Email Author MELISSA ANDERSON

2012 Stories by MELISSA ANDERSON

• Ten Movies to Watch in 2013

  published December 27, 2012

  Most of the blathering this year about the death of film and film culture has already evaporated from the mind, as with so much inert gas. But... More >>

• 'Barbara': Doctor With Borders

  published December 20, 2012

  Set in East Germany in 1980, Christian Petzold's superb Barbara is a transfixing Cold War thriller made even more vivid by its subtle... More >>

• 'Any Day Now': A Travesty's Travesty

  published December 13, 2012

  Gay-male weepies have left a long trail of tears, stretching back to the sobbing, self-loathing queens of The Boys In the Band,... More >>

• 'Lay the Favorite': One Day She'll Win

  published December 6, 2012

  A wan comedy about gambling that takes no risks, Stephen Frears' Lay the Favorite has none of the stinging sordidness of The... More >>

• Boxing Cotillard In 'Rust and Bone'

  published November 21, 2012

  To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, one must have a heart of stone to watch Jacques Audiard's outrageous melodrama Rust and Bone without... More >>

• 'Vamps': You Kids Get Off My Grave

  published November 1, 2012

  At times winningly dopey but still easily forgotten, Amy Heckerling's undead-BFFs comedy Vamps sends up our pop-cultural fascination... More >>

• Hark, Behold, Watch 'Holy Motors'

  published October 18, 2012

  Unclassifiable, expansive and breathtaking, Holy Motors, the first feature-length film from Leos Carax since Pola X... More >>

• The Straight Dope On 'The House I Live In'

  published October 4, 2012

  The winner of the Grand Jury Prize for documentary at Sundance, Eugene Jarecki's The House I Live In, an occasionally muddled... More >>

• 'How to Survive a Plague': Who Saved the World?

  published September 20, 2012

  In his filmmaking debut, journalist David France assembles a thoroughly reported chronicle of that direct-action advocacy group's most vital... More >>

• Reeling In the Oughts With '10 Years'

  published September 13, 2012

  An amiable, seriocomic high-school-reunion movie, 10 Years succeeds in pulling off a fine varsity talent show. Although some... More >>

• In No Hurry: 'Las Acacias'

  published September 6, 2012

  Winner of the Best First Feature at Cannes last year and a highlight of New Directors/New Films this past spring, Pablo Giorgelli's minimalist,... More >>

• 'Ornette: Made In America': The Shape of Docs to Come

  published August 30, 2012

  The invaluable—yet still insufficiently appreciated—American independent filmmaker Shirley Clarke (1919–97) once said, "There... More >>

• Whitney Houston, Actress

  published August 16, 2012

  In anticipation of the remake of the 1976 girl-group melodrama Sparkle—Whitney Houston's posthumous film appearance and her... More >>

• Love Blind, Deaf and True: 'Planet of Snail '

  published July 26, 2012

  An unadorned, unsentimental portrait of a marriage, Yi Seung-jun's documentary Planet of Snail celebrates the daily life of an... More >>

• It's More of the Same In 'Ted'

  published June 28, 2012

  Fans of Seth MacFarlane's Fox mainstay Family Guy who wish he would run afoul of FCC regulations every week might be pleased with... More >>

• She Endures In 'Beasts of the Southern Wild'

  published June 28, 2012

  A zealous gumbo of regionalism, magical realism, post-Katrina allegory, myth and ecological parable, Beasts of the Southern Wild, the... More >>

• The Unmanageable Heiress of 'Brave'

  published June 21, 2012

  With her flame-colored ringlets, Merida, the barely adolescent heroine of Pixar's 13th feature, looks like a wee Rebekah Brooks, maybe a... More >>

• The Horror In Uniform of 'The Invisible War'

  published June 21, 2012

  Like Amir Bar-Lev's The Tillman Story (2010), Kirby Dick's The Invisible War scathingly indicts U.S.-military culture. Yet... More >>

• Bold People, Housebroken In 'Your Sister's Sister'

  published June 14, 2012

  Beginning with a bilious toast and ending with a group hug, Lynn Shelton's Your Sister's Sister, her fourth film, expertly makes us... More >>

• The Son Also Appropriates In 'Americano'

  published June 14, 2012

  In his feature directorial debut, actor Mathieu Demy—son of eminent filmmakers Jacques Demy and Agnès Varda—succumbs to and... More >>

• Jane Fonda Deserves Better Than 'Peace, Love & Misunderstanding'

  published June 7, 2012

  Three generations of fine actresses are squandered in Bruce Beresford's Peace, Love & Misunderstanding, an incompetently structured... More >>

• Roots, Doc, Reggae in 'Marley'

  published April 19, 2012

  I spotted a bottle of something called Marley's Mellow Mood, "a new line of 100 percent natural relaxation beverages," in my neighborhood deli... More >>

• Dazed Witness to History In 'Post Mortem'

  published April 12, 2012

  "Nobody can escape the wheel of history," a left-leaning (at least initially) physician says in Pablo Larraín's less frantic, more... More >>

• Institutional Failure In 'We Have a Pope'

  published April 5, 2012

  Suitable entertainment for a Knights of Columbus fund-raiser, Nanni Moretti's Good Friday-released We Have a Pope finds the Most Holy... More >>

• Democracy Then, As Seen in 'The Island President'

  published March 29, 2012

  Blessed—or maybe cursed—with fortuitous timing, Jon Shenk's lionizing documentary of Mohamed Nasheed, the first democratically... More >>