Tag Archive

A Man in Love (with bonus clip)

By Adam Lippe

It’s quite a bold move to try to explore mediocrity. Most of us never rise above it anyway. But if you have talent and you use it to look at those who can’t get past the middle, it can be seen as condescending and/or gloating. That’s why the context of mediocrity is so important; when […]

A radio interview with the person who wrote this sentence, on Gtown Radio: Part III

By Adam Lippe

Here is the third in a series of no doubt 4 million appearances (or maybe less) that I made on Ed Feldman’s Morning Feed. Originally the interview ran at an epic length, 3 and 1/2 hours. Now, after some judicious editing, it runs at a mini-epic length of 2 hours, but you’ll still get plenty […]

How Do You Know

By Adam Lippe

A visual motif is supposed to be used to express a feeling that is never overtly expressed by the characters, revealing something about them that they’re unaware of or trying to hide. A perfect example is Tammy Metzler in the movie Election, and the use of garbage that she either hides behind or hangs out […]

Angels in America

By Adam Lippe

Angels in America is surprising in how it overcomes a facile ending and some ridiculously silly sequences (angels wrestling with each other) to remain generally moving and intimate. Emma Thompson’s dual performances as an angel and a NooYawk nurse were hammy, but Pacino and Justin Kirk, as the dumped AIDS infected lover walking around in […]

Garden State

By Adam Lippe

Garden State manages a high wire act for the first hour, where writer/director/star Zach Braff plays the straight man to all the odd things that are going on around him. At any moment it could have fallen apart and become one of those films where everyone in the small town is kooky and colorful and […]

Ishtar

By Adam Lippe

Long known as both one of the worst movies of the 1980’s and a perfect example of why stars who produce sometimes need to be held in check, Ishtar, written and directed by Elaine May, starring Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty (who also produced), is, like Gigli, a film which people have judged without seeing […]

Now on DVD and Blu-Ray

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 [...]

Recent Reviews


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

Recent Comments

Archive

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.