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Case 39

By Adam Lippe

In baseball terminology, the shift refers to when a left-handed power hitter who tends to pull the ball (in other words, hits the ball to right field, the shift is almost never used against right-handed batters) comes to the plate (such as Ryan Howard, David Ortiz, Adam Dunn, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, etc.) the infielders […]

A podcast with Going the Distance writer Geoff LaTulippe, potential egobursting ahead

By Adam Lippe

This podcast was a tough one. It’s an interview with the writer of Going the Distance, Geoff LaTulippe. Geoff wrote the original screenplay that was on the 2008 Blacklist (Up in the Air was also on it), which is a list of all of the best unproduced screenplays floating around Hollywood. I’ve read Geoff’s screenplay, […]

Going the Distance

By Adam Lippe

There are many critics who like to feign anger or moral outrage towards a movie. That’s purely an emotional reaction and not an intellectual one; the truth is that very few films are worthy of any sort of ire, it’s just a terrific way to get attention by piling on the derogatory snark. Exceptions do […]

A Podcast with Scott Cooper, the Director of Crazy Heart

By Adam Lippe

Here’s a podcast with Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper who led lead actor Jeff Bridges to a Golden Globe Award. The film is about “Bad” Blake, an alcohol soaked, washed up rock/blues singer, touring dingy bars across the US. Unable to get albums released without the help of his former protege, and now big star, […]

Tenure

By Adam Lippe

One of the most damaging side effects of the current economic downturn, at least in the film business, is that a lot of the smaller films, often with a B level star as the lead, are utterly doomed. They used to get limited releases, opening in larger cities, and then if it made a breakthrough, […]

The Invention of Lying

By Adam Lippe

In a recent interview on Conan O’Brien’s late night show, Michael Moore told a story about the difficulty in making a movie about the evils of capitalism (his new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, you can read my review here, a longer version will appear soon) for a studio*, a business that thrives on capitalism. […]

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 [...]

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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.