3.5 stars out of 5
I’m feeling a bit self-conscious. This whole movie is about hurt feelings; what if writer/director Nicole Holofcener (“Who I’ve had drinks with,” said in my best Jon Lovitz voice) googles this review and finds out I didn’t think it was perfect, and then feels all sad?
Alas, like Lee Nails, I must press on. I really became aware of Holofcener a decade ago, with her feature Enough Said which starred Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the already late James Gandolfini. (Didn’t write a full review, but in these pages I said, “I found it so-so, with an absurd plot.”) And then in 2015 I may have had drinks and exchanged an email or two with Holofcener and Julianne Moore to discuss my friend Lee Israel and the eventual movie based on her memoir Can You Ever Forgive Me? (with a different star and director, but still using Holofcener’s script).
But it’s another part of Holofcener’s past that informs the overall feel of You Hurt My Feelings. Her stepdad was longtime Woody Allen producer Charles Joffe, so Holofcener grew up on Woody’s sets, soon doing odd jobs and then earning credits on A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy and Hannah and Her Sisters. And like Greta Gerwig and Sofia Coppola before her, this feels like Holofcener’s Woody Allen movie.
We have a middle-aged, upper-middle-class couple (Louis-Dreyfus again and, um, I want to say Brian Benben even though I know that’s not correct) in Manhattan, dealing with life’s white-people-problem humiliations. The film is rolling along in this light Woody-comedy way until we hit a Curb Your Enthusiasm-esque plot twist: Louis-Dreyfus, playing a writer, overhears her hubby saying he doesn’t actually like her new book. And her feelings are hurt!
Things never get too heavy, but the script allows us to think about the white lies we tell each other, and whether we genuinely love our chosen fields (especially after being critiqued). I just wish the movie were a little sharper, a little funnier, like, oh let’s say, peak Woody Allen. Louis-Dreyfus can do this sort of role in her sleep and is a pleasure to watch here. (Ooh that Veep was super sharp too, wasn’t it?) The only other actor with a standout performance is Owen Teague (who I really appreciated in Montana Story) as the couple’s underachieving, unlucky in love 23-year-old son.
Here’s what I’m thinking: One of those upcoming warm days, when everyone’s talking about how nice it is outside but you’d really rather stay inside — maybe even in the dark — catch a matinee of this, you’ll enjoy it.
Movie Review: You Hurt My Feelings
Movie Review: It Ain’t Over
3 stars out of 5
I didn’t want to see it. But I had 8 hours to kill between checking out of the Berkeley Hotel and doors opening at the House of Independents for the rock and roll hootenanny. Eating only lasts so long. But movies, movies are good. You go in at one time, and when you come out, boom, it’s later. Alas, there was really nothing to see besides Chris Pratt Cashes a Paycheck in Outer Space With Even More Obvious Good-Time Oldies on the Soundtrack Vol. 3 and Donkey Kong in Movie Form Except Now It’s 18 Bucks Instead of a Quarter. And the artsy Showroom Cinema in Asbury Park apparently doesn’t show movies anymore, which is a bummer.
I schlepped out to the mall to see the Yogi Berra documentary It Ain’t Over.
Now, there’s nothing wrong, per se, about this film. It is a perfectly pleasant viewing experience. There’s great old footage. There is a solid assortment of talking heads: Costas, Joe Maddon, Torre, Mariano, Billy Crystal, Suzyn Waldman, Al Downing, Bobby Richardson, VIN SCULLY (r.i.p.), etc. Also, fairly randomly, Russ Salzberg. (Why.) We get to spend time with Yogi’s sons, including Dale, who those of us of a certain age recall as a player. And the thesis, from Yogi’s granddaughter, is well-meaning — that Berra is remembered more as a clown than as an amazing ballplayer (on account of his charming Yogi-isms and Yoo-Hoo commercials and Yogi Bear, etc. etc.) — and this documentary aims to set the record straight.
Ah, but that’s flawed thinking. Because anyone who would pay to see this film ALREADY KNOWS ALL THAT. We baseball fans are nerds. Or is it, we nerds are baseball fans? We don’t really like football, because those guys bullied us in school and dated all the pretty girls, leaving us bruised and alone. But baseball, baseball is beautiful, truly a game of inches, of angles, and of endless, mind-numbing statistics, which we’ve pored over since childhood. (And they keep coming up with arcane new stats and I have no idea how it all fits on the back of a baseball card anymore.) We know the numbers and the stories and when we get together and discuss these important things we are super annoying and when there’s no one around to talk with we call up sports radio shows in the middle of the night.
