Sci-Fi

Knowing How To Punish Your Audience

By Adam Lippe

In 1991, a masterpiece of excess was unleashed around the world. Initially, it was a cult item, its greatest claim to fame was that a clip from the film, Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky, was featured as the introduction to the Five Questions segment on The Daily Show, back when Craig Kilborn was hosting. The […]

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 […]

Happy Accidents

By Adam Lippe

Happy Accidents looks like a trendy romantic comedy. It had Vincent D’onofrio circa 1999 (though the movie wasn’t released until 2001), and it was made right after writer/director Brad Anderson’s excellent and ignored Next Stop, Wonderland.* It even has the K-Pax/Man Facing Southeast plot of a guy who may or not be insane and how […]

Cherry 2000

By Adam Lippe

Here’s the idea behind “A Canadian, an American, a Lawyer, and an Elitist”: Rhett’s favorite movie is Meatballs 4,  Shawn has an unhealthy fixation on Resident Evil, Richard scoffs at anything that isn’t pretentious and hoity toity, and Adam is a prick who hates everything. We all watch far too many movies, and spend our […]

Iron Man

By Adam Lippe

For about 80 minutes, Iron Man is clearly the best comic book adaptation ever made. Sharp and witty, allowing for Robert Downey Jr. to give a completely freewheeling and simultaneously arrogant and self-deprecating performance, the movie makes fun of the dumb clichés inherent in these origin films, and makes it about the people and not […]

Watchmen

By Adam Lippe

Among horror fans, there is a legendary moment in one of Wes Craven’s early films that would influence nearly every complex film that followed. Hurting for money, Craven went to the well to sequelize a film that would have a hard time being a sequel, seeing as pretty much every notable character died in the […]

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Now on DVD and Blu-Ray

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 [...]

Recent Reviews


Veegie Awards
Winner: BEST ONLINE FILM CRITIC, 2010 National Veegie Awards (Vegan Themed Entertainment)

Nominee: BEST NEW PRODUCT, 2011 National Veegie Awards: The Vegan Condom

Recent Comments

Archive

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.