December 2021
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New Year’s Resolutions 2022
1. Stop meddling in friends’ lives, focus on medaling in the Winter Olympics. 2. Create a set of lower-case numbers. 3. Start letter-writing campaign for a Grey Poupon Groupon. 4. Add a plus after my name. • Resolutions 5 and 6 unavailable due to covid protocols. 7. Realize that my nervousness about not getting felt […]
Movie Review: Nightmare Alley
4.5 stars out of 5During pandemic days, or shall I say nights, I’ve really upped my watching of Eddie Muller’s Noir Alley offerings on TCM. One film I haven’t caught — or didn’t even known about till today — is 1947’s Nightmare Alley. Which is probably for the best, as I strolled into 2021’s Nightmare […]
Movie Review: Drive My Car
4.5 stars out of 5When my Golden Books picture book The Christmas Aliens was published in 1998, my friend Dave wrote a joke review on Amazon proclaiming it the “best book since Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase.” I’d never heard of Haruki Murakami but soon picked up that novel and was entranced. Two-plus decades later, […]
Movie Review: Licorice Pizza
4 stars out of 5In the ongoing battle of the Andersons, Wes served first this year with The French Dispatch, but Paul Thomas has returned serve strongly with Licorice Pizza. Interestingly, both films are actually more collections of scenes rather than cohesive plot-driven narratives. And where Wes’s was studied and precise, P.T. throws it all […]
Aquarium Playlist, 12/28/21
EPISODE #467: NEW TO ME IN 2021 The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]Bat Fangs — “Talk Tough”Katy Kirby — “Cool Dry Place”Wizard Brain — “In the Morning of the Sun”Erotic Novels — “Five Years Later”Old Lady — “Buff Coupe”Little Hag — “Get Real!”Nylon — “No Bother”Jackson Pines — “Now or Never”Anika Pyle — “Blame”Savak — […]
Movie Review: Red Rocket
3.5 stars out of 5Red Rocket is the new film from Sean Baker, writer/director of The Florida Project. I really liked the vibe and strong sense of place in that movie, and the great performance from Willem Dafoe. (What I didn’t like: There were so many SCREAMING KIDS in the story.) With this follow-up, Baker […]
Movie Review: Spider-Man — No Way Home
3.5 stars out of 5I thought we could get some peace and quiet while the Avengers are still off in disintegrated-into-ash land. But nope, the new Spidey flick starts yanking favorite old baddies from the Multiverse (registered trademark Zuckerberg Industries), and I bet the hack screenwriters were kicking themselves for already using Homecoming as a […]
Aquarium Playlist, 12/21/21
EPISODE #466: NEW TO ME 2021, LIVESTREAMING The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]Sex Clark Five — “Streams” [OPENING THEME]Charlotte Rose Benjamin — “Party City”Sarchasm — “Wither (in D)”Miss Grit — “Buy the Banter”Savan DePaul — “Mist Burns”Basement Revolver — “Wax and Digital”Cheerbleederz — “Staying Up Late”Sweetie Darling — “Black Coat”Molly Ringworm — “Be Mindful”Wares — […]
Movie Review: Belfast
3.5 stars out of 5Yes, I attend Joe Hurley’s All-Star Irish Rock Revue every year, hoping Don Fleming will sing “The Bogside Man,” and in the early 90s I was in the Tir na nÓg pub in Trenton at midnight one night when they had a moment of silence for Bobby Sands. But the truth […]
Movie Review: West Side Story
5 stars out of 5The closest I ever came to seeing West Side Story before was the Michael Jackson “Bad” video, and Chris Elliott as Marv Albert singing “Somewhere” on Letterman. (“There’s a place for us — YES!!”) But Spielberg is my boy, so I figured I’d give the new version a shot. And all […]
Jack Silbert, curator