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Silent Running

By Adam Lippe

One of the oddest combinations of producer and director in the history of Hollywood occurred on Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo, with Richard Gere as a moody, shallow gigolo. It contains Schrader’s (writer of Taxi Driver, director of Mishima, Hardcore, and Auto Focus) usual themes of guilt and introspection. American Gigolo was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, […]

Fever Pitch (1985)

By Adam Lippe

There are few films that could legitimately be called unique, but Richard Brooks’ loony final film, Fever Pitch, has no problem earning that distinction. Often, when a once heralded filmmaker begins to lose his way, he either drifts off into obscurity (Richard Lester) or boredom (J. Lee Thompson), paying about half as much attention as […]

Cherry 2000

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 […]

A Night in Heaven

By Adam Lippe

It is easy to argue that A Night in Heaven is a sort of misbegotten botch job, taken away by the studio when the film was neither the serious drama nor the exploitation film that Joan Tewkesbury ‘s (Nashville) script may have suggested. But I have to disagree. Sure, the telltale signs are there; unresolved […]

Desperate Hours (1990)

By Adam Lippe

Michael Cimino’s Desperate Hours is the kind of utterly pointless remake that turns into a scientific experiment for the viewer. It brings to mind Gus Van Sant’s remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

A Decade Under the Influence and Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

By Adam Lippe

A Decade Under the Influence, like the movie of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls reveals nothing surprising, but is competently made. It does go on for an hour more (and broken up into three segments for airing on IFC, it comes in just under 3 hours total), so it’s a little strange that they actually had […]

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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.