Christians." — Village Voice Posted Jan 5, 2010
	90%	Big River Man (2009)	" The real drama lies in the sweetly twisted symbiosis between this likable, infuriating wreck of a man and his devoted son and publicist." — Village Voice Posted Dec 2, 2009
	70%	The Last Station (2010)	" This workmanlike adaptation of Jay Parini's novel about Tolstoy's last days, adapted and directed by Michael Hoffman, settles into a lushly scenic television drama, though with dialogue strangely located somewhere in the 1950s." — Village Voice Posted Dec 2, 2009
	——	The War on Kids (2009)	" Cevin Soling's lively documentary lays out in hair-raising detail the authoritarian underpinnings of America's child-centered culture." — Village Voice Posted Nov 23, 2009
	85%	Skin (2009)	" Workmanlike, but enormously moving." — Village Voice Posted Oct 27, 2009
	94%	Le Chant des Mariées (The Wedding Song) (2008)	" This spirited film sustains its momentum as a tale of powerless women uniting to take back control of their destinies." — Village Voice Posted Oct 20, 2009
	31%	St. Trinian's (2007)	" With the right attitude this cheerfully calculated effort to update the old girl for a tween market can be enjoyed in all its endearing awfulness, as a loony High School Musical with posher accents and a lot more going on upstairs." — Village Voice Posted Oct 6, 2009
	94%	Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman (2009)	" Just about everyone in Eric Bricker's festschrift seems to love Julius Shulman, including (adorably) the unstoppable old gent himself. What's not to like?" — Village Voice Posted Oct 6, 2009
	81%	Disgrace (2008)	" Though overwrought in its early scenes, the movie quickly settles into an intelligently faithful rendering of a calling to account, whose visceral power and political implications need no hyping." — Village Voice Posted Sep 15, 2009
	88%	Rashevski's Tango (2009)	" The Rashevski Tango begins and ends with a burial, but the movie teems with cranky life." — Village Voice Posted Sep 8, 2009
	87%	Amreeka (2009)	" The thriving subgenre of immigrant displacement dramedy gets a confident new spin from Cherien Dabis." — Village Voice Posted Sep 1, 2009
	33%	Tickling Leo (2009)	" Davidson weaves deeper questions of who a Jew is into this powerful tale of a clan shredded by the rage and hatred passed down through three generations." — Village Voice Posted Sep 1, 2009
	87%	Flammen & Citronen (Flame & Citron) (The Flame and the Lemon) (2008)	" Of all European nations, Denmark enjoys the nearest thing to a heroic record of resisting the Nazi occupiers -- which adds both poignancy and punch to Ole Christian Madsen's fact-based drama about two posthumously honored Danes." — Village Voice Posted Jul 30, 2009
	94%	The Cove (2009)	" The Cove is properly enchanting, horrifying, and rousing, but it comes dangerously close to making the narcissistic case that dolphins deserve to be saved because they're cute and breathe air like we do." — Village Voice Posted Jul 29, 2009
	30%	The Answer Man (Arlen Faber) (2009)	" The laid-back charm of Daniels and Graham's bumpy courtship gives the movie a much-needed edge of idiosyncrasy." — Village Voice Posted Jul 21, 2009
	78%	Anonyma - Eine Frau in Berlin (A Woman in Berlin) (2009)	" One of the best of a new breed of indigenous movies prying open the Pandora's box of German suffering in World War II." — Village Voice Posted Jul 15, 2009
	93%	Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Goldberg (2009)	" Celebratory but clear-eyed." — Village Voice Posted Jul 8, 2009
	100%	Afghan Star (2009)	" If you think it's impossible to underestimate the cultural significance of American Idol, go see British filmmaker Havana Marking's documentary about its Afghani imitator." — Village Voice Posted Jun 24, 2009
	26%	Land of the Lost (2009)	" A pleasantly undistinguished pudding." — L.A. Weekly Posted Jun 4, 2009
	89%	Séraphine (2009)	" Lyrical but bracing." — Village Voice Posted Jun 3, 2009
	80%	Eid milad Laila (Laila's Birthday) (2008)	" Laila's Birthday is beautifully shot and overlaid with a spare, lyrical score that lends rueful emphasis to Masharawi's exasperated fidelity to a chronically malfunctioning city." — Village Voice Posted May 27, 2009
	81%	Okuribito (Departures) (2009)	" Departures is built for simplicity, and, if nothing else, the appeal to decency and integrity of this sweetly old-fashioned tale make it a must for Bernie Madoff's prison Netflix queue." — Village Voice Posted May 27, 2009
	52%	Easy Virtue (2009)	" Stephan Elliott's deliciously cheeky screen adaptation of one of the satirist's lesser-known jabs at the British upper crust will charm your pants off." — Village Voice Posted May 19, 2009
	97%	Burma VJ: Reporter i et Lukket Land (Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country) (2008)	" A roller coaster of alternating hope and despair." — Village Voice Posted May 19, 2009
	37%	Angels & Demons (2009)	" The movie clips along, tricked out with state-of-the-art hardware and a hotter, brighter partner for Hanks." — Village Voice Posted May 13, 2009
	92%	Il Divo (2009)	" Hard on the heels of the acclaimed Gomorrah, Italian corruption gets a much quieter but equally vigorous workout in Paolo Sorrentino's highly stylized portrait of the country's most enduring political leader." — Village Voice Posted Apr 22, 2009
	50%	El Nido Vacío (Empty Nest) (2008)	" Empty Nest comes thickly and pleasurably detailed with the minutiae of domesticity." — Village Voice Posted Apr 22, 2009
	77%	Üç Maymun (Three Monkeys) (2008)	" [The film's] hauntingly slow rhythms underscore the immanent violence and impotent rage that cripple already attenuated lives." — L.A. Weekly Posted Mar 26, 2009
	70%	Guest of Cindy Sherman (2008)	" A highly entertaining evisceration and celebration of the milieu." — Village Voice Posted Mar 24, 2009
	77%	Venkovský Ucitel (The Country Teacher) (2008)	" This sweetly ingenuous film, written and directed by Bohdan Sláma, is a lot less sentimental about cows and flowers than it is about its human protagonists, who fall domino-like in love with churls who won't love them back." — Village Voice Posted Mar 24, 2009
	72%	The Great Buck Howard (2009)	" No one does raging unlovability quite like John Malkovich, who's a total gas when he drops the bombast that often bogs down his more serious roles." — L.A. Weekly Posted Mar 19, 2009
	54%	Perestroika (2009)	" On the evidence of his new movie, Slava Tsukerman, who made the 1982 cult movie Liquid Sky, would make a brilliantly entertaining dinner guest." — L.A. Weekly Posted Mar 19, 2009
	90%	Must Read After My Death (2007)	" Dews helps Allis hold out a gendered posthumous snapshot of an era whose smug surface, barely masking oceans of suffering, makes Revolutionary Road look like a tea party." — L.A. Weekly Posted Feb 26, 2009

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