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The Merry Gentleman

By Adam Lippe

In the pantheon of films about depressed hitmen either on their last job or on the verge of suicide, The Merry Gentleman stands tall, in the middle of the pack. Not as insightful, moving, nor funny as the William H. Macy starring Panic* or as wonderfully awful as Nicholas Cage’s foray in the remake of […]

The Hangover

By Adam Lippe

There’s a famous scene in Doug Liman’s Swingers that is the key to understanding the entire career of The Hangover director Todd Phillips. As Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn go on a midnight venture in Swingers, driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in an attempt to salve their wounds as failed actors and lotharios, […]

Drag Me to Hell

By Adam Lippe

Any actor willing to look foolish on camera should be cherished for their surprising lack of shame. Since acting is almost entirely about insecurity, ego, and validation, someone willing to forgo all of that “for the good of the project” is a rare find. The king of this fearlessness is undoubtedly Kurt Russell, who enthusiastically […]

Up

By Adam Lippe

Do you like hearing kids screaming and parents rushing their children out of the theater never to return? Me too. Listening to the questions of the young ones surrounding me, as the opening montage comprised of miscarriages and cancer progressed (“why is she crying?”) made Up quite a distinct experience, and a delightful one at […]

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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.