Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turanis an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California...
attract book films looking people proven
People who make films are always looking for a hook. They're always looking for something that will attract an audience's attention, that will make a person say, 'I want to see that film,' and a book is a proven commodity.
credits kid tv watching
He credits a watching of 'King Kong' on TV when he was a kid with making him a film director,
remarkable seeing
It's really a remarkable film. You really feel the pain, the agony, the unintentional humor. It's the kind of young, independent film making we should be seeing more of.
mold directors classic
A TREAT. FASCINATING. Director Lipes is a classic cinéma vérité practitioner in the mold of Albert Maysles and Frederick Wiseman.
joy get-better connections
Things get better when Joy hears about a televised way to sell products and makes a connection with QVC. She convinces an executive there, played by Bradley Cooper, to let her appear as herself.
regret silence world
Silence is not the absence of sound. It's a physical place, a destination with value and meaning in a chaotic world, somewhere arrived at with difficulty and left with regret.
death player action
Death is supposed to be the great equalizer, but that's never true. Death is random, capricious, unconcerned, a flagrant player of favorites. It keeps its own counsel, so much the better to profoundly shock by its actions.
wise romance derivatives
What audiences end up with word-wise is a hackneyed, completely derivative copy of old Hollywood romances, a movie that reeks of phoniness and lacks even minimal originality.
stars shopping feet
"Joy" is based, albeit loosely, on the life of Joy Mangano, an entrepreneur, inventor and QVC shopping network star with the mega-selling Miracle Mop. Jennifer Lawrence is excellent as Joy, but the film starts off on the wrong foot with woeful depictions of her background as the only sane person in her dysfunctional family.
thinking violence realization
What's most troubling about this witless mishmash of whiny, infantile philosophizing and bone-crunching violence is the increasing realization that it actually thinks it's saying something of significance.
sports baseball games
Baseball endures at least in part because it is a contemplative sport that delights in nuances. Not a brazen game, eager to sell its thrills cheaply, but rather an understated affair that must be courted if its to be loved.
looks television definitions
Audiences looking for a rich, textured, cinematic experience will be put off and disconcerted by an image that looks more like an advanced version of high definition television than a traditional movie.
audience close exists films hollywood sure
The 'Harry Potter' films are as close to a sure thing as there really exists in Hollywood now. There is a built-in audience for these films.
beautiful directed director looks rob
The director is Rob Marshall, who directed 'Chicago.' It looks to be a very beautiful film.