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Michael Sragow
Tomatometer-approved critic
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).
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Aliens (1986) |
What a difference an "s" makes -- for the good. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Jul 30, 2024
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Planet of the Apes (2001) |
Not a remake but a jumbled revision that tumbles out as if from a piñata. - Baltimore Sun
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| Posted May 01, 2024
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Postcards From the Edge (1990) |
[Postcards From the Edge] is the kind of Hollywood movie a clef that Hollywood loves. It's morally double-jointed. The film's smug attitudes and in-jokes are symptoms of the Tinseltown insularity the screenplay tries to attack. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Apr 30, 2024
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Spaceballs (1987) |
Whatever affection [Brooks] has for sci-fi blockbusters gets mixed up with his bitterness at what they've done to Hollywood. And no matter how many mock-up merchandising items he throws into the screen... the theme is obtrusive, tacked on. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Apr 12, 2024
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Mean Girls (2004) |
Luckily, Fey and director Mark Waters put enough tricks up their actor's designer sleeves to keep the in-flights, back-stabs and flirtations from seeming like moldy oldies. - Baltimore Sun
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| Posted Jan 03, 2024
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The Duellists (1977) |
Scott's images are true to Conrad's sentiments; they have a supernal glow. Their blend of immediacy and romance must be unparalleled in filmed historical fiction. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Nov 21, 2023
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Flags of Our Fathers (2006) |
Flags of Our Fathers fails as fact or legend. It's woefully incompetent as narrative moviemaking. - Baltimore Sun
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| Posted Nov 10, 2023
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Atanarjuat the Fast Runner (2001) |
This movie's power is cumulative; if you stick with it, you do get attuned to its stark contours and jagged rhythms. And it's blessedly unsentimental about tribal culture. - Baltimore Sun
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| Posted Nov 08, 2023
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Goodfellas (1990) |
This working stiff's version of The Godfather is disappointing: It lacks depth and point of view, and a rich, sustained tone. The skin-deep style is voluptuous... But all that holds the story together is the parade of investigative revelations. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Oct 18, 2023
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Predator (1987) |
A brainless brawn extravaganza, a cat-and-louse saga that has little of the Conan movies' outlandishness and none of the compulsive drive and storytelling logic that made The Terminator a B-movie classic. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Oct 03, 2023
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Y tu mamá también (2001) |
Y tu mama tambien is one of the most cutting and heart-wrenching depictions of adolescent friendship in contemporary movies. - Baltimore Sun
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| Posted Sep 09, 2023
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White Men Can't Jump (1992) |
In White Men Can't Jump, Shelton & Co. turn the slam dunk into the stuff of life and art. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Aug 31, 2023
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Moulin Rouge (2001) |
It's less an MTV offshoot than a gaudy outgrowth of an earlier generation's form of multi-tasking: flipping through a Classics Illustrated comic book while listening to Top 40 AM and peeking at Laugh-In on TV. - Baltimore Sun
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| Posted Aug 30, 2023
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Batman (1989) |
Even on its woefully rickety story level, the movie has emotional force and conviction; it acquires a haunting aura and a pop Wagnerian ring. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Jul 25, 2023
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Enemy at the Gates (2001) |
Without its ambitious underpinnings, these virtuoso set pieces wouldn't flicker with emotion. In Enemy at the Gates, gravity has entertainment value, at least to those who can respond to wartime fervor. - Baltimore Sun
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| Posted Jul 15, 2023
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Back to the Future (1985) |
A startlingly funny, enjoyably intricate piece of slapstick satire. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Jun 27, 2023
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The Color Purple (1985) |
The director heightens Walker's own sentimentality and drowns out her authentic feelings in a barrage of noise and dithering activity... As always, Disney is Spielberg's main mentor. Never has that influence been more unfortunate. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted May 25, 2023
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Yentl (1983) |
You don't have to be Jewish to love Yentl, and you don't have to be a woman. All you have to be is human. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted May 12, 2023
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Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) |
With Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, executive producer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg change their course from zesty, imaginative filmmaking to cold, calculating thrillpacking. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Apr 17, 2023
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Air (2023) |
A film that salutes and embodies entrepreneurial art. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Mar 31, 2023
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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) |
Because of Ford, Jones is both the most immediately appealing of larger-than-life heroes and the one with the most staying power. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Mar 29, 2023
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Come and See (1985) |
Klimov’s dramatic vitality, his control of shifting tones, and his mastery of surprise are what galvanize Come and See. Terrifying as this movie is, we always want to know what happens next. - Film Comment Magazine
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| Posted Mar 14, 2023
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Creed III (2023) |
First-time director/star Michael B. Jordan smartly flips the script on the Rocky saga with this forceful if fanciful melodrama. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Mar 03, 2023
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Thelma & Louise (1991) |
The movie combines outrageous action, misanthropic humor and sisterhoodly uplift. It's a cartoon that doesn't know it is one. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Mar 01, 2023
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The Big Lebowski (1998) |
Bridges gives the Dude a textured fuzziness that wins the film its biggest laughs and imparts a second-to-second emotional authenticity to its jumbled, showoffy action. He's precisely what those aesthetic wiseacres the Coen brothers need. - New Times
