Email Author Melissa Anderson

2010 Stories by Melissa Anderson

• Epic History, Epic Filmmaking in Have You Heard From Johannesburg

  published April 13, 2010

  More than a decade in the making, eight and a half hours long, featuring more than 100 talking heads, and spanning 42 years and four... More >>

• Bette Gordon's Variety and Handsome Harry at IFC

  published April 13, 2010

  After Bette Gordon's welcome, ubiquitous presence at last year's Tribeca Film Festival—at which her first movie was revived, her latest... More >>

• Chris Rock Can't Save Death at a Funeral Poop Jokes

  published April 13, 2010

  It doesn’t take much to improve the first Death at a Funeral, the flat Frank Oz–directed Britcom of 2007; a few tossed-off... More >>

• La Mission, as Subtle as a Face Punch

  published April 6, 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 >>

• Edgerton Brothers' The Square Confuses Body-Pileups with Plot Twists

  published April 6, 2010

  One of two fraternal collaborations to open this week (Peter and Benjamin Bratt's La Mission is the other), The... More >>

• Hannah Montana Upstaged by Sea Turtles in The Last Song

  published March 30, 2010

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

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  Tyler Perry's Worst Film: Why Did I Get Married Too?

  published March 30, 2010

  Tyler Perry follows up his best film, 2007’s Why Did I Get Married?, with his worst. This time, the four couples in various states... More >>

• Our Guide to the Greatest of the ND/NF's Latest

  published March 24, 2010

  Hatched in 1971, "New Directors/New Films," the joint effort of curators from MOMA and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, endures as the... More >>

• The Best Girl Band Movies Ever

  published March 16, 2010

  Before The Runaways, there was . . . Spice World. Movies have been honoring, exploiting, or completely botching the appeal of XX... More >>

• Andy Garcia Sneaks to Acting Lessons in City Island

  published March 16, 2010

  Everyone in the Rizzo family has something to hide: Paterfamilias Vince (Andy Garcia) works as a corrections officer, but sneaks off for acting... More >>

• 'That's Montgomery Clift, Honey!' at BAM

  published March 9, 2010

  Star-struck James Dean would call up Montgomery Clift just to hear the sound of his voice. Watching dailies of The Misfits (1961),... More >>

• The Sub-Televisually Incompetent Stolen

  published March 9, 2010

  First-time scripter Glenn Taranto was inspired to write Stolen after reading an article about the real-life, unsolved "Boy in the Box"... More >>

• The Oscars' Six Most Outrageous Moments

  published March 2, 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 >>

• Q&A with Bluebeard's Catherine Breillat

  published March 2, 2010

  With Bluebeard, Catherine Breillat—perhaps the most willful feminist provocatrice in cinema today, whose stroke in 2004... More >>

• The Art of the Steal, Starring Barnes and Ignobles

  published February 23, 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 >>

• 'The Films of William E. Jones' at Anthology

  published February 23, 2010

  "William Jones is haute gay," a critic/programmer friend said admiringly to me recently about the fiercely intelligent filmmaker being feted by... More >>

• Fam-Cam Doc Prodigal Sons Pushed Along by Dysfunction

  published February 23, 2010

  Kimberly Reed was born Paul McKerrow in Helena, Montana, the middle of three sons who was the high school quarterback and voted Most Likely to... More >>

• Mitchell Lichtenstein Continues Bad Filmmaking with Happy Tears

  published February 16, 2010

  Continuing both his bad filmmaking and obsession with lethal orifices, Mitchell Lichtenstein follows up Teeth, his clumsy debut about a... More >>

• Blood Done Sign My Name Glosses Civil Rights History

  published February 16, 2010

  Based on Duke professor Timothy Tyson's titular memoir/recounting of the murder of an African-American Vietnam vet by three white men in... More >>

• My Name Is Khan: Karan Johar's Excesses Outdone by Real-Life Drama

  published February 9, 2010

  If autism can reboot Claire Danes's career, can it guarantee Bollywood's biggest star crossover success? Shah Rukh Khan (known as the "King of... More >>

• Film Forum's Karen Cooper on the Secret to Her Success

  published February 2, 2010

  In 1972, at the age of 23, Karen Cooper took over the two-year-old Film Forum when, as she recalls, "it was a little hole-in-the wall on West... More >>

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  Another Nicholas Sparks Adaptation, Dear John

  published February 2, 2010

  Special Forces soldier John (Channing Tatum) and privileged altruist Savannah (Amanda Seyfried) aren’t Abelard and Heloise, but their... More >>

• Pioneering Coming Out Doc Word Is Out at Anthology

  published January 26, 2010

  In the summer of 1976, a thin, bearded 23-year-old gay man with braces on his teeth sat on a bench by a pond near the University of... More >>

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  The Sharp, Nasty 44 Inch Chest

  published January 26, 2010

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

• When in Rome: A Small Victory for Romantic Comedies

  published January 26, 2010

  The bar for romantic comedies has been set so low that when one—especially one whose press materials boast "from the studio that brought... More >>