Tag Archive

Swimming to Cambodia

By Adam Lippe

I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the slam poetry appreciation party. The speed with which you speak has nothing to do with the profundity. I do not know how a show like Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam can garner seven seasons when the rhythms of each performer, regardless of […]

A q+a with Fran Kranz, star of the new film The Cabin in the Woods

By Adam Lippe

Below is a q+a with actor Fran Kranz, who plays Marty, the resident stoner in the new meta-horror-comedy The Cabin in the Woods. It was recorded after a screening of the film on April 9th in Philadelphia. The Cabin in the Woods is the feature directing debut of Cloverfield writer Drew Goddard. It was produced […]

The Men Who Stare At Goats

By Adam Lippe

No matter what you think of Saw as a film, it’s hard to deny that the guys who made it, James Wan and Leigh Whannell, are geniuses. Not that they’re all that talented, as a feature film Saw is derivative, badly acted, and needlessly convoluted. What differentiates Wan and Whannell from standard exploitation filmmakers (torture […]

The 18 1/2 Philadelphia Film Festival’s opening night film: Law Abiding Citizen

By Adam Lippe

As I said in my review of Year One, sometimes the way an actor or a director chooses to promote his new film on a talk show reveals all you need to know about the movie itself. Jamie Foxx, the star of F. Gary Gray’s new thriller Law Abiding Citizen, amidst the two segments (11 […]

Skeleton Crew

By Adam Lippe

The easiest way for filmmakers to get themselves out of being painted into the corner is with a deus ex machina. Sometimes that deus ex machina is a lapse of logic, like Samuel L. Jackson driving on the highway and looking out his window at the exact moment Bruce Willis flies out of a water […]

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.