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The Lift

By Adam Lippe

Low budget filmmakers are told to use what they can get, writing their screenplays around what locations they can afford. Reservoir Dogs was made by a director (Quentin Tarantino) who knew he couldn’t afford to shoot a heist movie so he worked out a way to show everything but the heist. Sure, there’s a bit […]

Tightrope

By Adam Lippe

There’s nothing more menacing than a serial killer into S&M who completes the picture by wearing a stolen pair of Mr. Rogers’ sneakers*. Ok, maybe I’m just making up that last part. There’s no reason to think he stole the shoes, Mr. Rogers might have lent them out to him. Anyway, 1984’s tawdry Tightrope, a […]

A Schlock to the System: Film Festivals Part III

By Adam Lippe

“THIS GUY wrote Dr. Giggles!” “Sorry about that.” His producer clearly ignored what I said. “Have you seen it?” “Yeah, I have. The ending really stunk, smacked of studio interference… Was it?” This prestigious writer, Graeme Whifler, snapped to attention and addressed my question. “I had nothing to do with the ending.” “Good for you.”

The Toolbox Murders (Tobe Hooper remake)

By Adam Lippe

If there was ever a bit of trivia hanging over a movie: “2/3 of the way through filming, the production ran out of money. The movie was put together from what footage was already filmed, resulting in 1/3 of the script never being made.” Watching The Toolbox Murders, this issue is pretty evident throughout, whole […]

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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.