Email Author Michelle Orange

2009 Stories by Michelle Orange

• Sita Sings the Blues, a Charm Offensive

  published December 22, 2009

  In 2002, Nina Paley's husband moved from San Francisco to India for a six-month contract, an upheaval that ended with him dumping her via... More >>

• Holocaust Survivors Face Eviction in Four Seasons Lodge

  published November 10, 2009

  Four Seasons Lodge has an elevator pitch—"A Catskills colony of Holocaust survivors is threatened with eviction after 25 summers... More >>

• You Cannot Start Without Me Meets Valery Gergiev the Conductor, Not the Man

  published October 27, 2009

  Beginning with its title—You Cannot Start Without Me—Allan Miller's portrait of Russian Maestro Valery Gergiev examines both... More >>

• Uma Thurman Does Kooky for Motherhood

  published October 20, 2009

  Casting against type is one thing, but putting Uma Thurman—an unheralded character actress; the more extraordinary the character, the... More >>

• Hits and Misses in New York, I Love You

  published October 13, 2009

  Billed as a "collective feature film," New York, I Love You is the second in the "Cities of Love" series, an idea that has so far proved... More >>

• Adventures of Power Wants Badly to Win You Over

  published October 6, 2009

  Adventures of Power, the jejune writing and directorial debut of Ari Gold, wants very badly to win you over—so badly that you'll... More >>

• The Volunteer Impulse Is on Display in Katrina Doc After the Storm

  published September 29, 2009

  The full spectrum of the volunteer impulse—from pure self-sacrifice to dubious self-congratulation—is on display in After the... More >>

• As Seen Through These Eyes

  published September 29, 2009

  It's an angle many Hitler historians can't leave alone: As a young, aspiring painter, the Führer was rejected by the Vienna Art Institute;... More >>

• Clichés of Pandorum Get Sorta Interesting

  published September 22, 2009

  Despite too many cheap, sound-cue scares and a slow-boil plot that veers between tension and tedium, Pandorum—a dead-serious,... More >>

• The Highly Unnecessary Sister: Sorority Row

  published September 8, 2009

  The first credit to roll for Sorority Row, director Stewart Hendler’s highly unnecessary remake of a 1983 slasher, is... More >>

• Sikandar a Corking Narrative and Cognent Sketch of Violence

  published August 18, 2009

  A simple, cautionary tale gone berserk with potboiling twists and a moral ambition as lush and layered as the Kashmir Valley, Sikandar... More >>

• Pressure Cooker Explores Identity, High School Culinary Class

  published May 27, 2009

  Wilma Stephenson runs her high school culinary arts class like a Marine sergeant: She's loud, cranky, and prone to threatening bodily harm.... More >>

• Stiller's Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

  published May 20, 2009

  Wide-eyed kids, attended by their pouchy-eyed parents, will have few complaints about Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian;... More >>

• Benny Boom's Next Day Air

  published May 6, 2009

  Benny Boom built his reputation directing music videos and commercials, and his first feature, Next Day Air, falls somewhere between... More >>

• A Wink and a Smile, Now Show Us Your Tits

  published April 29, 2009

  A Wink and a Smile combines a survey of the underground burlesque resurgence, in which the traditional striptease style is often... More >>

• Nursery University

  published April 22, 2009

  A recent article in The New York Times indicated that the collective psycho-social meltdown that is Manhattan's private preschool system... More >>

• Tassos Boulmetis's A Touch of Spice: A Childhood Upended

  published April 22, 2009

  The problems between the Greeks and the Turks upend a childhood in A Touch of Spice, Tassos Boulmetis’s loose revisitation of his... More >>

• Desert Dream

  published April 15, 2009

  In Lu Zhang's 2007 film Desert Dream, the horizon divides almost every scene. A strange, strictly composed portrait of the life of a... More >>

• Enlighten Up! Inspects the Proliferation of Yoga

  published April 1, 2009

  There are a number of tensions at play in Kate Churchill's Enlighten Up!, a documentary about the proliferation of yoga as both... More >>

• "Canadian Front" at MOMA

  published March 18, 2009

  Canada's arts grants-along with its banks, health care, and charming disposition-are tough to beat. If there's a rap on the system it's that... More >>

• 12 Remakes 12 Angry Men for Russia

  published March 4, 2009

  Nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2008, Russian actor/director Nikita Mikhalkov's masterful, engrossing 12 is finally... More >>

• Delhi-6 Represents the Enigmatic India of Today

  published February 18, 2009

  Addressing the crowd gathered for the world premiere of Delhi-6 at MOMA, Indian actor Abhishek Bachchan announced that the film we were... More >>

• Ballerina Follows Russia's Masters of the Form

  published January 14, 2009

  Manuel Legris, a French dancer interviewed in Ballerina, Bertrand Norman's involving study of the Russian ballet, insists that a Russian... More >>

• Yonkers Joe Tries to Save His Son and His Two-Bit Role

  published January 7, 2009

  Yonkers Joe (Chazz Palminteri) is an old-school gambler who scams Atlantic City casinos, dances on the brink of commitment with his lovely... More >>