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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This slyly subversive revisionist take on an infamous Australian outlaw presents the burnished popular myth and a darker, brutal and tragicomic take alongside one another. -
Director Karyn Kusama has a history of films where women fight back. But Destroyer, despite its transformation of Nicole Kidman, fails to develop a compelling story to support that transformation. -
In 2007, filmmaker John Maloof bought thousands of undeveloped negatives at an auction. Now, he and Charlie Siskel present Finding Vivian Maier, a film about the reclusive woman behind the photos. -
Any Day Now, set against the backdrop of the 1970s, tells the story of a gay couple's fight to adopt a neglected boy with Down syndrome. Director Travis Fine's film lacks technical polish, but critic Ella Taylor says the story's heart makes up for most of its faults. -
A typically Woody Allenesque confection — but sweet and lively nonetheless — Midnight in Paris is in love with the remembrance of things (and eras, and rock-star writers) past. -
A painfully funny indie comedy hiding in the guise of a blockbuster, Bridesmaids takes a scalpel to the chick-flick myth of earth-mother female friendship, walking the thin line between satire and realist drama with its screwy tale of wedding planning gone bad. (Recommended) -
A severely depressed man (Mel Gibson) finds hope and help in a therapeutic hand puppet — though his recovery has its limits. Director and co-star Jodie Foster gives her old friend free rein to play off the two personas that have brought him both fame and notoriety. -
A wholesome Disney movie that's thin on youth revolt but lays the mainstream tropes on extra thick, Prom earns points for casual color-blindness — and is sure to please parents irked by all the hormone-fueled adolescents seen in fictional high-school hallways of late. -
Robert Pattinson falls hard for Reese Witherspoon in the film adaptation of the best-selling novel Water for Elephants -- and the question on everyone's mind is whether their love can convincingly bite. -
A sweetly sincere comedy that adds up to a modest entry in the canon of Italian cinematic mother-worship, The First Beautiful Thing jumps between past and present as a pessimist and an optimist confront an impending death.
