2013 LUMINARY AWARD

Tis Reviewer Is

KENNETH TURAN OF THE L.A.TIMES EARNS THE PRESS CLUB’S LUMINARY AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT | BY JANE ENGLE

On the Fox lot, Los Angeles.

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assionate, insightful and fearless: Troughout his career, Los Angeles Times senior flm critic Kenneth Turan has shown all these qualities. Once dubbed “Hollywood’s most powerful flm critic” by the Chicago Tribune, Turan Pwields his infuence without fear or favor at the Times, where he was worked since 1991, and on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” and the “Arts Alive” program on KUSC FM 91.5. Turan’s honors are legion. He received a Special Citation Award from the National Society of Kenneth Turan speaks at flm panel at the Green Mountain Film Film Critics in 2006 and the Alumni Award from Festival in Montpelier, Vermont. the Graduate School of Journalism in 2008. Now, he is the recipient of the Los Angeles Press Club’s Luminary Award for Career Achievement, DAVID ANSEN which he will accept at the sixth annual National Although he is in his ffth year as the artistic director of the Los Angeles Entertainment Journalism Awards. Film Festival, David Ansen is probably best known as Newsweek’s movie Whether he is exulting over a masterpiece or critic during a 31-year-run (1977-2008). In fact, he continued to write for the excoriating a cinematic dud, Turan is driven by his magazine until its fnal print issue last year. fervor for flm. “If you care enough about flms to be a critic, The prolifc Ansen has written several documentaries for television of flm there’s really kind of a proselytizing aspect to it,” legends Greta Garbo (on TNT), Groucho Marx (on HBO), and Elizabeth he said in a 2010 interview with the USC Trojan Taylor (on PBS). He also wrote the Bette Davis doc, “All About Bette” which Family Magazine. “You want to share the good appeared on TNT. That documentary won the cable Ace award for Best Entertainment/Cultural Documentary. news. Tere are so many good ones out there, it frustrates me that people are not seeing them.” Ansen served for eight years on the selection committee of the New York Turan’s love afair with flm was nurtured in Film Festival, and has served the neighborhood movie houses of Brooklyn. on numerous festival juries At Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, he was from Sundance to Istanbul. exposed to more esoteric fare when he got involved A three-time winner of the with the flm selection committee for the weekly Page One Award from the campus movie. Newspaper Guild of New York, he has also written Afer receiving a master’s degree from Columbia pieces for The New York Times, University, Turan began a journalism career that the Los Angeles Times Review included nine years at Te Washington Post, where of Books, Film Comment, he was a sports and features writer. He came to the Elle, Cosmopolitan, Cineaste, Los Angeles Times in 1990 as its interim book editor Men’s Journal, The Advocate, before becoming a flm critic. Interview and Self. In addition to reviewing movies, Turan directs the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes and teaches

Photography by Patricia Williams LA 19 PC 2013 LUMINARY AWARD

In Cannes 2004 with fellow critics Richard Schickel, and Richard Corliss.

flm reviewing and writing at the USC Annenberg School wrote, “Gravity is out of this world. Words can do little to for Communications and Journalism, where he is an adjunct convey the visual astonishment this space opera creates.” professor. He serves on the board of directors of the National Turan especially champions lesser-known, accomplished Yiddish Book Center, a nonproft organization that rescues, movies that can get lost amid Hollywood’s blockbuster mania. translates and disseminates Yiddish books and presents In his 2004 book Never Coming to a Teater Near You, he educational programs. ofered a guide to high-quality, unsung flms that didn’t make Turan has authored or co-authored numerous books, it to the megaplex. including Free for All: Joe Papp, Te Public, and the Greatest As co-author of Patty Duke’s 1987 autobiography Teater Story Ever Told, about the Brooklyn-born impresario Call Me Anna, which became a bestseller and was later who changed the face of American theater. In a 2009 review, made into a movie, Turan dramatically recounted the rise Te New York Times’ Charles Isherwood called it “important, to stardom of the Academy Award-winning actress and her colorful, capacious” with “insightful commentary.” lifelong battle against manic depression. His other books Turan has made a career of being bold and willing to go include 2002’s Sundance to Sarajevo: Film Festivals and the against the grain. Reviewing Te Soloist, the 2009 movie based World Tey Made and Now in Teaters Everywhere (2006). on the relationship between Turan’s Times’ colleague Steve At USC, Turan teaches the class “Writing the Film Review,” Lopez and homeless musician Nathaniel Ayers, Turan found which, according to the class description, many students have major faws, writing, “As much as I called the best class they have taken wanted this flm to succeed, these at Annenberg. kinds of missteps and excesses were a Asked in the 2010 USC interview price I was unwilling to pay.” why he teaches, Turan responded, “I Turan’s withering review of the certainly don’t do it for the money. I 1997 blockbuster Titanic, which really fnd it very satisfying to help he wrote “reeks of phoniness and students.” lacks even minimal originality,” Among Turan’s favorite movies touched of a celebrated public spat are two classics from France: with the director, , Children of Paradise, from 1945, who dismissed Turan’s writings as and Te Earrings of Madame de…, “vitriolic ravings” and suggested that released eight years later. Tey are the critic be “impeached.” mainly about—what else?—amour. Twelve years later, Turan fled Belying the stereotype of the cynical a glowing review of Cameron’s critic, Turan admits, “I tend to like 3D movie Avatar. He praised it romantic flms.” as “an extraordinary act of visual imagination” and “the most expensive and accomplished Saturday matinee movie ever made.” Turan is capable of rapturous Kenneth Turan interviews reviews when he feels they are Croatian flm director, the late warranted. Of a recent thriller, he Krsto Papic in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

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