Tag Archive

Really, I’m fine with you watering it down: Part II: Blue Valentine, A Film Unfinished, and Red

By Adam Lippe

Continued from here: Sometimes the watering down of a movie is not from within, but the film gets punished for its honesty and direct emotion. Such is the case with Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine which received a bewildering NC-17 from the MPAA for, well, because Michelle Williams has a realistic orgasm on screen. The MPAA […]

Drag Me to Hell

By Adam Lippe

Any actor willing to look foolish on camera should be cherished for their surprising lack of shame. Since acting is almost entirely about insecurity, ego, and validation, someone willing to forgo all of that “for the good of the project” is a rare find. The king of this fearlessness is undoubtedly Kurt Russell, who enthusiastically […]

The Art of Inertia

By Adam Lippe

Watching The Station Agent, you fear it will be one of those overpraised independent movies admonished at festivals, but really a bunch of spare parts taken from various movies about a colorful small town, often with a “diverse” ethnic slant. However, the movie was extremely funny, and reminded me of the kinds of films that […]

Can You Get A Stuntman For My Dialogue Too?

By Adam Lippe

You would think that after Copland, Sylvester Stallone would have understood his new niche and retired his action hero poses to move on to different and more challenging projects. Even, Driven, which was based on his own screenplay (though he tends to have a writing hand in all films he stars in) acknowledges his age […]

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.