Tag Archive

Encounter at Raven’s Gate/Red Hill

By Adam Lippe

When a movie is described as having “atmosphere for days,” it seems like the kind of backhanded compliment that would be the equivalent of describing a paraplegic as having “wheels for days.” Sure, technically it’s true, but it’s a purposeful way of ignoring the issue at hand. You mention the atmosphere because the rest of […]

True Grit (2010)

By Adam Lippe

Atmosphere is everything to an experience. I remember going to A Tribe Called Quest concert when I was in college and, while the opening act was appropriate — middling, low-key rappers — the middle act was a hard rock band that looked and sounded somewhat like Living Colour (they of the early 90s hit Cult […]

The Oxford Murders

By Adam Lippe

The money is no longer in America. It used to be that you weren’t considered a success until you made it in the US, so athletes, actors, and musicians from foreign countries have been trying to make their talents more accessible (read: dumbing down) whether it be by simplifying what made them great in the […]

The Road

By Adam Lippe

During my interview with Shadow Billionaire director Alexis Spraic, she mentioned that she didn’t like the way that making documentaries had become a “competition about who can make the saddest film.” This line of thinking isn’t just limited to documentaries, indeed, many a fiction film falls into the trap of trying to bum out the […]

A Serious Man

By Adam Lippe

Is it unfortunate that musical medleys are not appreciated? No, it isn’t, but that’s because it is rare that any artist does anything creative with the notion, instead relying on the droning familiarity and kitsch factor, pandering to the type of crowd that likes to hear songs that they know. That’s what nightclub entertainers tend […]

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 […]

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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.