This is a movie for grandpas to bore their grandsons with, or for adults to patronize their drooling aged parents with. (“Look, Dad! You remember! Ooh let me get a tissue for you.”) But it really belongs on MLB Network, trimmed down to an hour, where it can air over and over again in the bleak off-season, as we pray for spring, secretly terrified that this year, spring won’t come.
Movie Review: Evil Dead Rise
4 stars out of 5
I came late to the Evil Dead series. I was 14 when the original film was released, and my slightly twisted buddy Rob Mosley was obsessed with it. And yet a few decades passed before I finally gave it a chance (dear reader, I must admit I didn’t even “get” the Bruce Campbell cameo in the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man flick) — and I was instantly hooked. In rapid succession I then watched Evil Dead II, Army of Darkness, and the Ash vs Evil Dead TV show. I skipped the 2013 reboot (no Bruce Campbell?) but a decade later, faced with a really slow evening on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, I headed to the multiplex for Evil Dead Rise.
Executive produced by Raimi and Campbell, this installment has the franchise’s seal of approval. (Yes, I belatedly learned that the same was true for the 2013 reboot; ok ok I’ll soon fire it up on Tubi.) We meet Ellie and her three kids Danny, Bridget, and Kassie, living in a soon-to-be-condemned Los Angeles apartment building. (We first see teen Danny DJing in his room to my other high school buddy James Murphy’s “Dance Yrself Clean.”) Ellie’s concert-industry sis Beth shows up out of the blue; she’s preggers and needs help. The kids are screwing around in the parking garage, and, d’oh, stumble upon series through-line the Book of the Dead. And because this is 2023, instead of accompanying cassettes, there are 3 vinyl LPs. What a box set!
At first I was thinking, the actresses playing Ellie and Beth are a little too glamorous for the proceedings. (All the actors are no-names and it turns out they are mostly Australians speaking with American accents, as filming took place not in Los Angeles but in New Zealand.) But the Book gets opened, the LPs get played, incredibly bad shit starts going down, and the glamour goes away really quick. Lily Sullivan is solid as Beth, coming across as a low-rent Kristen Stewart trying to protect the kids from their suddenly possessed Mom. Of the youngsters, I was most impressed with Gabrielle Echols as young teen Bridget, emanating independence, sass, and smarts.
The original Evil Dead films had a dark, clever sense of humor that is missing here. But writer/director Lee Cronin makes up for it with nonstop horror, gore, and scares, all well-executed (no pun intended). If you like that sort of thing, you will love this movie. If you don’t, well, I’m truly surprised you read this far.
Movie Review: Beau Is Afraid
4 stars out of 5
I described Ari Aster’s 2018 film Hereditary as “seriously f’ed.” And in 2019, I said his film Midsommar was “100% f’ed up.” But not until writing this review did I realize that those two movies and new release Beau Is Afraid (pretty messed up in its own right) were written and directed by the same guy. My point being, I accidentally went in without any preconceptions about the filmmaker.
For the first half hour or so, I was thinking, “This is clever but mean-spirited; I don’t think I want to watch a whole movie about the misadventures of someone with mental illness.” It appeared to be a dark comedy with Joaquin Phoenix (a fave of mine) as Beau, a sad-sack schlub with OCD-esque fears, manifesting as delusions, in the Taxi Driver world around him. He’s supposed to visit his mom — who he has serious issues with, of course — but reality or perhaps fantasy prevent him from making the trip, yet then he kind of has to get to Mom because he learns she is suddenly possibly dead.
Enter Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan as a chipper upper-middle-class couple who “adopt” Beau into their American Beauty-ful suburban home where they want to take care of him and then help him on his way. This is Act II if you will, and the film has morphed into a satire of the American Dream: family, success, the whole schmear.
