Thriller

Identity

By Adam Lippe

This is exactly the kind of psuedo-clever phoned-in-written-over-the-weekend script that reeks of Donald Kaufman (Adaptation). From the first 10 minutes on, where I swore the movie couldn’t have been this bad: Unless it was on purpose? It certainly couldn’t have been more hokey. Indian burial grounds? The number 6 that turns into a 9 when […]

Haute Tension

By Adam Lippe

Though this has been out overseas on DVD for a few months, this French slasher won’t get a US theatrical release until mid summer. Apparently Lions Gate has decided to go with an uncut NC-17 version (Note: it turned out they changed their minds) which is nice seeing as the blood and extreme gore is […]

Double Team

By Adam Lippe

Incoherent for 80 minutes. And then there’s the ending. Producer Moshe Diamant is responsible for bringing three great directors from Hong Kong to the US and giving them increasingly shitty Van Damme vehicles to make. John Woo made Hard Target. Ringo Lam made Maximum Risk. Tsui Hark (who is a better producer than director) made […]

Dark Water

By Adam Lippe

Hideo Nakata (Ringu, Chaos) is an extremely talented director, who thrives on creating dread inducing atmosphere out of simple elements. And when he is working on the mystery rather than the revelation of the story, the movie works very well. Nakata clearly storyboards all of his shots in advance, each frame seems to be taken […]

Collateral

By Adam Lippe

Despite Michael Mann’s expertise on the film “look,” the HD video Collateral was shot on looks exquisite, and is just right for the material. If there was one thing I liked about Mann’s Ali, it was the fights, and the way they were photographed, an almost 3-D effect of being there. Mann manages to similarly […]

Arlington Road is the worst movie ever made

By Adam Lippe

If Arlington Road were just badly acted (and Joan Cusack, Jeff Bridges, Hope Davis, and especially Tim Robbins give it their best effort to make us believe they are untalented), poorly thought out (the screenplay is beyond simplistic and idiotic, wouldn’t it be easier just to set up clichés and not follow through with them, […]

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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.