Thriller

Backtrack: Director’s Cut

By Adam Lippe

The imagery described by Hannibal Lecter (played by Anthony Hopkins) in Silence of the Lambs of Clarice Starling (played by Jodie Foster) where, as an orphaned young girl running away from the farm where she lives, carrying a baby lamb away from inevitable slaughter with her, is etched into society’s cultural mind as much as […]

A podcast with Amanda Fuller, the star of Red, White & Blue

By Adam Lippe

Here’s a podcast with Amanda Fuller, the star of Red, White & Blue. This interview was recorded in August of 2010, but because of the quick blip on the theatrical radar the film got, I decided to wait until it came out on DVD to release the interview. Now, considering Amanda and I do discuss […]

The Big Fix

By Adam Lippe

Is it hard to believe that the 1973 novel The Big Fix was released a whole year before the novel of Fletch? Is Fletch just a WASP-y version of The Big Fix’s Moses Wine? Jeremy Paul Kagan’s film version of The Big Fix, stars and was produced by Richard Dreyfuss, making the Jewish subtext unmistakable. […]

An audio q+a with M. Night Shyamalan

By Adam Lippe

Here’s an audio excerpt from  a q+a that M. Night Shyamalan did after a screening of Unbreakable at last October’s Philadelphia Film Festival. Since there were no mics in the audience, only M. Night is completely audible, so I deleted the first question and you just have Night’s answer. Basically the question was about the […]

I Come With the Rain

By Adam Lippe

It’s been said, by a much wiser man than I, that Charles Bronson looked like Mr. Potato Head. This was especially true in his later years in front of the camera, mailing it in while working with J. Lee Thompson and Michael Winner and Cannon Films in the 1980s on such sleazy and workmanlike films […]

Encounter at Raven’s Gate/Red Hill

By Adam Lippe

When a movie is described as having “atmosphere for days,” it seems like the kind of backhanded compliment that would be the equivalent of describing a paraplegic as having “wheels for days.” Sure, technically it’s true, but it’s a purposeful way of ignoring the issue at hand. You mention the atmosphere because the rest of […]

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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.