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Vigil

By Adam Lippe

If Vincent Ward had been allowed to make his version of Alien 3, that film might have been thought of in a positive manner, as opposed to just, “the first of many forgettable follow-ups to Alien and Aliens.” Ward’s conception* was that there was a monastery where all the monks acted as though they were […]

Forgotten Silver

By Adam Lippe

Forgotten Silver is an extraordinary and sadly unappreciated document that reveals the career of the great unheralded New Zealand filmmaker Colin McKenzie. Co-directors Costa Botes and Peter Jackson, of Lord of the Rings and Heavenly Creatures fame, give us as yet untold history in their discovery of McKenzie, the creator of the first feature length […]

Napoleon Dynamite and its ilk

By Adam Lippe

Few movies make me actually angry for people falling for the condescending crap being thrown at them, but Napoleon Dynamite manages it. It’s not just that there’s no point to the film. It’s just so self conscious and so deliberate in its attempts to be “weird” and retro. Traits are established for the characters and […]

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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.