Beau has no time for this satire! He’s gotta get to his mom! As he escapes suburban splendor and its seamy underbelly, we enter Act III, and his journey is portrayed as an epic quest, complete with magical woodlands and inventive animation. I felt the influence of Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze without it seeming derivative. As the movie flashed back to to Beau’s pubescence and forward to his old age, I was genuinely transported by nearly perfect filmmaking.
Alas, the movie keeps going, into an Act IV, and V, remaining sharp and surprising but unable to maintain its heady brilliance. (Later segments did seem derivative of movies I won’t mention as they might be spoilers.) And the longer it went on, the more I felt an underlying cynicism slightly detracting from the film’s overall quality.
Regarding the running time: I was watching a 3:15pm screening in Montclair, not at all concerned about getting back to Hoboken for a 7pm Zoom meeting. Well, as I casually strolled out of the theater and glanced at the time, I was shocked to see it was now 6:30pm. The movie had felt long and by god it was: 2 hours, 59 minutes! They could’ve trimmed 20 minutes easily and I wouldn’t have had to log into Zoom from my car parked on a random quiet residential block.
Still, there is so much to appreciate, including Phoenix’s fearful performance, fun cameos, action sequences, surrealism, pop psychology, etc. etc. Thanks for the ride, Ari Aster.
Movie Review: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
3.5 stars out of 5
Full disclosure, I never read this book, nor have I ever been an 11-year-old girl. I think I read Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing, does that count? At any rate, in hopes of gaining slightly better understanding of all the former 11-year-old girls in my life — and to support legendary Jersey girl Judy Blume — I went to see this movie.
For others who aren’t familiar with the plot, well, there isn’t too much of one. It’s a school year in the life of 6th grader Margaret. And though her ups and downs seem pretty tame to, oh, a middle-aged man, for the tween set it’s drama-packed: cliques, peer pressure, crushes, changing dynamic with parents, becoming a “woman,” and in Margaret’s specific case, adjusting to a new home and new school (which I could relate to).
Pun intended, it’s a period piece, set in 1970. (This is handled subtly — they don’t overdo the bellbottoms and flower power.) This time frame allows the filmmakers to portray the girls a bit more innocently than they would need to today, while also serving, along with the soundtrack, as nostalgia for the book’s OG YA readers.
As the title hints, religion plays a key role in the story. Because mom Rachel “Jack Still Loves You” McAdams was basically disowned by her parents for marrying a Jewish guy, they raise Margaret without religion, saying she can decide on her own later. (Possibly the in-laws weren’t upset that he was Jewish, but rather that Benny Safdie is such a boring actor, in an undeveloped role.) Margaret begins a research project on religion, giving the story slightly more bite.
Grandma Kathy Bates doesn’t get much to do. As Margaret, Abby Ryder Fortson — who was forgettable as the daughter in the first two Ant-Man movies — shows some spunk and realistic awkwardness here, and I can imagine a successful future for her.
Simple, straightforward, sweet — this is a pretty good movie. Bring the age-appropriate kids, who will almost certainly appreciate it even more than I did.
Aquarium Playlist, 4/25/23
EPISODE #535: TOWN TOPICS
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
The Replacements — “Happy Town”
Big Eyes — “Leave This Town”
The Smithereens — “Girls About Town”
The Sundays — ”Hideous Towns”
Rufus Wainwright — “Going to a Town”
Ezra Cohen — “Talk of the Town”
Lucinda Williams — “East Side of Town”
Fan Modine — “One Company Town”
The Rock ’n’ Roll HiFives — “Glass Towns”
Fats Waller — ”Lulu’s Back in Town”
Nothing Painted Blue — “Back in Town”
Higgins — “Town 2 Town”
Mrs. Magician — “Eyes All Over Town”
Kelli & the Kittens — “Happy Town”
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Aquarium Playlist, 4/18/23
EPISODE #534: AS-IS
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Harry Styles — “As It Was”
John Cozz — “As Long As I’m With You”
The Rubinoos — “As Long As I’m With You”
Bern & the Brights — ”As Long As I’m Alive”
