Email Author Michael Sragow

1999 Stories by Michael Sragow

• Even Punks Get the Blues

  published April 22, 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... More >>

• Virtual Content and Its Discontents

  published April 22, 1999

  Just as David Cronenberg's The Fly (1986) came off as an organic reaction to a terrible new wasting disease, his new movie crystallizes the... More >>

• Don't It Make That White Hair Gray

  published April 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... More >>

• No Score

  published March 25, 1999

  Self-serving confessions are a mainstay of best-seller lists; now we're doomed to see their ilk onscreen. 20 Dates is the not-so-verite story of... More >>

• TV or Not TV?

  published March 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... More >>

• The Shallow End of the Pool

  published March 18, 1999

  The Deep End of the Ocean starts out as a maternal horror movie and ends up as a family therapy session. Michelle Pfeiffer plays the photographer... More >>

• East Side Story

  published March 11, 1999

  Immodesty becomes Guy Ritchie, the British writer-director who makes a jovial debut on a Jovian scale in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. In... More >>

• Man at the Top

  published February 4, 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... More >>

• The Mild Bunch

  published January 21, 1999

  "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose," sings Kris Kristofferson in his most beguiling song, "Me and Bobby McGee." Stephen... More >>