Email Author Laura Sinagra

2003 Stories by Laura Sinagra

• Singing School

  published December 30, 2003

  Alicia Keys's decaplatinum Songs in A Minor might have been inspired by NYC's druggin' and groovin' '70s, but the earnest, slant-hatted... More >>

• Where the Boys Are

  published December 30, 2003

  Yeah, I was one of those geeks," says Philippa Boyens, the member of the Lord of the Rings screenwriting troika who most often braves... More >>

• Blown Away by Aileen

  published December 30, 2003

  Nick Broomfield hasn't yet seen the movie Monster when we meet for coffee in mid December, and looking a bit spent though Morrissey-dandy... More >>

• The Butcher Girl

  published December 23, 2003

  Back in 1999 when the press dismissed Charlize Theron as merely "arm candy" for Third Eye Blind's frontman, the starlet's rocker ex indignantly... More >>

• The Lap Dance Is Free, but Only If You Pay for the Dud Date Movie

  published December 16, 2003

  Even in the teen-flick "Sweet Valley" of 1987, there were few places outside John Hughes's brain where paying somebody to be your girl didn't look... More >>

• My Goal Or Your Goal? Documenting the Biased Docmaker

  published December 9, 2003

  At the close of this war-embedded, reality-TV-crazed year, holiday shoppers are snapping up unprecedented scads of consumer-end devices for... More >>

• Black Jesuz

  published November 11, 2003

  Given its biblical title and MTV origins, this biopic at first looks like an attempt to enshrine murdered (martyred?) hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur as... More >>

• Girlhood, You'll Be a Womanhood Soon: True Survival Tales

  published October 28, 2003

  One gets the feeling these days that all the world might be a documentary, and we men and women merely players. Chronicling the stories that slip... More >>

• Streets of Fire

  published October 14, 2003

  For four and a half hours on June 12, 2000, a lone gunman moved from window to window inside a stopped Rio bus. His botched robbery had escalated... More >>

• Aging Showgirl Straps on Her Guitar, Turns Avenging Angel

  published October 14, 2003

  Spitting out voice-over like a semi-automatic clip of "fuck you"s, Gina Gershon joins this year's cadre of fortysomething hotties scorching... More >>

• Those Who Love Sundance Tearjerkers Can Take The Train

  published September 30, 2003

  Neither a misfit-buddy flick nor a fish-out-of-water tearjerker, Tom McCarthy's Sundance crowd-pleaser manages to explore the darker facets of... More >>

• Theater

  published September 9, 2003

  It's a crisp September, but in the basement of the Theater for the New City summer humidity lingers—its attendant floor-rot making the place... More >>

• In the Club

  published September 2, 2003

  It's not easy to film euphoria—just check out Groove. I was hoping for some swoony transport from Party Monster, the story of... More >>

• All About My Other

  published August 26, 2003

  If Spain is indeed the new France, and anybody's looking for cultural products to boycott à la Chardonnay, we might start with the... More >>

• Even When I Was 12

  published August 19, 2003

  Sure, the midlife male critics who thumbs-upped Lilya 4-Ever are raving Thirteen's nubile dysfunction. But like gal-pal meditations... More >>

• Something Wilder: Compton Teens Put On a Thornton Play

  published August 12, 2003

  In many ways, cutthroat child-contest docs Hoop Dreams and Spellbound aren't about children at all. Their subjects are kids, sure,... More >>

• Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and a Little Bit of Bloodletting

  published August 12, 2003

  Close friendships are brutal. Add intense collaboration and somebody's nose is likely to get broken. This very misfortune befell Brenda Withers... More >>

• Urban Renewal

  published August 5, 2003

  Harvey Pekar calls his Cleveland comic book American Splendor, and now a pomo biopic (opening August 15) bears the name as well. It's a... More >>

• Not Another Teen Movie

  published July 29, 2003

  If in high school you weren't part of a clique for whom Stephen Sondheim's cult-clout rivaled Aleister Crowley's, the kids in the indie musical... More >>

• Checkout Time

  published July 22, 2003

  At the 2001 Toronto Film Festival, Mike Figgis's Hotel had the sorry luck to screen on a certain morning dominated by more urgent images.... More >>

• Oceans Apart

  published July 15, 2003

  "Guantánamo was not a refugee camp. These people were treated more like detainees than refugees," explains Spanish filmmaker Carles Bosch,... More >>

• The Commitments

  published July 15, 2003

  Alex Proyas's Dark City may have scooped The Matrix with its lithe quoting of Metropolis and La Jetée, but... More >>

• Winged Migration

  published July 8, 2003

  As you may have noticed, the much touted '90s "angel craze" is still going strong in the '00s. And venturing beyond Charlie's benign buns-of-steel... More >>

• Quirking Girls

  published July 1, 2003

  It's still Guyville, we're just living in it. Re: Liz Phair, I can see why indie boys are mourning that notion of feminist progress... More >>

• Idol Minds

  published June 24, 2003

  Like American Idol itself, From Justin to Kelly intends to flout coastal-elite notions of what the breadbasket calls entertainment.... More >>