Email Author Melissa Levine

2004 Stories by Melissa Levine

• Bomb-alie

  published December 16, 2004

  A Very Long Engagement, the new film by French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (most famously of Amélie), will have its... More >>

• Sour Grapes

  published November 4, 2004

  When was the last time you saw Paul Giamatti? And when the film ended, did you realize how much you would miss him? It was just last year that... More >>

• Full of Grace

  published November 4, 2004

  Throughout p.s. , a thoughtful, self-possessed film from director Dylan Kidd (Roger Dodger), there is a sense of the disaster... More >>

• Secrets and Lies

  published October 21, 2004

  How does Mike Leigh do it? The years pass; film fashions come and go; Hollywood churns its commercial pap. Careers sparkle; others fizz; whom the... More >>

• Brave and Crazy

  published October 21, 2004

  Whatever else can be said about Tarnation--and there is plenty to say--there is no denying this: It is a very brave movie. Rarely is... More >>

• Empty Sex

  published September 23, 2004

  The very best thing about A Dirty Shame, a giddy sex farce from John Waters, is the credits. What's not to love about a list of... More >>

• Reese's Piece

  published September 2, 2004

  In Victorian England, 40,000 novels were published every year. Of the few that have endured, perhaps none is more worthy of a film adaptation than... More >>

• Party Train

  published September 2, 2004

  Oh, Janis. Oh, gorgeous, outrageous, soul-ripping, rockin' bluesy momma Janis Joplin. She's a volcano. She's a tsunami. She's a fearless,... More >>

• The Agony of Adultery

  published August 26, 2004

  In We Don't Live Here Anymore, an overwrought domestic drama about a pair of entangled couples, Peter Krause plays philandering writer Hank... More >>

• I Hate It

  published August 19, 2004

  Every once in a while, a film comes along that so blatantly disregards emotional authenticity that one fears for the sanity of its director. Can... More >>

• A Royal Shame

  published August 12, 2004

  Garry Marshall is at it again. The director of Pretty Woman, Beaches and the original Princess Diaries has returned to peddle... More >>

• The Company Line

  published July 22, 2004

  Near the beginning of The Corporation, a damning documentary designed to expose everything that is irresponsible, immoral, inhumane... More >>

• A Gift to Grief

  published July 15, 2004

  The opening moments of The Door in the Floor are not promising. A little girl stands on a chair in a hallway of photos, pointing at... More >>

• Strife Is Beautiful

  published July 1, 2004

  Samurai have never been strangers to film; in fact, an entire genre has sprung from their legend, with plenty of attendant offshoots,... More >>

• Sa-Weet!

  published June 24, 2004

  It's charming. It's hilarious. It is perhaps the most beautifully crafted, lovingly rendered portrait of extreme geekitude ever to grace the... More >>

• Radio Free Haiti

  published June 10, 2004

  Every once in a while, you encounter a person who seems to have been born under an urgent, righteous star--a person who is both a fiery activist... More >>

• Sad and Wonderful

  published June 3, 2004

  Ah, the peculiar genius that is Guy Maddin. Who else but the morose Canadian director, born and raised in one of the coldest cities in the world,... More >>

• Crouching Forward, Hidden Goalie

  published May 6, 2004

  If you've seen a movie at a Landmark theater in the past year or so, you've probably enjoyed the trailer for Shaolin Soccer. Over a... More >>

• Lost in Translation

  published April 1, 2004

  Those of us who grew up in the United States may be weary of our country's claims of freedom and opportunity. Faced with a wobbly quote from our... More >>

• The Wince and Me

  published April 1, 2004

  She's a pre-med farm girl intent on administering to the world's suffering children. He's a car-racing Danish prince looking to shed the burdens... More >>

• Lenin Grads

  published March 18, 2004

  If you were a college-aged East Berliner in October 1989, chances are that your time was occupied by one of several things. Protesting comes to... More >>

• Talk, Talk

  published March 11, 2004

  Remember Omar Sharif? He's been all but absent from the silver screen in recent years (though he has been seen--or at least heard--on television).... More >>

• From Bad to Worse

  published March 11, 2004

  If you were expecting the first film to emerge from Afghanistan since the defeat of the Taliban to be even remotely celebratory, you'll have to... More >>

• Sizzle? Fizzle.

  published February 26, 2004

  This is not a good movie. Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights is, in fact, a bad movie. The script bleeds one cliché after another;... More >>

• Fog of Reason

  published February 5, 2004

  At the opening of The Fog of War, the brilliant new documentary from director Errol Morris, we see a composed, sharply groomed and... More >>