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Megaforce

By Adam Lippe

The initial financial failure of Disney’s Tron (directed by Steven Lisberger) was attributed to the enormous expectations based on the egregious expense of the project because of the complicated computer effects. Tron was simplistic story-wise, and the replication of the feel of a video game would become commonplace not long after its 1982 release. The […]

A podcast with Rolf De Heer, director of Bad Boy Bubby, The Tracker, and The Quiet Room

By Adam Lippe

Here’s a podcast with Australian director Rolf De Heer. It was originally recorded in August of 2008 and there was even an unedited and intro-free version on the site before. I’ve cleaned it up significantly, trimming 20 minutes and tightening it up to the point where it flows considerably better than it did before. Now […]

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 […]

Black Swan vs. Black Swan: Revisionist History Vol. 2, A Screener’s Revenge

By Adam Lippe

As a critic, my job is to be as objective as possible while acknowledging my own subjectivity. But what rarely comes into play, at least consciously, is whatever mood I might be in on the way into the theater. I saw Black Swan at the opening night of the Philadelphia Film Festival on October 14th. […]

A Podcast with Henrik Ruben Genz, the Director of Terribly Happy

By Adam Lippe

Below is an interview with the director of the Danish dark comedy Terribly Happy, Henrik Ruben Genz. We discuss the connections between his film and Blood Simple, the satirical underpinnings of Terribly Happy and how that relates to political refugees in Denmark, the inherent humor within the arrogance of Dogme ’95 and how Lars Von […]

One-Eyed Jacks

By Adam Lippe

Here’s the idea behind “A Canadian, an American, and an Elitist”: Rhett’s favorite movie is Meatballs 4, Shawn has an unhealthy fixation on Resident Evil, and Adam is a prick who hates everything. We all watch far too many movies, and spend our time analyzing them. So we each watch the same movie, write our […]

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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.