Documentary

The Unreliable Narrator

By Adam Lippe

My Best Fiend, director Werner Herzog’s documentary about his turbulent relationship with Klaus Kinski and the five films they made together, got me to thinking about what Kinski, dead long before the movie was made, would have had to say on the matter. Herzog got to make the movie his way, creating whatever message he […]

Spellbound (2002)

By Adam Lippe

For several years, I watched the National spelling bee competitions on ESPN, and they were so nerve-wracking that I had to take breaks every 40 minutes or so. It was a combination of watching these kids suffer, the pressure their parents must place on them, the fact that they no doubt get teased mercilessly in […]

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 […]

Tyson

By Adam Lippe

Objectivity, while not the most important ingredient in a documentary, still should not be ignored. Tyson, director/gambler/narcisist James Toback’s portrait of his longtime friend former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, flatters itself with what it thinks is brutal honesty, but in fact has no more depth than a puff piece on Entertainment Tonight. If Toback (Two Girls and a […]

Straightlaced: How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up

By Adam Lippe

Miracles can happen. I have seen proof. An interesting and insightful documentary was made by someone who directs with complete condescension and an overabundance of obnoxious video effects. Consider the evidence: A filmmaker who treats sexually confused teenagers like Bill Cosby talks to five-year-olds on Kids Say the Darndest Things. Cutesy music and graphics that […]

Equality U

By Adam Lippe

Most recent documentaries have one major obstacle that prevents them from widespread exposure, and that’s that they are intended to enlighten and/or change the minds of those people who would never watch a documentary in the first place. Political documentaries are the worst offenders because most of them are made by those on the left, […]

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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.