Documentary

Paper Heart

By Adam Lippe

According to one of the starry-eyed children interviewed at an Atlanta playground during Nicholas Jasenovec’s mockumentary Paper Heart, the most romantic place to take a woman on a date is Applebee’s. Somehow, the child’s utterance is perfect for the movie’s subject, mumbly and ironically inexpressive comic and musician Charlyne Yi, who, for the purposes of […]

Brüno

By Adam Lippe

The major reason that Freddy Got Fingered was such a failure had nothing to do with it being offensive or gross. If anything, the juxtaposition of Tom Green looking like a very plain, gee-whiz Canadian as he fellates a cow’s nipples is what makes him funny in the first place (especially on his original MTV […]

Take me with you, Gay pride parade

By Adam Lippe

To commemorate Gay pride, here’s an article I wrote for Outlook Weekly, a gay paper in Columbus, Ohio, for last year’s Pride issue: Last month, I talked to some of the protestors at the Columbus Pride Parade for about 40 minutes, because I was honestly curious, do they all believe the same thing? Or is […]

Dirty Harry vs. The French Connection: The Fascist Cop Movies of 1971

By Adam Lippe

The late 1960’s were a troubled time for the major studios of Hollywood. Expensive musicals like Hello Dolly had failed as had pricey westerns like Paint Your Wagon. The success of Easy Rider was considered a breakthrough and set up the director-centric 1970’s spawning one crafty film nerd filmmaker after another, such as Francis Ford […]

A very long interview with Outrage director Kirby Dick. It’s long. Take a lunch break so you can finish it.

By Adam Lippe

Along with allowing us to see his documentary Outrage, about outing closeted gay politicians who vote against their own interests (I’ve reviewed the movie here), director Kirby Dick was kind enough to go on a press tour. There were 4 reporters in the room, 3 if you don’t count me. Since I was not able […]

Outrage

By Adam Lippe

Kirby Dick’s last film, This Film is Not Yet Rated, had a wonderful premise, exposing the hypocrisy and discrimination of the MPAA, the movie ratings board, by comparing sex scenes that were deemed acceptable for a mass audience, white and straight, vs. very similar content with black and/or gay couples, which were not. Using a […]

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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 [...]

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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.