Comedy

Second Sight

By Adam Lippe

Much like the Pat Morita/Jay Leno vehicle, Collision Course, Second Sight has been an HBO staple for a very long time. Both heavily feature actors better suited for TV and neither has any aspirations to be anything less than reassuringly irritating. However, unlike virtually every second of Collision Course, Second Sight is never boring, despite […]

Chilly Scenes of Winter

By Adam Lippe

Chilly Scenes of Winter is a daring romantic dramedy with John Heard as a guy obsessed with a woman he met at his boring job. He dates her for a while, but her marriage, to a man who she settled for, becomes a problem. Eventually she dumps him, but he can’t get her out of […]

Mac and Me

By Adam Lippe

While it would be fair to complain that the recent #1 film in the US, Disturbia, is a movie built on shameless product placement (check out that opening Coca-Cola moment in the first scene!), and doesn’t have to make a dime to be profitable, the producers still have something to strive for. While Adam Sandler […]

Observe and Report

By Adam Lippe

Usually, when a director misreads his film and the audience reaction is the opposite of what is intended, it means he’s made a drama that’s ineffective enough that it has become comedy. In the case of the new Seth Rogen vehicle Observe and Report, writer/director Jody Hill has made what he thinks is a comedy […]

Adventureland

By Adam Lippe

Selling nostalgia is a tricky thing. While you already have the advantage of being able to tap into people’s hazy memories and playing off their vague recognition and familiarity, you risk relying on such a lazy device to the point where you become guilty of The Wedding Singer syndrome, wherein the entire purpose was to […]

I Love You, Man

By Adam Lippe

Good news. The mediocre movie is getting a lot better. Raising the forgettable bar without any effort is the second Paul Rudd high/no concept comedy in the last few months, I Love You, Man. With the Role Models DVD release piggybacking the I Love You, Man TV spot and the 2008 copyright date on ILY,M, […]

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Roadracers

By Adam Lippe

Whenever there’s a genre parody or ode to a specific era of films, such as Black Dynamite’s mocking of Blaxploitation films or Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, the second half of Grindhouse, the danger is that the film might fall into the trap of either being condescending without any particular insight, or so faithful that it becomes the very flawed thing it is emulating.

Black Dynamite has nothing new to say about Blaxploitation films, it just does a decent job of copying what an inept [...]

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Featured Quote (written by me)

On Cold Fish:

Though the 16 year old me described the 1994 weepie Angie, starring Geena Davis as a Brooklyn mother raising her new baby alone, as “maudlin and melodramatic,” Roger Ebert, during his TV review, referring to the multitude of soap-operaish problems piling up on the titular character, suggested that it was only in Hollywood where Angie would get a happy ending. “If they made this movie in France, Angie would have shot herself.”

Well Cold Fish was made in Japan, where Angie would have shot herself and that would have been the happy ending.