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City of Hope

By Adam Lippe

In a movie filled with memorably bad dialogue, the one line that stands out in Megaforce, Hal Needham’s highly expensive venture into homoerotic war movies, is the scene where Ace Hunter (played by Barry Bostwick with a headband and full body spandex) informs the villain Duke Guerera, played by Henry Silva, that he might as […]

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 Village

By Adam Lippe

You know, it’s clunky, the idea is kind of predictable, but I was spooked at times, and I always find M. Night’s films to be clever, if not always the day after viewing them. I’m glad what seemed to be the surprise was revealed at the beginning of act III, not the end. The concept […]

The Happening

By Adam Lippe

Those who complain about being tired of M. Night Shyamalan’s bag of tricks, twist endings, Spielbergian style and music, contrived plotting, and naïve characters who speak simplistic, dopey dialogue as they bask in the awe, amazement, and discovery of whatever horrible/amazing thing is happening to them, miss the point that most filmmakers don’t ever come […]

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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 [...]


Veegie Awards

Winner: BEST ONLINE FILM CRITIC, 2010 National Veegie Awards (Vegan Themed Entertainment)

Nominee: BEST NEW PRODUCT, 2011 National Veegie Awards: The Vegan Condom

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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.