Tag Archive

A podcast with Joe Winston, the director of What’s the Matter With Kansas?

By Adam Lippe

Here’s an audio interview with Joe Winston who directed, along with his wife Laura Cohen, the documentary adaptation of Thomas Frank’s best-selling book, What’s the Matter With Kansas? Though you might think that this will be a discussion between two commie liberals bashing on heartland folk, that assumption would only be half right, because there’s […]

How Do You Know

By Adam Lippe

A visual motif is supposed to be used to express a feeling that is never overtly expressed by the characters, revealing something about them that they’re unaware of or trying to hide. A perfect example is Tammy Metzler in the movie Election, and the use of garbage that she either hides behind or hangs out […]

Case 39

By Adam Lippe

In baseball terminology, the shift refers to when a left-handed power hitter who tends to pull the ball (in other words, hits the ball to right field, the shift is almost never used against right-handed batters) comes to the plate (such as Ryan Howard, David Ortiz, Adam Dunn, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, etc.) the infielders […]

A podcast with Mark Jones, the director of Fraternity Massacre at Hell Island

By Adam Lippe

Below is a podcast I did with Mark Jones, the director of Fraternity Massacre at Hell Island, a very low-budget gay slasher parody. And since the movie was finished in 2005, did the festival circuit in 2007, and was finally released on DVD in April, it probably means that not only have none of you […]

Open House

By Adam Lippe

There’s a famous poem by Robert Frost that says, and I paraphrase, “two roads diverged, both selling out in their own way, one to Hollywood, and one to direct-to-video erotic thrillers.” Frost wrote this poem after watching Open House, a low-budget slasher movie taking place amongst real estate agents, written by David Mickey Evans, who […]

Sugar

By Adam Lippe

Authenticity is a funny thing, because while it should be about accurate renditions of true and real experiences, it is still entirely subjective. Judging a piece of art as being realistic and authentic should be something that only those who’ve lived the specific life being portrayed get to decide. Watching something like Maria, Full 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.