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Lisztomania

By Adam Lippe

There’s a famous story about how Paddy Chayefsky, screenwriter of Network, who had it in his contract that none of the dialogue that he wrote for Altered States could be changed. That presented a problem for any director brave enough to tackle the speech and science heavy material and still assert themselves on the set, […]

The Many Face(s) of Liv Tyler

By Adam Lippe

There is no reason, ever, to cast Liv Tyler as a scientist. Less convincing than even Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist in The World is Not Enough or Tara Reid as a genius anthropologist in Alone in the Dark, Liv Tyler is better suited to play a beleaguered girlfriend, trapped in a house while […]

When They Shouldn’t Have Bothered

By Adam Lippe

The movie version of The Boys From Brazil, based on Ira Levin’s (Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives) novel is about Hitler’s doctor Joseph Mengele, trying, via an extremely complicated process, to bring about a second coming. While the story is very clever, and the plan was very detailed and intelligent, it was so convoluted and […]

The Village

By Adam Lippe

You know, it’s clunky, the idea is kind of predictable, but I was spooked at times, and I always find M. Night’s films to be clever, if not always the day after viewing them. I’m glad what seemed to be the surprise was revealed at the beginning of act III, not the end. The concept […]

Dark City

By Adam Lippe

Here’s the idea behind “An American, a Canadian, and an Elitist”: Rhett’s favorite movie is “Meatballs 4″, Josh likes Hollywood pap, 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 analysis of them, and […]

The Happening

By Adam Lippe

Those who complain about being tired of M. Night Shyamalan’s bag of tricks, twist endings, Spielbergian style and music, contrived plotting, and naïve characters who speak simplistic, dopey dialogue as they bask in the awe, amazement, and discovery of whatever horrible/amazing thing is happening to them, miss the point that most filmmakers don’t ever come […]

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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.