Email Author Melissa Levine

2005 Stories by Melissa Levine

• Springtime for Mel

  published December 22, 2005

  In 1968 it was a movie. In 2001 it became a musical. Now it's a movie again? Yep, and there's actually pretty good reason to return The... More >>

• Thirteen Million Yogis Can't Be Wrong

  published December 8, 2005

  It's no secret that documentaries have finally gained some currency in the American media. With the help of Michael Moore, Morgan Spurlock and a... More >>

• Spent

  published November 24, 2005

  Ever since its Broadway debut in 1996, Rent has generated a loyal, almost cultlike following. Showered with praise, the Pulitzer... More >>

• Spell It Out

  published November 17, 2005

  Richard Gere? That's the first thought that came to mind upon learning that Mr. Salt-and-Pepper-Sexy-Buddhist-WASP had been cast as Saul Naumann... More >>

• Wild, Then Crazy

  published November 3, 2005

  Does Steve Martin have multiple personality disorder -- or is he just brilliantly in tune with some things and wildly out of touch with others?... More >>

• Moore's the Pity

  published October 27, 2005

  It's always hard to pan an earnest film, especially one by a first-time director. And The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, a plucky... More >>

• Strange Brew

  published October 27, 2005

  When watching Where the Truth Lies, a film noir about a young celebrity journalist's obsession with a comedy duo from the 1950s, a... More >>

• Say Cheese

  published October 6, 2005

  Ah, Wallace and Gromit. Who doesn't get a little lift at the sound of those names? Who doesn't feel the edges of her mouth begin to tickle toward... More >>

• Something Missing

  published October 6, 2005

  In 2001, Jonathan Safran Foer made an astounding literary debut. "A Very Rigid Search," published by The New Yorker, was his hilarious,... More >>

• The Opposite of Suck

  published September 29, 2005

  About once a year -- twice, if we're lucky -- a first-time director shows up with something original, electrifying and humane, a film that shows... More >>

• Proof Positive

  published September 22, 2005

  In the tradition of A Beautiful Mind and Good Will Hunting comes Proof, a psychological drama about a math genius and... More >>

• Drift Wood

  published September 1, 2005

  The problem with making black-lacquered high school satire is this: Heathers came out in 1989, and it pretty much did the trick. There's... More >>

• Low Yield

  published September 1, 2005

  At the opening of The Constant Gardener, Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles's adaptation of the novel by John le Carré, we... More >>

• A Tale of Two Bastards

  published July 28, 2005

  Toward the end of Saraband, the uneven new film from legendary director Ingmar Bergman, a character sits down with his daughter, a... More >>

• Glorious Sea

  published July 14, 2005

  What Winged Migration was to birds, Deep Blue is to the ocean: a breathtaking nature documentary cheapened slightly by... More >>

• Miracle on Ice

  published July 7, 2005

  If you're short on reasons to be grateful these days, look no further than March of the Penguins, the astonishing if imperfect... More >>

• Girls Interrupted

  published June 23, 2005

  Not many people saw Lost and Delirious, the 2001 boarding-school drama about two girls in obsessive love, and that was probably for the... More >>

• Chinese Box

  published June 16, 2005

  You're a talented young resident at a New York hospital, first-generation Chinese, and you happen to be gay. In fact, you're dating a new and... More >>

• Bad Education

  published June 9, 2005

  Before there was School of Rock, the 2003 movie in which Jack Black awakened a class of subdued elementary school kids with lessons in... More >>

• All the Right Moves

  published June 2, 2005

  Ten is a magical age, when kids are old enough to make articulate statements about their experiences and young enough to express their feelings... More >>

• One for the Girls

  published June 2, 2005

  The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is a flawed movie born of a flawed novel, but let this be clear: Girls will eat it up... More >>

• Club Life

  published May 12, 2005

  It won't ruin anyone's experience of 3-Iron, the new film by Korean writer-director Kim Ki-duk, to reveal that it closes with a... More >>

• Bad Daddy

  published April 28, 2005

  If it's been a while since you've seen a great work of art, perhaps you've forgotten what it feels like: It feels euphoric. At least, that's the... More >>

• A Lot Like Good

  published April 21, 2005

  Amanda Peet. Ashton Kutcher. Romantic comedy. Who'd have thought it could work? And yet A Lot Like Love is an entertainment success,... More >>

• Yao More than Ever

  published April 14, 2005

  It seems unlikely that any American outside of a cloistered, sports-averse, PBS-watching film reviewer would have failed to notice the 2002... More >>