Critics » Michael Sragow
Michael Sragow

Michael Sragow

Agrees with the Tomatometer 76% of the time.

Biography:
Michael Sragow saw the greatest movie ever made, The Wild Bunch, six times in two weeks in 1969 and has been arguing about it and other movies ever since. He has been a movie critic for The Baltimore Sun since 2001 and a regular contributor to The New Yorker since 1989. Prior to writing for The Sun, he was a film critic for Rolling Stone and The San Francisco Examiner, among other publications. He is the author of Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master (Pantheon, 2008).
Publications:
Baltimore Sun , New Times , New Yorker , Orange County Register , Salon.com
Critics' Group:
National Society of Film Critics
Total Reviews:
535
Total QuickRatings:
1

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 535
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Rating T-Meter Title | Year Add Date
A 98% Gravity (2013) " This enthralling tale of survival in space will open up young audiences' eyes to the excitement of out-of-this-world exploration -- and make older audiences remember the wonder they felt at 2001: A Space Odyssey." — Orange County Register
Posted Oct 3, 2013
A 90% Inequality For All (2013) " This documentary would be a rousing David and Goliath story even if its hero weren't the diminutive Robert B. Reich." — Orange County Register
Posted Oct 3, 2013
C+ 46% Parkland (2013) " This star-studded docudrama about President Kennedy's assassination and its aftermath focuses on fascinating, relatively obscure stories, but fails to organize them into effective and revealing drama." — Orange County Register
Posted Oct 3, 2013
C- 8% Runner Runner (2013) " The movie is like a set-up to a set-up." — Orange County Register
Posted Oct 3, 2013
A 95% Enough Said (2013) " What a concept -- an adult romantic comedy that's equally wise and playful, with mold-breaking performances by James Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus." — Orange County Register
Posted Sep 27, 2013
C 83% Don Jon (2013) " Joseph Gordon-Levitt's debut as a writer-director-actor resembles a porn addict's Groundhog Day, and not in a good way." — Orange County Register
Posted Sep 27, 2013
B 88% Rush (2013) " Stripped-down characters and skeletal dramaturgy limit this movie about the real-life Formula 1 racing rivalry of James Hunt and Niki Lauda, but harrowing track scenes and an affecting second half provide some vivid compensation." — Orange County Register
Posted Sep 27, 2013
C+ 50% Thanks For Sharing (2013) " The arduous trail to recovery from sex addiction gets cushioned with soap opera suds and romantic comedy shtick in Thanks for Sharing." — Orange County Register
Posted Sep 20, 2013
C- 34% Salinger (2013) " The treatment of J.D. Salinger's writing in this overwrought documentary is so inflated and pompous it comes as a relief when Judd Apatow shows up to describe The Catcher in the Rye as a funny book filled with great lines." — Orange County Register
Posted Sep 20, 2013
C 80% Prisoners (2013) " Prisoners is an overblown missing-children mystery that wants to comment on the dysfunctional soul of America." — Orange County Register
Posted Sep 20, 2013
A+ 99% The Wizard of Oz (1939) " The greatest American movie fantasy." — Orange County Register
Posted Sep 19, 2013
C- 15% Winnie Mandela (2013) " This biopic is part hagiography, part expose, and gravely incoherent." — Orange County Register
Posted Sep 13, 2013
D 35% Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) " This sequel to the horror hit about a boy lost in the demon-infested netherworld called The Further adds the element of time travel to its paranormal expeditions -- and sinks in its own murk." — Orange County Register
Posted Sep 13, 2013
C 33% The Family (2013) " An all-star cast fails to rise above bloody japes and heavy-handed humor in this tale of a renegade Mob family hiding in a small French town." — Orange County Register
Posted Sep 13, 2013
B- 34% Adore (2013) " This story of two dynamite Australian moms falling in love with each other's surfer-god sons is sensuous and gorgeous but also strained and opaque." — Orange County Register
Posted Sep 5, 2013
B+ 59% Afternoon Delight (2013) " Funny and trenchant, it isn't a shapely farce. It's a comedy of confusion that dares to be unlikable -- and somehow, that makes it more lovable." — Orange County Register
Posted Sep 5, 2013
100% Salvatore Giuliano (1962) " The scenes have a raw, newsreel poetry." — New Yorker
Posted Sep 2, 2013
A 99% Short Term 12 (2013) " This movie has the dash and esprit of service comedies like MASH and the harrowing emotions of misunderstood youth films like The 400 Blows." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 29, 2013
A- 81% Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013) " A lyrical modern Western that casts a contemporary but un-jaded eye on the romantic mythology of outlaw couples." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 29, 2013
B 74% The Grandmaster (2013) " The fights that dot this erratically told story of kung fu grandmaster Ip Man can leave you giddy with excitement." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 29, 2013
D- 3% Getaway (2013) " This nonstop chase film could make a critic feel guilty for calling other movies "empty."" — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 29, 2013
C 56% Inch'Allah (2013) " Inch'Allah, filmed in Jordan and the West Bank, undercuts formidable graphic textures with a shallow would-be heroine." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 26, 2013
