Adam Lippe -Wait, Wait, Don’t Kill Me (Writer and Director)

Published: Aug. 21, 2020, 1:50 p.m.

Adam Lippe, born in March of 1978 in New York City, is a writer-producer-director living in Phoenixville, PA. His interest in film began early on, and he began writing film criticism at the age of 15 while attending Riverdale Country School, first in direct competition with his school newspaper, and eventually for the paper itself. He made his first movie, The Stranger, a dark, satirical drama, at the age of 16. The film was wildly ambitious, especially in terms of its multi-layered soundtrack, forcing him to constantly have to create workarounds for the primitive editing equipment that the school had available. In college, both at Hampshire and Emerson College, Adam continued his interest in macabre humor, making short films and music videos, as well as directing live television versions of his comedic sketches. 

After returning to film criticism in 2002, writing for various magazines and websites, he became a full time critic and columnist in 2008, first for the Columbus, Ohio paper Outlook Weekly, and then his own website, A Regrettable Moment of Sincerity, in 2009. That led to his reviews appearing on Rotten Tomatoes and becoming a member of the Online Film Critics Society, as well as being named one of the top film critics in America while being featured in a TV ad for Examiner.com appearing all over the country.  During that highly prolific period, Adam started Medium Rare Cinema, a weekly film series hosted at a local movie theater (though the movies were projected from video sources), comprised entirely of films not available for viewing in the USA. This involved tracking down the rights holders for each film and clearing them for public screening, putting together trailer compilations and short films that related to each film and writing a lengthy essay about each and every film screened.  Eventually this meant obtaining rare footage and re-creating director’s cuts that were never released either due to censorship or studio interference. Films by directors like John Woo, John Boorman, Ringo Lam, and Gillo Pontecorvo had their films completely transformed, which not only involved combining different sources and color correcting, but often completely re-writing a film’s subtitles to improve the quality of the translation.  

Beginning in 2013, Adam began writing a horror-comedy, Wait, Wait, Don’t Kill Me, about a mysterious virus that gets loose in inner-city Philadelphia. When the government tries to shut down the spread and realizes they can’t, they decide to fence off the locals and let everyone die. Slowly, but surely, Adam secured financing and cast the movie out of New York, shooting the SAG New Media film in Philadelphia. The completed movie, which Adam wrote, produced and directed, features 40 locations, 45 speaking parts and more than 100 extras, was shot in fits and starts over a period of several years. The film also incorporates footage shot both during the Pope’s and the DNC’s visit to Philadelphia, which coincidentally supported the movie’s notion of a city being blocked off by elaborate fences and large amounts of security.  Wait, Wait, Don’t Kill Me was completed in late March 2020, amidst an actual worldwide viral pandemic, and has secured distribution.