Email Author Michelle Orange

2011 Stories by Michelle Orange

• London River

  published December 7, 2011

  Set in the days before and immediately after England's 2005 transit bombings, London River scales the tragedy down to two parents... More >>

• Lads & Jockeys

  published November 30, 2011

  Images of pubescent boys on horseback—crouched still, hovering over unstoppable animal motion—form a striking visual metaphor in... More >>

• After the Murders, Before the Death Penalty, Into the Abyss

  published November 9, 2011

  An egalitarian study of crime and punishment in a small Southern town, Into the Abyss is also an unmistakably Herzogian inquiry into the... More >>

• Revenge of the Electric Car

  published October 19, 2011

  I couldn’t get my parents to watch Who Killed the Electric Car? Chris Paine’s indictment of the forces that brought down a... More >>

• Too Fat? Too Thin? America the Beautiful 2 Weighs In

  published October 12, 2011

  A follow-up to director Darryl Roberts’s 2008 inquiry into this country’s ad-bolstered beauty standards, America the Beautiful 2: The... More >>

• Home from Afghanistan, But Still at War in Hell and Back Again

  published October 5, 2011

  Like last month’s Where Soldiers Come From, director Danfung Dennis’s Hell and Back Again seeks to document the... More >>

• Portrait of SF Musician Goh Nakamura, But Not Really, in Surrogate Valentine

  published September 28, 2011

  A rambling valentine to San Francisco musician Goh Nakamura, Surrogate Valentine is a stylish pseudo-portrait that refracts Nakamura’s gently... More >>

• The Holocaust's Impact on One Small Town in There Was Once...

  published September 21, 2011

  A vitally personal version of a story often told in anonymous terms, There Was Once… reclaims the overwhelming tragedy of the... More >>

• Joe Swanberg Is Making a Low-Budget Film in His Low-Budget Film Art History

  published September 21, 2011

  Throughout Art History—another origami dispatch from mumblecore associate Joe Swanberg’s inner circle—men ask Josephine... More >>

• Men of War and Peace: Behind the Scenes at Camp David in Back Door Channels

  published September 14, 2011

  Back Door Channels: The Price of Peace opens with a four-minute history of 4,000 years’ worth of conflict in the Middle East.... More >>

• Remember When Austin Was Cool? The Commodification of a Town in Echotone

  published September 7, 2011

  The live music scene that draws artists of all stripes to Austin, Texas, and the corporate and residential interests capitalizing on the city's... More >>

• The Sexual "Revolution" Gen X Deserves in A Good Old Fashioned Orgy

  published August 31, 2011

  A group of thirtysomethings trapped in the amber of their high school years attempt to bone their way into adulthood in A Good Old Fashioned... More >>

• Superhero or Sad Sack? Depends on Who's Looking in Griff the Invisible 

  published August 17, 2011

  An Australian misfits-in-love story manufactured from whole quirk, Griff the Invisible is more mannerism than movie. Griff (True... More >>

• The Weight of War on a Marriage in Protektor

  published August 3, 2011

  The story of a marriage's fracture under the weight of Germany's WWII occupation of Czechoslovakia, Protektor is a wartime melodrama... More >>

• Do Not Ask to Borrow Sugar: Danger Around Every Corner in Good Neighbors

  published July 27, 2011

  Set in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighborhood of Montreal during Quebec's 1995 secession referendum, Good Neighbors uses a dark... More >>

• The Slow Life of a Wales Village, Rapidly Changing, in Sleep Furiously

  published July 27, 2011

  A lingering, mildly lyrical look at village life, Sleep Furiously does for the mobile librarians of Wales what Sweetgrass did for... More >>

• Translating an Epic Life in The Woman With the 5 Elephants

  published July 20, 2011

  Begin with the fact that, until Svetlana Geier published her translation in 1994, Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment was known in... More >>

• A Fateful Plane Trip Leads to Much Drama in Bride Flight

  published June 8, 2011

  “It’s complete,” grizzled, wistful Frank (Rutger Hauer) says in the opening scene of Bride Flight, right before he croaks... More >>

• A Confused Tribute to David Lynch in The Big Bang

  published May 11, 2011

  The Big Bang ties a rattling apocalypse subplot to the tailpipe of a detective noir, a trick that answers what in retrospect seems like... More >>

• Move Over, Teen Mom, It's Teen Magicians in Make Believe

  published May 11, 2011

  A kiddie competition doc centered on the world of junior magicians, Make Believe pairs a newly entrenched formula with old-fashioned,... More >>

• The True Story, and False Uplift, of One Man's Quest to Read in The First Grader

  published May 11, 2011

  Based on the true story of an 84-year-old Kenyan who took his government’s “education for all” promise literally, The First... More >>

• The Food You Eat Is Killing You, and Other Non-Revelations, in Forks Over Knives

  published May 4, 2011

  Looking to documentaries to learn how to live could easily become a life-consuming occupation in itself. I’m waiting on the documentary... More >>

• Mark Ruffalo's Directorial Debut, Sympathy for Delicious Needs More Magic, Less Magic DJ

  published April 27, 2011

  An urban parable in the underlit indie tradition, Sympathy for Delicious treats sketchy, moribund storytelling as divine inspiration.... More >>

• Memory Lane: 1960s Boyhood in Sweet Coming-of-Ager That's What I Am

  published April 27, 2011

  Those of us old enough to remember The Wonder Years (cough) will recognize the structure and style of That’s What I Am, a... More >>

• If You Pay to See This Movie, You Will Have Been Hoodwinked Too!

  published April 27, 2011

  One of the more depressing, desensitizing experiences I’ve had in a theater, Hoodwinked Too! Hood Vs. Evil feels as... More >>