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Never Let Me Go

By Adam Lippe

One of the smartest things that Charlie Kaufman did with his script for Being John Malkovich was to push back the reveal of the central concept for almost an entire act. An interfering producer might have insisted that the movie start on page 30. But, luckily, Kaufman was also a credited executive producer on the […]

Knight and Day

By Adam Lippe

He looks aghast at the poster for the party. I Sold My Mom’s Wheelchair. “Dance music for old people?” It’s the moment that John Cusack’s character in Stephen Frears’ High Fidelity realizes that this poster is being used to promote a band he just signed, and the party and album title will be one he’s […]

Cold Souls

By Adam Lippe

If you rip off an original idea in an original way, is it still stealing? Does it really matter one way or the other, since the presentation is more important than your “acquired” idea? The fallacy of the original idea is a nice trap thrown in by those rejecting material without needing to explain their […]

The Hangover

By Adam Lippe

There’s a famous scene in Doug Liman’s Swingers that is the key to understanding the entire career of The Hangover director Todd Phillips. As Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn go on a midnight venture in Swingers, driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in an attempt to salve their wounds as failed actors and lotharios, […]

Terminator Salvation

By Adam Lippe

They should remake Predator 2. Not because it’s a great movie, in fact, it is lousy 70% of the time, or any time someone opens their mouth. No, the reason to remake Predator 2 is because it is so flawed, but has some terrific hints of ideas near the conclusion, why the Predator does what […]

Sex and the City: The Movie

By Adam Lippe

I am not the audience for this movie. I know this. I’m straight and male, and I thought the TV show was hideously written, like a misogynistic and glib gay man’s fantasy of what fashionable women in NYC are like, unknowingly miserable, shallow, and stupid. Is it fair for me to judge the film, especially […]

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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.