Email Author Melissa Anderson

2010 Stories by Melissa Anderson

• "Somewhere": Celebrity living has its downside

  published December 22, 2010

  Dissolute action-movie star Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), first seen doing laps in his black Ferrari, has no destination in Somewhere,... More >>

• "Night Catches Us": Tanya Hamilton's debut is a brutally honest look at Black Power

  published December 8, 2010

  Writer-director Tanya Hamilton's striking debut is the rare recent American independent film that goes beyond the private dramas of its... More >>

• "I Love You Phillip Morris": Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor go balls-out

  published December 1, 2010

  It's taken almost two years for the bonkers, exhilarating same-sex romantic comedy I Love You Phillip Morris to finally reach theaters.... More >>

• "Client 9": Alex Gibney's doc rehabilitates Eliot Spitzer

  published November 17, 2010

  The usually silver-tongued Eliot Spitzer, political hero of the recent movie Inside Job and now ubiquitous media personality, stammers... More >>

• "The Next Three Days": Russell Crowe is a bored actor in a dumb project

  published November 17, 2010

  "What if we choose to exist solely in a reality of our own making?" asks Pittsburgh community-college lit professor John Brennan (Russell... More >>

• "For Colored Girls": Tyler Perry mangles Ntozake Shange's play

  published November 3, 2010

  It's a long, long way from the women's bar outside Berkeley, where Ntozake Shange first presented her combustible choreopoem For Colored... More >>

• "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest": Final part of Stieg Larsson's trilogy

  published October 27, 2010

  When we first see Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, the final adaptation of Stieg Larsson's... More >>

• "Conviction": Hilary Swank emotes big, gets brother out of jail in awards-bait movie

  published October 20, 2010

  After Fox Searchlight's Amelia spectacularly flamed out last October, the studio tries again to grab awards-season honors with another... More >>

• "Waiting for Superman": Davis Guggenheim's doc on the failure of public education

  published September 29, 2010

  Davis Guggenheim's call-to-arms documentary on the failures of the U.S. public-education system — thoroughly laudable in intention if... More >>

• "Heartbreaker": Romain Duris and Vanessa Paradis are at cross-purposes

  published September 15, 2010

  For the past half-decade, Romain Duris has been French cinema's go-to brooder, trapped between Bach toccatas and lowlife thuggery in The... More >>

• “The Tillman Story”: A furious documentary on a craven cover-up

  published September 1, 2010

  Pat Tillman, the Arizona Cardinals safety who enlisted in the Army Rangers eight months after 9/11, read Emerson, Chomsky, and, though an... More >>

• "Orlando" Returns: Sally Potter and Tilda Swinton interview

  published July 28, 2010

  Almost unthinkable now, 18 years ago, a writer-director and a performer made career breakthroughs with a film based on a 1928 novel by a titan... More >>

• "Love Ranch"

  published June 30, 2010

  Helen Mirren married director Taylor Hackford in 1997; they fell in love on the set of White Nights (1985), their first film together.... More >>

• I Am Love

  published June 23, 2010

  As unrepentantly grandiose and ludicrous as its title, Luca Guadagnino's visually ravishing third feature suggests an epic that Visconti and Sirk... More >>

• "I Am Love"

  published June 23, 2010

  As unrepentantly grandiose and ludicrous as its title, Luca Guadagnino's visually ravishing third feature suggests an epic that Luchino... More >>

• Born Identity: "Mother and Child" grapples with adoption

  published May 12, 2010

  In his work as a writer-director, Rodrigo García has admirably distinguished himself through his commitment to creating intelligent,... More >>

• Flagrant Foul: "Just Wright" is just wrong

  published May 12, 2010

  Another movie, not as awful or deluded as this one, might one day find better use for the easygoing vibe between Queen Latifah and Common, the... More >>

• Macho meets homo in the laudable but terrible "La Mission"

  published April 14, 2010

  Watered-down Jungian analysis meets a GLAAD-approved weepie in Peter Bratt's second feature, starring brother Benjamin (who also produces) as a... More >>

• Hannah Montana gets upstaged by sea turtles in "The Last Song"

  published March 31, 2010

  The script, costumes, and props of The Last Song work hard to establish Miley Cyrus' dramatic-role bona fides as the 17-year-old crosses... More >>

• Barnes and Ignobles

  published March 10, 2010

  Henri Matisse called the Barnes Foundation "the only sane place to see art in America." But the clamor over moving one of the world's foremost... More >>

• The Art of the Steal

  published March 10, 2010

  Matisse called the Barnes Foundation "the only sane place to see art in America." But the clamor over moving one of the world's foremost... More >>

• Sweetgrass

  published March 10, 2010

  Though the breathtaking vistas of Big Sky Country in Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor's unforgettable sheep-herding documentary come close... More >>

• Oscar Wild: The Academy Awards bring the crazy

  published March 3, 2010

  After a protracted, numbing awards season, this Sunday's Oscar broadcast promises the drama of two ex-spouses battling for Best Picture and... More >>

• 35 Shots of Rum

  published March 3, 2010

  Recent American films about families, like Rachel Getting Married, all too often pierce eardrums with shrieks of dysfunction. Amid the din,... More >>

• 44 Inch Chest

  published February 3, 2010

  A quintet of pathetic pals are sized up in this often sharp, nasty expose of masculinity, written by Sexy Beast scripters Louis Mellis and... More >>