Single Cell Productions

Michael Stipe, who many say has long maintained artistic integrity as the lead singer and visionary head of R.E.M., set out for equally high standards with his film production deal between New Line Cinema and his own Single Cell Productions. "I basically just want to make movies that don't suck," Stipe said recently from backstage at New York's Madison Square Garden following a concert sound check. While this may not sound like such a lofty goal for Single Cell, Stipe thinks it is.

Michael Stipe, who many say has long maintained artistic integrity as the lead singer and visionary head of R.E.M., set out for equally high standards with his film production deal between New Line Cinema and his own Single Cell Productions. "I basically just want to make movies that don't suck," Stipe said recently from backstage at New York's Madison Square Garden following a concert sound check. While this may not sound like such a lofty goal for Single Cell, Stipe thinks it is.

STIPE may be best known as the lead singer for the Athens, Ga.-based band R.E.M., but since 1994 he's been working in Hollywood, producing films through his company, Single Cell Productions. His hits include "Velvet Goldmine," "American Movie: The Making of Northwestern" and "Being John Malkovich." His latest production, "Saved!" is a comedy about the students of a Baptist high school, starring Mandy Moore, Jena Malone and Macaulay Culkin.

Seated in a busy bar after a day of interviews, Christina Ricci sips a Coke and thinks about a cigarette. Ricci, of course, is best known as the stone-faced little girl Wednesday in the Addams family films. Only now she's no longer a little girl. She doesn't look like one, and she has the jaded, slightly knowing air of a modern teenager. She's 18.

Despair, optimism and disinterest. Bring a group of creative people together to talk about the millennium, and a healthy dose of each emerges. Audiences, they say, are broadening and are receptive to a mix of media and information, yet it's still hard to get significant quality work made.