2nd Grade — “As Long As We Can Talk About It”
Amy Rigby — “As Is”
The Sadies — “As Above, So Below”
Crowded House — “As Sure As I Am”
The Bats — “As You Were”
Frankie Cosmos — ”As Often As I Can”
The Smithereens — “As Long As You Are Near Me”
Hefner — “As Soon As You’re Ready”
Alejandro Escovedo — “As I Fall”
Fleetwood Mac — “As Long As You Follow”
Johnny Cash — “As Long As the Grass Shall Grow”
Billie Holiday — “As Time Goes By”
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Aquarium Playlist, 4/11/23
EPISODE #533: ANTONYMS
The Smile — “The Opposite” [ALTERNATE THEME]
The Yardbirds — “Over Under Sideways Down”
Kitty Wells — “Left to Right”
The dB’s — “Black and White”
Allegra Krieger — ”The Push and the Pull”
Bruce Springsteen — “From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)”
The Smithereens — “Blues Before and After”
Frank Sinatra — “Night and Day”
Hypnolovewheel — “Everywhere Nowhere Girl”
Amy Rigby — “Bob”
Joe Jackson — ”Right and Wrong”
Ex Hex — “Hot and Cold”
Adam Ant — “Friend or Foe”
Paul McCartney — “Ever Present Past”
Ernest Tubb — “Let’s Say Goodbye Like We Said Hello”
Jenny O. — “Opposite Island”
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Aquarium Playlist, 4/4/23
EPISODE #532: IN SHAPE
The Yardbirds — “Shapes of Things” [ALTERNATE THEME]
Idlewild — “When I Argue I See Shapes”
Johnny Restivo — “The Shape I’m In”
The Band — “The Shape I’m In”
Beach Boys — ”I’m in Great Shape”
They Might Be Giants — “Spiraling Shape”
The Pipettes — “Pull Shapes”
Jackson Browne — “In the Shape of a Heart”
Clem Snide — “The True Shape of Your Heart”
Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians — “The Shapes Between Us Turn Into Animals”
The Microphones — ”I Felt Your Shape”
Guide by Voices — “The Room Taking Shape”
The Replacements — “Bent Out of Shape”
Grass Widow — “Give Me Shapes”
The Hive Dwellers — “Pine-Shaped Box”
The Mighty Lemon Drops — “Sympathize With Us” r.i.p. Seymour Stein of Sire Records
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Movie Review: The Quiet Girl
4.5 stars out of 5
First and foremost, this is not A Quiet Place III. Though it is a pretty quiet movie. The Quiet Girl, from Ireland, was one of the 2023 Oscar nominees for Best International Feature Film. It didn’t win, but it is terrific.
I’m not sure when the movie is set — late 70s? early 80s? — though I narrowed down the timeframe faster than I did for Women Talking. What we have here is a quiet girl, Cáit (pronounced “Cort”), living in rural Ireland with a white-trash family, or whatever the Irish equivalent of white trash is. Dad drinks a lot, mom is preggers again, money’s too tight to mention, and Cáit is prone to wandering off and hiding. Till the new baby arrives, they send Cáit off to live with an older couple, mom’s cousin, a few hours away.
What transpires is a sweet, slowly unfolding story about gaining and earning trust, not accepting your prescribed fate, carrying on after troubles… and that family is where you find it.
Young Catherine Clinch as Cáit has never been in anything before and she is marvelous. Again, she’s quiet, but gives little glances, small motions; she’s holding so much inside. In this life of ours there are loud, running-around, confident kids but if you were among the rest of us, you will connect with Cáit on a soulful level.
Carrie Crowley as foster mom Eibhlín oozes compassion and patience tempered by some underlying fatigue and sadness. Andrew Bennett is the foster dad (jimminy, he was the narrator in Angela’s Ashes; small country!) and you might say he’s The Quiet Farmer but he has an internal life too and a code to live by, and, well, just give him time. Michael Patric as her real da is sufficient though I kept wondering what Colin Farrell would’ve done with the role. Likely it would’ve been distracting.
Cheers to writer/director Colm Bairéad, only his second feature and nearly each piece perfectly placed. (Script is adapted from the novella Foster by Claire Keegan; will have to check out her work.)
Note to viewers (and I hope you will, soon): The movie is subtitled as they’re mostly speaking Gaelic. Interestingly, characters will switch off into English and then switch back; I didn’t know if that was less formal or what. But, interesting.
The film’s emotional intensity really snuck up on me, and as the end credits rolled I found myself weeping. Quietly.
Jack Silbert, curator