B+ 83% The Patience Stone (2013) " It's a tragedy streaked with nightmare farce." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 22, 2013
D+ 31% Austenland (2013) " It's a piquant idea, but the execution is intolerably clumsy." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 22, 2013
B- 75% You're Next (2013) " This uninhibited slasher movie has sick-joke humor and variety -- it's more of a hack, chop, slice, dice and purée film." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 22, 2013
C+ 12% The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013) " Every fantasy creature except zombies get a workout in this overstuffed spectacle about a teenage girl who discovers she has angelic blood in her veins." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 22, 2013
B 73% Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013) " [A] turbulent, emotionally overpowering movie." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 16, 2013
B 57% When Comedy Went to School (2013) " This engaging documentary about Jewish-American comedians pays homage to the Borscht Belt masters of disrespect who brought their tumultuous, irreverent clowning into the American mainstream during the early days of network television." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 16, 2013
A- 91% In a World... (2013) " This comedy about a gawky female voice-over artist is disarmingly graceful, generous, even life enhancing." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 16, 2013
D 30% Kick-Ass 2 (2013) " Even the novelty of a deadly, blasphemous Hit-Girl wears off, and all that's left is over-the-top violence and under-the-belt humor." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 16, 2013
C- 4% Paranoia (2013) " The film is all thunderous clichés." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 16, 2013
C 38% Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013) " Whiny, listless and repetitive." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 8, 2013
D 47% We're The Millers (2013) " The baseline for American movie humor sinks once again in this sentimentally cynical and cynically sentimental farce." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 8, 2013
B- 68% Elysium (2013) " The movie's blue-collar aesthetic, impressive in its vision and kinetics, lacks emotional variety and humor." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 8, 2013
B- 27% Planes (2013) " A zippy little programmer designed to exploit the same vehicles-as-people formula as the Cars franchise." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 8, 2013
A 91% The Spectacular Now (2013) " The Spectacular Now is zesty, funny, sad, and wise beyond its characters' years." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 8, 2013
2.5/4 91% Minority Report (2002) " Too much of Minority Report is facile, albeit at a very high level." — Baltimore Sun
Posted Aug 5, 2013
97% The Iron Giant (1999) " Brad Bird fills the CinemaScope screen with wit and beauty in this modern fairy tale." — New Yorker
Posted Aug 4, 2013
3/4 89% Spider-Man (2002) " When the cast and their director are really cooking, they conjure a bipolar sense of high school-age emotion -- and use it to fuel outrageous fantasy." — Baltimore Sun
Posted Aug 3, 2013
A 91% Blue Jasmine (2013) " Blue Jasmine ranks with Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Midnight in Paris at the top of Woody Allen's recent movies." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 1, 2013
A 97% The Act Of Killing (2013) " This riveting documentary about political mass murder in Indonesia incorporates the killers' own movie fantasies about their massacres and deepens our understanding of the fascist brain." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 1, 2013
C- 52% The To Do List (2013) " Not since the schmaltzy Bucket List has there been a more blatant example of checklist comedy than the ultra-raunchy The To Do List." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 1, 2013
C 63% 2 Guns (2013) " 2 Guns slops over with instantly over-familiar ingredients like bantering criminal and/or crime-fighting buddies, a loathsome Mexican drug lord, and a femme vitale and femme fatale rolled into one comely dame." — Orange County Register
Posted Aug 1, 2013
85% The Secret Garden (1993) " It's as if the moviemakers were trying to cook up a New Age Yorkshire pudding, without meat drippings -- what's missing is Burnett's robust optimism and animistic energy." — New Yorker
Posted Aug 1, 2013
B+ 90% Storm Surfers 3D (2013) " Theaters showing Storm Surfers 3D ought to create a splash zone. This exuberant documentary about the perennially stoked team of big-wave stalkers Tom Carroll and Ross Clarke-Jones takes audiences right into the barrel of the beast." — Orange County Register
Posted Jul 25, 2013
A- 88% Springsteen And I (2013) " Springsteen & I captures rock-star and rock-fan power and resolve at its funniest, grittiest and most profound." — Orange County Register
Posted Jul 25, 2013
B 69% The Wolverine (2013) " It has a more absorbing story and intriguing sensibility than Iron Man 3 or Man of Steel, and even when its action falters, this film is more original and exotic." — Orange County Register
Posted Jul 25, 2013
A 94% Fruitvale Station (2013) " Empathy and authenticity keep you on the edge of your seat at Fruitvale Station." — Orange County Register
Posted Jul 25, 2013
A- 95% The Hunt (2013) " Mads Mikkelsen displays remarkable range as a subdued kindergarten teacher confronting sex-abuse charges in a small Danish town." — Orange County Register
Posted Jul 18, 2013
Showing 1 - 50 of 535
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