Email Author Melissa Anderson

2011 Stories by Melissa Anderson

• The Artist is an undeniably charming homage to 1920s Hollywood

  published December 22, 2011

  An undeniably charming homage to Hollywood in the late 1920s, The Artist might also be the first silent film many of its viewers... More >>

• Tomboy sensitively explores a freedom from gender codes

  published December 15, 2011

  A sensitive portrait of childhood just before pubescence, Tomboy, the second film by writer-director Céline... More >>

• Despite the literary-period-piece cliches, Young Goethe in Love is commendable

  published December 8, 2011

  That this film was originally titled Goethe! should give you a sense of how much silly sturm und drang boosterism awaits. A biopic more fiction... More >>

• The new Muppets movie succeeds when following its original story arc

  published November 24, 2011

  Desperately trying to appeal to not just the Gen X'ers who grew up with Kermit, but also the tykes who've never even heard of Jim Henson,... More >>

• Wall Street financial-collapse tale Margin Call is too late to succeed

  published October 20, 2011

  Sure to be drowned out by the drum circles at Occupy Wall Street, writer-director J.C. Chandor's lifeless Margin Call depicts roughly 36... More >>

• In Take Shelter, a mental apocalypse is filtered through a marriage

  published October 20, 2011

  Standing outside his small-town Ohio home, his wife and child busy preparing breakfast inside, Curtis LaForche (Michael Shannon) looks up at... More >>

• Love Crime is a silly tale of boardroom humiliation

  published October 6, 2011

  "Want it...and watch out," ruthless corporate veep Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas) instructs younger associate Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier) in... More >>

• I Don't Know How She Does It...or how these movies keep getting made

  published September 15, 2011

  What I don't know: why these movies keep getting made. I Don't Know How She Does It is based on Allison Pearson's 2002 diaristic,... More >>

• Higher Ground: Vera Farmiga's directorial debut would have benefited from more Vera

  published September 8, 2011

  At one point in Higher Ground, Vera Farmiga's decades-spanning directorial debut, the actress, playing Corinne, a woman... More >>

• The Interrupters follows peace brokers in Chicago

  published August 25, 2011

  Inspired by a 2008 New York Times Magazine article by Alex Kotlowitz, Steve James's commanding documentary The... More >>

• Catherine Breillat's Sleeping Beauty subverts the classic fairy tale

  published August 11, 2011

  The second film in her planned trilogy of subverted fairy tales, Catherine Breillat's latest topples the tyranny of pink and princesses.... More >>

• The Art of Getting By is about as far from true adolescence as you can get

  published June 16, 2011

  Gavin Wiesen's first film, as passive and vanilla as its title, continues the numbing trendlet begun in 2008 with Nick and Norah's Infinite... More >>

• The Robber is as lean as its marathon-running title character

  published June 2, 2011

  What makes Johann run — and rob? Benjamin Heisenberg's second feature is as taut, lean and fleet as its title character, played by... More >>

• Tanya Hamilton's Night Catches Us captures the emotional aftermath of the Black Power movement

  published January 27, 2011

  Writer-director Tanya Hamilton's striking debut is the rare recent American independent film that goes beyond the private dramas of its... More >>

• Elle Fanning outshines her adult co-star in Sofia Coppola's Somewhere

  published January 6, 2011

  Dissolute action-movie star Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), first seen doing laps in his black Ferrari, has no destination in... More >>