Email Author Rob Nelson

Awards

• 2008 - Page One Contest/Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists, published July 4, 2007

  "L.A. Plays Itself"

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2006 Stories by Rob Nelson

• Iraq's Cinema of Longing

  published December 26, 2006

  James Longley's Iraq in Fragments is a one-man production of startling audacity and aesthetic provocation. It isn't just that Longley... More >>

• 'We Are Marshall'

  published December 12, 2006

  From the ashes, we rose," whispers the earnest narrator of this, the World Trade Center of college-football soapers. Based on the true... More >>

• Blade of Flying Sparks

  published December 12, 2006

  Like his Hero and House of Flying Daggers, Zhang Yimou's third global-market gigaproduction makes little sense in narrative terms... More >>

• Rocky v. Ahmadinejad

  published December 12, 2006

  Bankrupt and brain-damaged in Rocky V, a bout fought so long ago that the other Bush was still sucker-punching Saddam, Sylvester... More >>

• A League of His Own

  published November 28, 2006

  Movie actors of Nick Nolte's clout (and gender) get to decide right down to the last wrinkle and half-ounce of muscle or flab how they want to age... More >>

• '3 Needles'

  published November 21, 2006

  In terms of simple provocation, nothing in this melodramatic mosaic of global suffering comes close to matching director Thom Fitzgerald's press... More >>

• 'Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds'

  published November 14, 2006

  If American Pie could spawn a sequel, so can Eating Out, Q. Allan Brocka's queen-teen sex farce from '05. As its subtitle suggests,... More >>

• 'Flannel Pajamas'

  published November 7, 2006

  Indie-film exec Jeff Lipsky's sophomore feature as writer-director shares with his distribution work a desire to restore some of the untidier... More >>

• 'Candy'

  published November 7, 2006

  Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish play unbelievably gorgeous heroin junkies Dan and Candy in Candy, a don't-try-this-at-home melodrama adapted... More >>

• 'Come Early Morning'

  published October 31, 2006

  By dawn at the latest, as per the title, Lucille (Ashley Judd) will squeeze back into her jeans and flee another stranger's house, the... More >>

• 'Fuck'

  published October 31, 2006

  Twelve-year-olds might get a charge out of this purportedly daring documentary celebration of the F-word, although it never occurs to filmmaker... More >>

• 'Saw III'

  published October 31, 2006

  On Halloween weekend 2006, Saw III became the Iraq war era's bloodiest chart-topping torture movie whose victims don't include Jesus of... More >>

• The Man Who Loved Women

  published October 24, 2006

  Men are literally disposable in Pedro Almodóvar's Volver. But the film, particularly for fans of the gynophilic, flamboyantly... More >>

• 'Exit: The Right to Die'

  published October 17, 2006

  No one here gets out alive, as Jim Morrison put it before the End, though in Switzerland one at least has the chance of booking a smoother passage... More >>

• A Guide to Recognizing Your Shrinks

  published October 10, 2006

  "I guess it doesn't matter where I begin," reasons the adult narrator of Running With Scissors, the inevitable Oscar contender... More >>

• 'Sweet Land'

  published October 10, 2006

  A plot-driven Days of Heaven set mostly in rural Minnesota circa 1920, this gorgeously realized romance by first-time feature maker Ali... More >>

• 'Black Gold'

  published September 26, 2006

  That $4 latte purchase of yours often yields little or almost nothing to the African bean harvesters who made it possible—sorry to harsh your... More >>

• Hometown Legend

  published September 19, 2006

  They say youse can never go home again. Nevertheless, Queens-bred big-timer Dito Montiel revisits his old Astoria stomping grounds in ... More >>

• 'American Hardcore'

  published September 12, 2006

  The story of American punk rock (1980–1986) isn't a lot easier to summarize than that of any other major war, but it's quite a bit funnier,... More >>

• 'Jesus Camp'

  published September 12, 2006

  God is in the details no matter what you believe, but this red-state-baiting doc is content to introduce its appalled exposé of evangelical... More >>

• 'Al Franken: God Spoke'

  published September 5, 2006

  Unfocused but brisk (and a tad revealing), this documentary bio of Air America muckraker, Saturday Night Live vet, and presumed Senate... More >>

• 'Rolling Family'

  published August 29, 2006

  Little Miss Sunshine is Old Gramma Moonbeam in this family road-trip dramedy from Argentina; the VW camper van is here a rusted-out Chevy motor... More >>

• A Schoolteacher Darkly

  published August 1, 2006

  Even curriculum-clutchers might rather leave a child behind than let her learn from Half Nelson's Mr. Dunne (Ryan Gosling), a Brooklyn... More >>

• 'The House of Sand'

  published August 1, 2006

  Set in the Maranhão desert of northern Brazil and spanning six decades (from 1910), Andrucha Waddington's admirably pretentious epic of... More >>

• Downward Mobility

  published July 25, 2006

  The old Lucas/Spielberg stunt of turning B-movie peekaboos into E-ticket thrill rides remains the industry standard—to the virtual exclusion... More >>