Ella Taylor
Ella Taylor is a freelance film critic, book reviewer and feature writer living in Los Angeles.
Born in Israel and raised in London, Taylor taught media studies at the University of Washington in Seattle; her book Prime Time Families: Television Culture in Post-War America was published by the University of California Press.
Taylor has written for Village Voice Media, the LA Weekly, The New York Times, Elle magazine and other publications, and was a regular contributor to KPCC-Los Angeles' weekly film-review show FilmWeek.
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Armando Iannucci directs this lacerating, frenetic dissection of the power vacuum left by Stalin's death. The director "never overtly winks at current parallels East or West. He doesn't have to."
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Writer-director Sally Potter zeroes in on the hypocrisy of the British chattering-class but her aim wanders, so the characters stay flat and the satire never kicks in.
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A Southern town, a heapin' helpin' of heartbreak, a shot at redemption and an adorable tyke: Writer-director Bethany Ashton Wolf's romantic drama never complicates or deepens its rote story.
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Annette Bening stars as the noir actress Gloria Grahame in Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool, based on the memoir of a younger man she loved, who quite loved her back, late in her life.
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Two films now in theaters — The Tribes of Palos Verdes and Lady Bird — feature contentious mother-daughter relationships that inspired critic Ella Taylor to reflect on her own.
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Critic Ella Taylor says Kenneth Branagh's wildly unnecessary retread of the Agatha Christie tale is "fatally tepid."
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Using aerial photography and intimate, one-on-one interviews to document the plight of migrants in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, artist Ai Weiwei's documentary is grim but vital.
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Sofia Coppola's lush visual aesthetic infuses this study in sublimated lust with just enough sly, Southern-Gothic bodice-ripping to intrigue and satisfy.
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Critic Ella Taylor loved this "beautiful and beguiling" tale of a Tel Aviv woman determined to let God provide her a last-minute groom.
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Director Terry George's historical drama about three people swept up in the 1915 massacre of Armenians lacks subtlety and sophistication, but features powerful, visceral imagery.