Michael Sragow

Find Stories by Michael Sragow

Browse by:

Category:

Year:

Latest Articles

Even punks get the blues

Reliving not-so-happy days in Salt Lake City, 1985

By Michael Sragow
Apr 29, 1999

The "SLC" in SLC Punk! stands for Salt Lake City, but it might as well stand for Some Lucky Chump. The filmmaker, James Merendino, has stated that this tale of two punk buddies trying to spread anarchy through the Utah capital in 1985 reflects his own rebellious teenage years there...
Man at the top

The General adroitly animates real-life Irish crime boss Martin Cahill

By Michael Sragow
Apr 8, 1999

Jimmy Cagney brought the same electric physicality to gangsters that he did to song-and-dance men. He gave a bright-eyed mug like his character in Public Enemy extraordinary powers of attraction and repulsion. In The General, Brendan Gleeson enacts a real-life criminal chieftain--Dublin's notorious Martin Cahill--with a belly-hanging-out buffoonery that is...
Don't it make that white hair gray

Steve Martin plays middle-aged not-so-crazy

By Michael Sragow
Apr 8, 1999

Steve Martin says he doesn't want audiences to expect the same old Steve Martin whenever he stars in a comedy. But that means one thing when he's referring to Roxanne and L.A. Story, two inspired flights of romantic farce (based on his own scripts), and another when he's talking about...
No score

Indie filmmaker turns off 19 out of 20, plus the audience

By Michael Sragow
Mar 25, 1999

Self-serving confessions are a mainstay of best-seller lists; now we're doomed to see their ilk on-screen. 20 Dates is the not-so-verite story of Myles Berkowitz, a tyro filmmaker in his mid-30s who tries to advance his career and up his happiness quotient by filming himself on a score of dates...
TV or not TV?

Ron Howard fiddles with the question

By Michael Sragow
Mar 25, 1999

"I hope it's better than The Truman Show," said the woman in line behind me at the publicized "sneak preview" of EDtv. Afterward, a man in my row declared, "That was a lot better than The Truman Show." Pretentious high-concept films like The Truman Show often garner accolades and let...

More Articles by Michael Sragow »