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He Never Meta Film Reference He Didn’t Like: A Review of Cop Out

By Adam Lippe

The late, great film critic Pauline Kael wrote that “an homage is a plagiarism that your lawyer tells you is not actionable.” Where do you draw that line though? When does gentle chiding and affection turn into parody? Certainly a film like last year’s Black Dynamite made that difficult to determine; because, while it tried [...]

Shutter Island

By Adam Lippe

Timing is one of the most delicate and important attributes a person can have. Every little decision we make can be affected by timing; from simply crossing the street when we have the light to knowing that the best time to take a bathroom break isn’t when you’re in the middle of carrying a piano [...]

District 13: Ultimatum

By Adam Lippe

On Conan O’Brien’s final show before he was forced off The Tonight Show, he said that people should try to avoid being cynical about life, as that was his least favorite emotion. It’s a noble gesture and it’s a nice thought that one can go through life believing people and not looking for ulterior motives. [...]


44 Inch Chest

By Adam Lippe

Macho posturing doesn’t always have to be a cover for homoerotic tension. Sometimes, such as with a movie like Humpday, the homoerotic tension is created by the macho posturing. In that film, two friends drunkenly dare each other to make a gay porn together, and the next day, neither will back off for fear of [...]

From Paris With Love

By Adam Lippe

There’s a scene in one of my favorite movies, Kicking and Screaming (the one about post-college ennui, not Will Ferrell screaming at pee-wee soccer players) where one character, Otis, responds to a challenge to name eight movies where a monkey plays a key role. After a few titles, the character played by Carlos Jacott starts [...]

Edge of Darkness

By Adam Lippe

Did you know that in the censored-for-TV version of The Long Kiss Goodnight, the movie has been edited so much that it’s no longer clear that Geena Davis’ character is a government assassin with amnesia? In the way the film plays in the version that airs on Sunday mornings on TNT, the suggestion is that [...]

Now on DVD and Blu-Ray

Sorority Row

By Adam Lippe

You know what might make an interesting frat house slasher movie? If they incorporated reverse gentrification instead of just the standard “rich bitches.” Imagine a sorority struggling to find funding, and as the economy dips further, so does the state of their house. They can’t afford a caretaker, they can’t even pay for clean water, and then all of a sudden, someone starts hacking them up. It would be funny because some of those struggling with real problems, not stuff like “will Daddy buy me a nice car for Homecoming,” but, “am I going to have to get extra hours at Burger King just to pay for my books,” might see the dilemma of a mysterious killer as just another issue to deal with. Rather than run and scream up the stairs, or while they stare at dead bodies, the poorer students [...]

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Featured Quote (written by me)

On Hollywood Air Force:

And when [director Bert] Convy wants to slow things down a bit, instead of candlelight dinners and romantic music, he uses farts, so much so that lighting farts becomes a major plot point.

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