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True Grit (2010)

By Adam Lippe

Atmosphere is everything to an experience. I remember going to A Tribe Called Quest concert when I was in college and, while the opening act was appropriate — middling, low-key rappers — the middle act was a hard rock band that looked and sounded somewhat like Living Colour (they of the early 90s hit Cult […]

A Serious Man

By Adam Lippe

Is it unfortunate that musical medleys are not appreciated? No, it isn’t, but that’s because it is rare that any artist does anything creative with the notion, instead relying on the droning familiarity and kitsch factor, pandering to the type of crowd that likes to hear songs that they know. That’s what nightclub entertainers tend […]

Bad Boys II

By Adam Lippe

Bad Boys II is bad for all the expected reasons, terrible script (from Ron Shelton (?!), didn’t he make Bull Durham and Tin Cup?), wanton, pointless violence and a disregard for human life proudly unsurpassed (it is easy to criticize the scene where cadavers are being dropped on the highway but why they stole from […]

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 […]

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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.