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Somers Town

By Adam Lippe

The ability of some films to knock you into a blissful trance despite the absence of anything substantial occurring on screen is not just a credit to the filmmakers but a nearly unexplainable phenomenon. Jim Jarmusch made Stranger Than Paradise, a movie about nothing people, doing nothing. The scenes are long blackout sketches where the camera rarely, if ever moves, and the dialogue is dull on the surface. And yet, the movie is hilarious. Jarmusch pulled off this same feat in Down By Law, but the droll tricks started to wear thin…

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 […]

You Made Horror Movies Boring, or Why You Are Wrong About The Blair Witch Project

By Adam Lippe

The Blair Witch Project is a perfect example of a movie that’s been blown up into a love it or hate it film, because of its enormous hype and box office. The same can be said for Forrest Gump, Gladiator, Monster’s Ball, Slumdog Millionaire, Titanic, Crash, etc. People think it’s cool to say how much […]

Otto; or Up With Dead People

By Adam Lippe

Sometimes a movie has absolutely no conceivable audience, and you feel like applauding it just for its existence, regardless of quality. Bruce LaBruce’s Otto; or Up With Dead People is a cheap mess, mixing his penchant for camp and gay porn, with zombies and avant-garde film references, not to mention film-within-a-film nonsense. Otto is clumsy […]

Desperate Hours (1990)

By Adam Lippe

Michael Cimino’s Desperate Hours is the kind of utterly pointless remake that turns into a scientific experiment for the viewer. It brings to mind Gus Van Sant’s remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

Taking the Yellow Out of the Yellow People

By Adam Lippe

Having watched Yasujiro Ozu’s Good Morning on DVD, I may have to turn in my snob card, or maybe I should get a special dispensation. Is it because I watched this movie in particular? No. It’s a gentle comedy on the surface, and a pretty rough criticism of Japanese culture underneath. This is because 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.