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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 […]

The Challenge

By Adam Lippe

It’s not that hard to imagine a young Steven Seagal, pre-ponytail, chins, and widow’s peak, thinking of himself as the most important crew member on the set of John Frankenheimer’s The Challenge. Hired to do the Akido stuntwork, Seagal could easily see himself as Scott Glenn’s lead character, the towering white American respectfully learning all […]

Here and There

By Adam Lippe

There tend to be two different ways that movies deal with any sort of American immigration. First there’s the white savior syndrome, wherein the noble but one-dimensional foreigner trying to get a green card is saved by a grumpy, cynical, but secretly angelic white city-dweller. And, as a result, they both learn to be better […]

The White Man’s Here. Who Needs Some Assimilation?

By Adam Lippe

When Gran Torino comes out on DVD in June, you all owe it to yourselves to see it (if you haven’t already). Not because it’s a great movie, but rather because it’s made from a perspective so antiquated that it’s no surprise that it was Clint Eastwood’s biggest hit in years. Granted, Clint is old […]

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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.