Email Author Melissa Anderson

2009 Stories by Melissa Anderson

• Love Happens—A Male Weepie

  published September 15, 2009

  “The sap pollutes the water, and then they die,” florist Eloise (Jennifer Aniston) upbraids her employee on the importance of... More >>

• Michael Douglas Collects a Paycheck for Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

  published September 8, 2009

  Of his empty, completely unnecessary remake of Fritz Lang's 1956 thriller, writer-director-cinematographer-producer Peter Hyams explains in the... More >>

• The Title Pretty Much Says It: I Can Do Bad All by Myself

  published September 8, 2009

  If you are the director, producer, writer (adapting your own stage play), and co-star of a film, you really show how bad you... More >>

• The September Issue Captures Vogue's Wintour at Her Peak

  published August 25, 2009

  When, in the early '00s, I worked as a freelancer for a publication two floors below Vogue—this was pre–Devil Wears... More >>

• Taking Woodstock Recycles 60's Tropes

  published August 25, 2009

  “If you remember Woodstock, you probably weren’t there,” the expression goes. And if you were, can you please stop gassing on about... More >>

• 'Yesterday's Angel: Natalie Wood' at Walter Reade

  published August 18, 2009

  Only the most exceptional performer could appeal to sensibilities as disparate as those of homo-pornovateur Bruce LaBruce, who pays homage to... More >>

• My One and Only For Those Who Still Swoon For George Hamilton

  published August 18, 2009

  Your enjoyment of My One and Only will depend on how much the words "inspired by incidents in the life of actor and Hollywood icon... More >>

• Spread Melts into Sloggy Comeuppance Tale

  published August 11, 2009

  Broke-ass hustler Nikki (Ashton Kutcher, who also produced) may not have a home or a car, but he does possess "six inches and a pretty face,"... More >>

• Earth Days Revisits Environmentalism's Early Years

  published August 11, 2009

  Veteran doc maker Robert Stone (Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst, Oswald's Ghost) assembles nine talking, graying heads to... More >>

• Brutal Misogyny Meets Calcified Constructs in Bliss

  published August 4, 2009

  If you missed June's The Stoning of Soroya M., here's another chance to be reminded of murderous misogyny in another Muslim... More >>

• In the Loop, an Iraq War of Words

  published July 22, 2009

  A thinly veiled spoof of Anglo-American diplomatic blundering and maneuvering in the lead-up to the second Iraq war, British-TV vet Armando... More >>

• Paraíso Travel Is Paraíso Lost

  published July 22, 2009

  Depicting the horrors of illegally crossing the U.S. border so starkly that even Lou Dobbs might shed a tear, Paraíso Travel... More >>

• The Films of Robert Kramer at Anthology

  published July 15, 2009

  One of the greatest radical filmmakers of the '60s and '70s, Robert Kramer mixed fiction with documentary, paying scrupulous attention to the... More >>

• Three Foreigners Who Made Baron Cohen's Brüno Possible

  published July 8, 2009

  'Borat was so 2006," the tagline for Brüno reads, but Sacha Baron Cohen's lavender Molotov cocktail is very 1882—the year Oscar... More >>

• Truffaut's Mississippi Mermaid at BAM

  published July 8, 2009

  Dedicated to Jean Renoir, based on a noir novel by Cornell Woolrich, and an homage of sorts to Vertigo, Truffaut's frequently overlooked... More >>

• 20 Years in, Strand Still Releasing (Prudently) on the Edge

  published July 1, 2009

  Without the bold film distributor Strand Releasing, provocative work like Jacques Nolot's 2007 bracing hustler-memoir Before I Forget or... More >>

• Jennifer Lynch Returns Triumphant with Surveillance

  published June 24, 2009

  Jennifer Lynch has been tarred with the unfounded claim that her films get made only because of who her father is. David Lynch serves as... More >>

• Agnès Varda From 0 to 80

  published June 24, 2009

  On the eve of her 80th birthday, filmmaker Agnès Varda, frequently referred to as "the godmother of the French New Wave," made the... More >>

• Anemic Adaptation of Chéri Could Have Put Colette to Sleep

  published June 24, 2009

  'For the first time in my life, I felt morally certain of having written a novel for which I need neither blush nor doubt," Colette said of... More >>

• The Windmill Movie Resurrects a Filmmaker's Fragments from Beyond Grave

  published June 17, 2009

  If an obscenely privileged person has the good sense to apologize for his whining, does this self-awareness make the pity party any more... More >>

• Don't Forget Beineix: Betty Blue at Cinema Village

  published June 10, 2009

  Though he hasn't made a film since 2001, New York art houses are ensuring we don't forget "cinéma du look" architect Jean-Jacques... More >>

• Sex Positive Traces Early Days of a Pandemic

  published June 10, 2009

  First-time filmmaker Daryl Wein wasn't even born when AIDS was first recognized by the CDC in 1981, but his documentary on Richard Berkowitz,... More >>

• The Films of Rosa von Praunheim at Anthology

  published June 3, 2009

  Jump-starting Gay Pride Month, Anthology's 12-film tribute to Rosa von Praunheim, Germany's chief lavender menace, will render the... More >>

• Pontypool Babbles a Lot, for a Zombie Flick

  published May 27, 2009

  "Language is a virus from outer space," William S. Burroughs once wrote. In Bruce McDonald's dull zombie movie (written by Tony... More >>

• Love Is a Battlefield in Postman Rethink, Jerichow

  published May 13, 2009

  Retooled noir with less pulp than its original source, Christian Petzold's Jerichow wryly riffs on The Postman Always Rings Twice... More >>