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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French writer-director Arnaud Desplechin can't hold the thread of the story he seeks to tell, so this film about the mysterious return of an old lover fades into frustrating ambiguity. -
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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Based on the Francine Prose novel Blue Angel, this tale of a writing professor's affair with a precocious student is bound to "usefully ruffle feathers" by refusing to take sides. -
This year's nominees include a sobering and deeply personal drama about the impact of an infamous lynching and a light farce that probes the divide between psychiatrist and patient. -
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. -
In first-time writer-director Maysaloun Hamoud's film, two young, secular Arab women living in Tel Aviv get a devoutly Muslim roommate and struggle "to live between the cracks of several cultures." -
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. -
The sudden de-Spaceying of a lead role is the least interesting thing about Ridley Scott's propulsive thriller that features a standout performance by Michelle Williams. -
Filmmaker Errol Morris employs fictional techniques — and famous actors — in this 241-minute meditation on the demise of a CIA operative in 1953 that left a son obsessed with finding answers. -
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.