Email Author Melissa Anderson

2012 Stories by Melissa Anderson

• Touring the Damage in Joachim Trier's Oslo, August 31st

  published May 23, 2012

  In just two feature films, writer/director Joachim Trier has proved to be unparalleled in exposing the foibles and delusions of all the sad... More >>

• Hysteria

  published May 16, 2012

  The origin story of a beloved bedroom gadget, Hysteria, set in London in the 1880s, proceeds as a tedious, clumsy diddle, constantly... More >>

• Quill: The Life of a Guide Dog

  published May 16, 2012

  Although originally released in Japan eight years ago, the New York debut of Quill: The Life of a Guide Dog is well-timed: It arrives... More >>

• Girl in Progress

  published May 9, 2012

  Single mother Grace (Eva Mendes)—born Altagracia, "but the white man can't pronounce it"—toils as a maid and a waitress to keep her... More >>

• Transformations (and Costume-Changes) in Céline and Julie Go Boating and Marnie

  published May 2, 2012

  Godard once declared that "the history of cinema is the history of boys photographing girls." Jacques Rivette, JLG's New Wave confrere, upended... More >>

• Jason Segel Struggles with Weather, Relationship in The Five-Year Engagement

  published April 25, 2012

  There is exactly one unexpected moment in the otherwise drearily predictable The Five-Year Engagement that, though little more than a... More >>

• The Broken Tower

  published April 25, 2012

  The Broken Tower, James Franco's MFA thesis film at NYU, stars the professional graduate-degree collector as Hart Crane, the American... More >>

• Beyond the Mascot, The Man (and His Faults) in Marley

  published April 18, 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 >>

• Darling Companion

  published April 18, 2012

  "Animals are such agreeable friends—they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms," George Eliot once wrote. That's certainly the appeal... More >>

• Think Like a Man

  published April 18, 2012

  As 2009's dismal He's Just Not That Into You showed, about the only draw of movies based on relationship-advice books—bloated with... More >>

• A Dazed Witness to History in Post Mortem

  published April 11, 2012

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

• The Lady

  published April 11, 2012

  Now is an excellent time to release a biopic of Aung San Suu Kyi, the inspiring Burmese democracy activist and Nobel laureate who was elected... More >>

• L!fe Happens

  published April 11, 2012

  Best friends since college and current housemates, Kim (Krysten Ritter) and Deena (Kate Bosworth) fight, while entertaining dates, over who... More >>

• Institutional Failure: Toothless Satire of the Church in We Have a Pope

  published April 4, 2012

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

• The Hunter

  published April 4, 2012

  Drawing baths and listening to classical music, refined soldier of fortune Martin (Willem Dafoe) is sent Down Under by a military-biotech firm... More >>

• Lena Dunham's Favorite Girls on Film

  published March 28, 2012

  Humble narcissist, chronic oversharer, and compulsive exhibitionist, Lena Dunham is today's unparalleled quarter-life chronicler. Her work,... More >>

• Democracy Then: Portrait of Ousted Mohamed Nasheed in The Island President

  published March 28, 2012

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

• Turn Me On, Dammit!

  published March 28, 2012

  Set in the Norwegian boonies, Jannicke Systad Jacobsen's first fiction feature (based on Olaug Nilssen's 2005 novel) introduces its 15-year-old... More >>

• The Hunger Games: North America's Next Top Killer Is Finally Here

  published March 21, 2012

  "If no one watches, then they don't have a game," a teenager says in this faithful if cautious adaptation of the first volume of Suzanne... More >>

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  Plagues, Power, and Paranoia: The Best of New Directors/New Films

  published March 21, 2012

  Now in its 41st year, New Directors/New Films—the highly curated festival of primarily debut works and sophomore efforts—attempts... More >>

• Bro, How Times Have Changed: 21 Jump Street Now a Buddy Comedy

  published March 14, 2012

  The television show 21 Jump Street, about cops who go undercover as high schoolers, debuted on Fox in 1987—one year after the... More >>

• Delicacy

  published March 14, 2012

  With her ponytail and toggle coat, Audrey Tautou, playing workaholic widow Nathalie in Delicacy, gives off a sexless, cutie-pie... More >>

• The Wise Kids

  published March 14, 2012

  The tight trio of Baptist teenagers at the center of Stephen Cone's empathic South Carolina–set second feature might fill its days with... More >>

• An Unconventional Parenting Setup in the Highly Conventional Friends With Kids

  published March 7, 2012

  In the opening scene of Friends With Kids, a conspicuously placed copy of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion on the bedside table... More >>

• Sound of Noise

  published March 7, 2012

  More an intriguing premise than a successful film, the Malmö-set Sound of Noise, about a group of "musical terrorists," quickly... More >>