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Lookin’ to Get Out vs. Lookin’ to Get Out: Revisionist History Vol. 1

By Adam Lippe

David Fincher’s Alien 3 is the best example of a very flawed film that was improved in a longer version, while still retaining all of those very same flaws. The theatrical cut, running just under two hours, has very little character development. And, therefore, apart from Sigourney Weaver’s character, Ripley, doesn’t make you care about […]

Fever Pitch (1985)

By Adam Lippe

There are few films that could legitimately be called unique, but Richard Brooks’ loony final film, Fever Pitch, has no problem earning that distinction. Often, when a once heralded filmmaker begins to lose his way, he either drifts off into obscurity (Richard Lester) or boredom (J. Lee Thompson), paying about half as much attention as […]

…All the Marbles

By Adam Lippe

The last film in Robert Aldrich’s storied career, this women’s wrestling “comedy” has been buried for years, only available in various edited VHS versions (a DVD is now available directly from Warner Brothers’ website). I tracked down an uncut version, obviously a bootleg and looking it. Considering the low-rent feel of the film (you won’t […]

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.