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| Posted Jan 20, 2023
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A Dry White Season (1989) |
Palcy's political melodrama is emotionally simplistic where it should be richly textured, merely brutal where it should be harrowing and lucid. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Jan 03, 2023
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The Fabelmans (2022) |
Spielberg studs the film with inspired household slapstick but falls short on revelation or epiphany... But Spielberg’s film sense (sort of) saves the day. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Nov 19, 2022
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The Shop Around the Corner (1940) |
Stewart's virtuous longing is touching, and his low-key demeanor is delicate and, finally, insidiously seductive; Sullavan's spunky, cruel prattling is amusing, heartbreaking and astonishing. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Nov 07, 2022
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Dead for a Dollar (2022) |
Writer-director Walter Hill, 80, who’s made classic Westerns on film (The Long Riders) and for cable (Broken Trail), recharges the form with a low-budget doozy. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Oct 06, 2022
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Hellraiser (1987) |
The acclaimed young fiction writer turned filmmaker, Clive Barker, here wears his heart on his sleeve -- along with his brains and his intestines... By pushing his horror gimmicks to the limit, Barker becomes a pain for the audience. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Sep 21, 2022
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Platoon (1986) |
If Platoon is easy to overrate, it's also easy to underrate... Oliver Stone may know too much about war fiction for his own good. But he also knows something about war. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Aug 23, 2022
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Dressed to Kill (1980) |
Dressed to Kill will put those with a taste for Grand Guignol into a state of blissful delirium -- and most of the rest of us into a state of shock. But it's as sexy as it is shocking. - Los Angeles Herald Examiner
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| Posted Aug 09, 2022
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Lipstick (1976) |
Lipstick is, on paper, nothing more than an exploitation movie... But on screen Lipstick is an incendiary exploitation movie. - Los Angeles Herald Examiner
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| Posted Aug 09, 2022
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Rain Man (1988) |
The script falls back on the most common dramatic device in this year's sitcoms: A yuppie's humanity is touched for the first time when he's thrust together with a new family member. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Aug 03, 2022
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The Last Emperor (1987) |
The moviemakers sacrifice any deep involvement with their anti-hero for a flatly pretty presentation. If Chinese TV ever starts its own Masterpiece Theatre, The Last Emperor could provide the first three episodes. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Aug 01, 2022
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Thirteen Lives (2022) |
Legions of saviors, including Thai Navy SEALS, demonstrate the Right Stuff in scenes that are simultaneously spooky, poignant and thrilling. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Jul 29, 2022
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Driving Miss Daisy (1989) |
Driving Miss Daisy is a minor miracle -- a surprisingly tough-minded Southern idyll... Watching it, you rediscover the appeal of the odd-couple type of comedy-drama, a genre that's been debased by routine soap operas and cop movies. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Jul 25, 2022
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Terms of Endearment (1983) |
[James L. Brooks] is so intent on giving his film a leisurely, lived-in feeling that he even courts our boredom. But without the actual leisure of an entire TV season to develop his characters, he doesn't leave square one. - Boston Phoenix
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| Posted Jul 21, 2022
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My Favorite Year (1982) |
My Favorite Year is a film that rises -- and sometimes soars -- on the beauty of its central idea and on the loving, intelligent way it’s been fleshed out. - Rolling Stone
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| Posted Jun 21, 2022
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Burden of Dreams (1982) |
Les Blank’s movie about the making of Fitzcarraldo is dumbfoundingly precious. - Rolling Stone
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| Posted Jun 21, 2022
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Fitzcarraldo (1982) |
My reaction is strictly, "So what?” - Rolling Stone
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| Posted Jun 21, 2022
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First Blood (1982) |
An ambitious, bloody, talented but pulpy mess. - Rolling Stone
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| Posted Jun 21, 2022
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Horse Thief (1987) |
All Horse Thief amounts to is "Taras Bulba" pictorialism -- and melodrama -- put at the service of an ethnographic survey of Tibetan Buddhist customs. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted May 20, 2022
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The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) |
If this be heresy, Scorsese hasn't made the most of it. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted May 06, 2022
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The Witches of Eastwick (1987) |
What we see most of the time is a slapstick, half-baked feminist fable: Kate Millett rolled in a Betty Crocker batter. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Apr 22, 2022
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Three Men and a Baby (1987) |
It's all as earthy as a network sitcom could get, which I don't mean as a compliment; what comes in dirty goes out clean. This is moviemaking as a diaper service. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Apr 20, 2022
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The Silence of the Lambs (1991) |
Rather than dwell on the violence, Demme relies on a well-constructed plot to keep viewers involved even when they avert their eyes... You identify more with Foster's diminutive FBI woman than with any over-muscled action hero. - San Francisco Examiner
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| Posted Mar 23, 2022
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Death on the Nile (2022) |
The actors hold the screen even when giant statues of Ramses II tower over them. Like an old-time actor-manager, Branagh tosses grand gestures and juicy bits to all, himself included. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Feb 12, 2022
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The Matrix Resurrections (2021) |
Love conquers all, except the script. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Dec 31, 2021
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Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) |
Holland attains maximum poignance and amiability and the franchise soars into fan heaven while making believers of us all. - AARP Movies for Grownups
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| Posted Dec 17, 2021
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