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Redwoods

By Adam Lippe

There aren’t a lot of flaws in Doug Liman’s Swingers. The humor and insight into heterosexual insecurities and arbitrary rules is just as insightful nearly 15 years later, which is a credit to writer/star’s Jon Favreau’s script. But if there’s one distracting element, it’s a scene where Favreau blows a potential one night stand because […]

Hollywood Air Force

By Adam Lippe

The late comedian Mitch Hedberg, in one of his more perceptive, addled observations, pointed out how multi-tasking is not solely a requirement of office work, but falls under Hollywood’s expectations as well: “As a comedian, I always get into situations where I’m auditioning for movies and sitcoms, you know? As a comedian, they want you […]

Shrivel Me Timber; Erotic Thrillers Vol. 1: Traces of Red

By Adam Lippe

If the idea of seeing Jim Belushi as a sex symbol isn’t appealing to you, then I don’t know what to say. Clearly Traces of Red is too good for you. As I detailed in the [Motor]Cycles of the Film Industry article, Hollywood does things in cycles. When the 1980’s teen sexploitation market dried up […]

Kansas City Bomber

By Adam Lippe

Here’s the idea behind “A Canadian, an American, a Lawyer, and an Elitist”: Rhett’s favorite movie is Meatballs 4,  Shawn has an unhealthy fixation on Resident Evil, Richard scoffs at anything that isn’t pretentious and hoity toity, and Adam is a prick who hates everything. We all watch far too many movies, and spend our […]

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 […]

Sexploitation’s lasting effect: Part I

By Adam Lippe

While Fast Times at Ridgemont High used the teen sexploitation genre a merely a jumping off point for its surprisingly insightful and realistic portrayal of high school life, delving into more taboo issues than most films of that era, there were other, more simplistic examples of the genre, like Losin’ It or Porky’s. Not all […]

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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.