Tag Archive

The Expendables

By Adam Lippe

Do you remember 200 Cigarettes? You know, the ‘80s nostalgia-fest about the ultimate New Year’s Eve party being thrown by Martha Plimpton, and the various vignettes involving those who will end up at said party? The 1999 film where Kate Hudson spends a lot of the movie covered in dog poop, Christina Ricci and Gaby […]

Dogtooth

By Adam Lippe

If you could mold a robot in your own image, would you? The robot doesn’t have to look like you, but its opinions and emotions would entirely be filtered through your world view, excising any outside influence. It would have exaggerated versions of your fears and failures too, and while many people try to live […]

Edge of Darkness

By Adam Lippe

Did you know that in the censored-for-TV version of The Long Kiss Goodnight, the movie has been edited so much that it’s no longer clear that Geena Davis’ character is a government assassin with amnesia? In the way the film plays in the version that airs on Sunday mornings on TNT, the suggestion is that […]

Antichrist

By Adam Lippe

Lars Von Trier has always had a canny way of indulging his critics by playing into their vision of him as a technically accomplished, but emotionally manipulative, misogynistic boor. Von Trier knows how to provoke the audience but it isn’t clear if he knows why he’s doing it (much like Vincent Gallo), other than to […]

Knowing How To Punish Your Audience

By Adam Lippe

In 1991, a masterpiece of excess was unleashed around the world. Initially, it was a cult item, its greatest claim to fame was that a clip from the film, Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky, was featured as the introduction to the Five Questions segment on The Daily Show, back when Craig Kilborn was hosting. The […]

Watchmen

By Adam Lippe

Among horror fans, there is a legendary moment in one of Wes Craven’s early films that would influence nearly every complex film that followed. Hurting for money, Craven went to the well to sequelize a film that would have a hard time being a sequel, seeing as pretty much every notable character died in the […]

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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.