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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 […]

The Informant!

By Adam Lippe

Being intentionally campy is a slippery slope. There are generally two polar opposites that filmmakers aim for, with John Waters and his deliberately wretched acting and fecal excess on one side and Pedro Almodovar and his brightly colored wallpaper and screaming transvestites on the other. Well, maybe there’s not a huge difference, but in terms […]

A Podcast about Mike Judge’s Extract, with my special guest Soylent Green

By Adam Lippe

Below is a podcast I conducted with Soylent Green about his reaction to Mike Judge’s Extract. You can read my review of the film here. Click the play icon to listen to the podcast. Or you can download the podcast here. (Right-click, Save Link As…)

Extract

By Adam Lippe

In general, people are not all that ambitious. In general, life is filled with dull moments, surrounded by the occasional heart attack and/or sexual conquest. Dogs understand the comfort of this concept, which is why they seek constant routine in their lives and become uneasy if there’s even the slightest change in their daily habits. […]

Leatherheads

By Adam Lippe

George Clooney’s insistence on playing the strapping buffoon lead is both refreshing and tiresome. Leatherheads is clearly inspired by his roles in the Coen brothers’ Intolerable Cruelty and O’ Brother Where Art Thou?, where he mixed double-take style kitchen sink slapstick, with movie-star charm and Cary Grant-like smugness. This is an odd idea, considering these […]

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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.