Email Author Michelle Orange

2007 Stories by Michelle Orange

• Chuck Close

  published December 18, 2007

  "I am tired of looking at myself; why do I keep doing self-portraits?" This from Chuck Close at the beginning of Chuck Close: An Elegant... More >>

• Nanking

  published December 4, 2007

  December 13 marks the 70th anniversary of the Japanese invasion of Nanking, at that time the capital of China, and the atrocities that followed;... More >>

• Lost Cause

  published November 27, 2007

  Casting Nicole Kidman as The Golden Compass's glacial, intractably smooth megalomaniac Mrs. Coulter is no less inspired for being obvious.... More >>

• Fred Claus

  published October 30, 2007

  Vince Vaughn delves into the pre-teen demo, hoping that parents will enjoy the added value of seeing their favorite wise-ass wreaking havoc in... More >>

• Mr. Untouchable

  published October 16, 2007

  Interspersed with quotes from Machiavelli, blaxploitation anthems, non sequitur B-roll footage of New York City in the '70s, and the occasional... More >>

• Bobby and Peter Farrelly's The Heartbreak Kid

  published October 2, 2007

  More of a re-mix than a re-make of the Elaine May-directed 1972 original, Peter and Bobby Farrelly's The Heartbreak Kid seeks to rekindle... More >>

• The Good Night

  published September 25, 2007

  Director Jake Paltrow's feature debut has all the hallmarks of an earnest young man's feature debut, and while that is not necessarily a bad... More >>

• The Rape of Europa

  published September 4, 2007

  Impressive in scope if unremarkable in style, The Rape of Europa provides a chronology of World War II as it was experienced by "David,"... More >>

• Romance & Cigarettes

  published August 28, 2007

  John Turturro's third and loopiest film is prime film-studies fodder, fitting in best at the tail end of a musicals seminar, along with Dancer... More >>

• Clients of Industry

  published August 7, 2007

  Killer timing! Manda Bala (Send a Bullet), Jason Kohn's vivid, lean-and-hungry documentary about São Paulo's fatalistic food... More >>

• Crossing the Line

  published July 31, 2007

  James Joseph Dresnok's voice is heavy with age and cigarettes, but not regret. The last of four 1960s American deserters still living in North... More >>

• European Vacation

  published July 24, 2007

  As much a bulls-eyed survey of contemporary German attitudes toward youth, aging, sex, and class as a classic psychological thriller set against a... More >>

• The Camden 28

  published July 17, 2007

  "The Catholic Left," as many of us may need to be reminded, isn't an oxymoron or the ambiguous title of a Graham Greene novel. If not well known... More >>

• Wish You Weren't Here

  published July 3, 2007

  It's not a good time," Nice Bombs director Usama Alshaibi's Iraqi uncle tells his American guests in 2004, as though another season would... More >>

• Lonely Girl 30(ish)

  published June 12, 2007

  Nothing has turned out as expected for Nora, the drifting, doleful heroine played by Parker Posey in Broken English, writer/ director Zoe... More >>

• And So They Meet Again

  published May 29, 2007

  Belle Toujours, Manoel de Oliveira's poised, Parisian mood piece, announces itself as an homage to Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude... More >>

• 'Gracie'

  published May 22, 2007

  In what could be construed as a very expensive home movie, the Shues (siblings Elisabeth and Andrew, of the proud glares and somewhat less... More >>

• 'Even Money'

  published May 8, 2007

  Perhaps I'm still nursing the blowback burns of Smokin' Aces, but it was refreshing to see the casinos in Even Money presented as a... More >>

• 'Triad Election'

  published April 17, 2007

  Heroically prolific Hong Kong director Johnnie To has made it his mission to bring the gangster film into the 21st century, even while portaging... More >>

• Dakota Fanning

  published April 17, 2007

  First-time writer-director Andrew Piddington was dealt a huge blow when he learned, two years into shooting The Killing of John ... More >>

• 'Dry Season'

  published March 27, 2007

  African director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's austere, hypnotic third feature explores the legacy of Chad's decades-long civil war. When Chad's... More >>

• Single White Females

  published March 20, 2007

  German director Andreas Dresen (Grill Point, Willenbrock) has made an oddly buoyant little film about loneliness: Part Sex in der... More >>

• For You? No Charge

  published March 13, 2007

  Anyone who saw the Iraq documentary Gunner Palace, which found Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein embedded in a unit of American... More >>

• Quiet Riot

  published February 20, 2007

  Silence has always functioned as a form of resistance, but perhaps never more so than it does today, when being "unreachable" is a cardinal sin... More >>

• 'The Taste of Tea'

  published February 13, 2007

  Katsuhito Ishii's warm and fantastical family portrait opens with a quintessentially idyllic Japanese scene: a cherry tree in full flower, its... More >>