ROTTEN TOMATOES: Michael Sragow

MICHAEL SRAGOW

Agrees with the Tomatometer 74% 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, Salon.com

Critics' Group: National Society of Film Critics

Total Reviews: 415

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date (default)

Fresh 3/4	Fresh 73%	The Blind Side (2009)	" It speaks of faith, hope and charity with the down-to-earth tones and rhythms of a high school percussion band in a Thanksgiving Day parade." — Baltimore Sun Posted Nov 20, 2009
Fresh 4/4	Fresh 91%	Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by Sapphire (2009)	" The movie soars on the cast's brilliance at transforming the characters from monsters and victims into repositories of pride and battlers for turf." — Baltimore Sun Posted Nov 20, 2009
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 70%	American Casino (2009)	" It's a nightmare that starts like a normal daytime drive and ends in a vortex-like sinkhole." — Baltimore Sun Posted Nov 13, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 54%	The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)	" A refreshingly unpredictable and fizzy comic fantasy." — Baltimore Sun Posted Nov 6, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Fresh 86%	A Serious Man (2009)	" All the Coens come up with is a movie about bad things happening to limited people." — Baltimore Sun Posted Oct 23, 2009
Rotten 2.5/4	Fresh 70%	Where the Wild Things Are (2009)	" You never completely lose their feeling for the little guy, but by the end you feel a bit like Max's mom. Once you know he's safe, you're more than ready to drift into deep sleep." — Baltimore Sun Posted Oct 15, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 69%	Paris (2009)	" Klapisch's movie boasts passages of genuine magic." — Baltimore Sun Posted Oct 9, 2009
Rotten 1/4	Rotten 12%	Couples Retreat (2009)	" Every time the performers insinuate some fresh response, the concepts close in on them. I began to dread even the funny bits, because I knew director Peter Billingsley would milk them to death." — Baltimore Sun Posted Oct 8, 2009
Fresh 2.5/4	Fresh 80%	Earth Days (2009)	" A surprisingly calm documentary about the history of American ecological activism. But it's good calm, not dead calm." — Baltimore Sun Posted Oct 2, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 86%	Big Fan (2009)	" Siegel takes us to the brink of operatic melodrama, then lands us in a tragicomic spot: a psychological landscape of alternate life and make-believe death." — Baltimore Sun Posted Oct 2, 2009
Fresh 2.5/4	Fresh 82%	Whip It (2009)	" If you're looking for good company, you'll get it." — Baltimore Sun Posted Oct 2, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 56%	The Invention of Lying (2009)	" The cascade of ideas proves to be both pleasurable and frustrating. As the movie retreats into a happy-ever-after ending, even its outrageous lies seem more like little white ones." — Baltimore Sun Posted Oct 2, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 75%	Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)	" Moore has always stood proudly for progressivism, and that works in his favor now." — Baltimore Sun Posted Oct 2, 2009
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 86%	The Baader Meinhof Complex (2009)	" An exciting, infuriating, combative experience." — Baltimore Sun Posted Sep 25, 2009
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 83%	Bright Star (2009)	" It's immediately refreshing in its unabashed flow of feeling, but it also wields a cumulative punch." — Baltimore Sun Posted Sep 25, 2009
Rotten 0/4	Rotten 28%	Fame (2009)	" Fame has today's usual gritty form of slick to it, but in every other way it's an Amateur Hour and a half." — Baltimore Sun Posted Sep 24, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 76%	The Informant! (2009)	" The Informant! is an entertaining expose of corporate corruption as well as a droll sendup of business-intrigue movies." — Baltimore Sun Posted Sep 18, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 45%	Jennifer's Body (2009)	" *The one perfect aspect of Jennifer's Body* is its title: No one is going to like this movie for its brain.*" — Baltimore Sun* Posted Sep 18, 2009
Rotten 1/4	Rotten 18%	Love Happens (2009)	" Love Happens is an inorganic soap opera: It leaves you with a sudsy residue." — Baltimore Sun Posted Sep 18, 2009
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 68%	Tetro (2009)	" Tetro is a delirious surprise -- an experimental film from Francis Ford Coppola that has the sizzle and vim of his great narrative work." — Baltimore Sun Posted Sep 18, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 100%	Afghan Star (2009)	" The film's essential fascination and integrity swamp any qualms about its pacing or all-around moviemaking." — Baltimore Sun Posted Sep 18, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Fresh 69%	Adoration (2009)	" The movie's fractured structure and contrived subplots obscure a potentially affecting story and do nothing to advance the debate on any of its incendiary issues." — Baltimore Sun Posted Sep 18, 2009
Fresh 3.5/4	N/A	Chops (2007)	" Anyone who wonders why jazz and the movies are often called the quintessential American arts should check out Bruce Broder's exhilarating documentary about high school jazz bands." — Baltimore Sun Posted Sep 11, 2009
Fresh 4/4	Fresh 77%	It Might Get Loud (2009)	" *You'll never see a more tactile expression of the intimacy between artists and their instruments than in Davis Guggenheim's elating It Might Get Loud." — Baltimore Sun* Posted Sep 11, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Rotten 56%	9 (2009)	" 9 is not a perfect 10, but its imperfection is what makes it gripping and bewitching." — Baltimore Sun Posted Sep 8, 2009
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 75%	Cold Souls (2009)	" The writer-director, Sophie Barthes, stays true to fairy-tale and literary notions of souls while surrounding them with sleek sci-fi paraphernalia." — Baltimore Sun Posted Sep 4, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 63%	Extract (2009)	" Extract is an exuberant original." — Baltimore Sun Posted Sep 4, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 70%	My One and Only (2009)	" It's affable entertainment -- a road movie with a smart map and characters who are unpredictable human beings, not just billboard attractions." — Baltimore Sun Posted Sep 4, 2009
