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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Director Todd Solondz follows an adorable dachshund as it passes from one blisteringly lonely suburbanite to another. The result is a film that manages to be deeply pessimistic but never cynical. -
Director Carlos Saura takes the viewer through a single, stunning performance of Argentinian dance in which political themes emerge from the continuous flow of music, motion and mood. -
Michael Grandage's strangely staid film about novelist Thomas Wolfe and his editor Maxwell Perkins struggles to capture the passions that drove their famously explosive professional relationship. -
The murder of Kitty Genovese became a symbol of all that was wrong with big-city neighbors, but in a new documentary, Genovese's brother considers the complexities of recollection and responsibility. -
Athina Rachel Tsangari's black comedy about men who undertake a petty but brutal competition while aboard a yacht together may or may not be a political allegory. -
Terence Davies' Sunset Song is the tacitly feminist tale of a woman, played by Agyness Deyn, who is at least partially freed by owning land and acting on her own anger. -
Louise Osmond's documentary captures the spirit of a community group that came together to train and race a horse they named Dream Alliance. -
A dictator commandeers and pampers a young girl in Maya Vitkova's boldly visceral fairy tale. -
Susan Sarandon and Rose Byrne play mother and daughter in a story that, for once, recognizes that there's a solid argument to be made for a mom who gives, if anything, too much of herself. -
Argentina's premier tango couple is the subject of an ambitiously structured film that mixes dance with the story of a relationship that was both passionate and problematic.