Rotten 1/4	Rotten 6%	All About Steve (2009)	" *When you learn that Sandra Bullock produced as well as stars in All About Steve, you can't help wondering, "What was she thinking?"" — Baltimore Sun* Posted Sep 4, 2009
Rotten 1.5/4	Fresh 88%	Inglourious Basterds (2009)	" It's so hollow and protracted that it transforms mayhem into monotony." — Baltimore Sun Posted Aug 20, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Fresh 90%	District 9 (2009)	" *It's a bad joke that District 9* will be hailed for its "originality." The movie's main fun comes from wondering what coin of the pop realm Blomkamp will pluck out from his memory bank next.*" — Baltimore Sun* Posted Aug 13, 2009
Fresh 4/4	Fresh 91%	Ponyo (2009)	" Fable, emotion and psychology merge in a fairy-tale brew that will hold children rapt and engage the better angels of adults." — Baltimore Sun Posted Aug 13, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 38%	The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)	" It might be a solid hook if we thought their love was grand. Instead, it's kind of creepy." — Baltimore Sun Posted Aug 13, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 75%	Julie & Julia (2009)	" Ephron, like her heroines, has finally found what suits her: a surprising comic and romantic realism." — Baltimore Sun Posted Aug 7, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 81%	Departures (2009)	" The ending, which involves a rock, would wring tears from a stone." — Baltimore Sun Posted Aug 7, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 24%	Little Ashes (2009)	" The movie commits the error of scanting their cultural importance and fixating on Lorca's semi-requited love for Dali." — Baltimore Sun Posted Aug 7, 2009
Fresh 4/4	Fresh 98%	The Hurt Locker (2009)	" This film pioneers observational action moviemaking. It sensitizes you to changes in atmosphere that portend danger and convey hidden meaning while furthering the plot and the characters." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jul 31, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 87%	500 Days of Summer (2009)	" The film contorts its characters to prove that true love with Mr. or Ms. Right awaits every man or woman patient enough to stumble into it." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jul 31, 2009
Fresh 4/4	Fresh 92%	S�raphine (2008)	" *The euphoria, lunacy and transformative intensity of art receive passionate, perhaps immortal treatment in Seraphine, Martin Provost's quietly magical and urgently moving film." — Baltimore Sun* Posted Jul 31, 2009
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 75%	Humpday (2009)	" A pleasurable clash goes on in your head between your belief in the moment-to-moment sincerity of these two guys and your disbelief that they could ever go through with their plan." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jul 31, 2009
Fresh 2.5/4	Fresh 68%	Funny People (2009)	" Funny People is like Terms of Endearment done in a milieu where the most endearing compliment anyone can give refers to penis size." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jul 31, 2009
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 83%	Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)	" Director Yates and screenwriter Kloves introduce this entry in the saga with splendid storytelling strokes." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jul 13, 2009
Fresh 3/4	Fresh 81%	Under Our Skin (2009)	" This compelling account of the explosive growth of Lyme disease grows to encompass all the peculiar politics, corruption and inertia of American medicine." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jul 10, 2009
Fresh 2.5/4	Fresh 89%	Moon (2009)	" All this wouldn't matter if Sam Rockwell didn't anchor this cleverly claustrophobic spectacle." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jul 10, 2009
Rotten 1.5/4	Fresh 67%	Bruno (2009)	" For a portrait of a monomaniac, it's alarmingly random. For an expose of charlatans who range from a psychic to celebrity-charity consultants, it's maddeningly shoddy." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jul 9, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 15%	I Love You, Beth Cooper (2009)	" The slapstick mucilage doesn't bind with the film's increasingly straightforward dramedy about Denis' epiphany that his dream girl is human." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jul 9, 2009
Fresh 4/4	Fresh 98%	Food, Inc. (2009)	" A scary movie that's also funny, touching and good for you -- that's Robert Kenner's documentary about the American food industry, Food, Inc." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jul 3, 2009
Rotten 1/4	Rotten 47%	Whatever Works (2009)	" Whatever Works makes more of a demand on a viewer's willingness to suspend disbelief than movies about vampires or giant robots." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jul 3, 2009
Fresh 3.5/4	Fresh 67%	Public Enemies (2009)	" Depp operates like a star in more ways than one: He holds everyone in place with his gravitational pull." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jun 30, 2009
Rotten 2/4	Rotten 45%	Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)	" The relentlessly gimmicky use of 3-D in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs helps reduce what could have been a genial piece of slapstick into a cartoon that's not just in-your-face, but in-your-eyeballs." — Baltimore Sun Posted Jun 30, 2009

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4/4	What Just HappenedOffsite
3.5/4	Pride and GloryOffsite
3/4	I.O.U.S.A.Offsite
2.5/4	A Girl Cut in TwoOffsite
C+	Get SmartOffsite
2/4	High School Musical 3: Senior YearOffsite
1.5/4	Max PayneOffsite
1/4	ChokeOffsite
0/4	The Last House on the LeftOffsite

0/4	FameOffsite
0/4	The Last House on the LeftOffsite
F	Death RaceOffsite
F	The StrangersOffsite
f	CJ7Offsite
F	Margot at the WeddingOffsite
F	Good Luck ChuckOffsite
D-	Hot RodOffsite
d-	Evan AlmightyOffsite
D-	Georgia RuleOffsite

MICHAEL SRAGOW

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