2025
You are browsing the archive for 2025.
What I’ve Been Watching: Edition XXIX
Luckily, the recent government shutdown didn’t effect my TV viewing. Here’s a list of the shows I’ve checked out in the past several months. LOVED The Pitt (HBO) I never did watch ER, and I haven’t watched a hospital show since Code Black. But the 24-esque real-time conceit of this series really hooked me, and […]
Movie Review: Blue Moon
4 stars out of 5 That I went to see Blue Moon in the theater shows two things: One, that I trust Richard Linklater as a filmmaker and two, that I’ve come a long way in my reappreciation of Ethan Hawke. (It was Linklater’s 2014 opus Boyhood which in fact ended my quarter-century Hawke boycott.) […]
Aquarium Playlist, 11/18/25
EPISODE #668: THE PENNY On November 12, 2025, the U.S. Mint produced the final penny for circulation. The Beatles — “Penny Lane” [ALTERNATE THEME]Half Japanese — “Penny in the Fountain” Big Black — “Bad Penny” JD McPherson — “Lucky Penny” Freedy Johnston — “Lonely Penny” Amy Ray — “Pennies on the Track”The Holiday Crowd — […]
Movie Review: Bugonia
4.5 stars out of 5 This is the best Yorgos Lanthimos film that Yorgos didn’t write himself. (I’m looking at you, well-received Poor Things and The Favourite.) It best captures the very dark comedy that permeates his own scripts. So I was pleasantly surprised to see that Will Tracy wrote the screenplay, as I wasn’t […]
Aquarium Playlist, 11/11/25
EPISODE #667: SIX SEVEN Austin Lounge Lizards — “Neighbor of the Beast” [ALTERNATE THEME]Ladybug Transistor — “Six Times” Salem 66 — “Seven Steps Down” The Resonars — “Six Daisy Neckchain” Swansea Sound — “Seven in the Car” Steve Earle — “Six Days on the Road”Bruce Springsteen — “Seven Tears”Lucinda Williams — “Six Blocks Away” Ben […]
Movie Review: The Mastermind
3.5 stars out of 5I left this movie thinking I’d be giving it a higher rating than the aggregated writers on Metacritic. Was surprised to see that, no, it was averaging 80 out of 100, with a handful of perfect 100s from a few top reviewers. Well, I guess there’s a new hardass in town! […]
Movie Review: Frankenstein
4.5 stars out of 5 Guillermo del Toro has quietly become one of my favorite filmmakers. This is his fourth consecutive movie (after The Shape of Water, Nightmare Alley, and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinnochio) that I’ve rated 4.5 stars out of 5, and Pan’s Labyrinth is a classic as well. And via interviews, I’ve learned […]
Aquarium Playlist, 11/4/25
EPISODE #666: FULL DEVIL The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]Teenage Halloween — “666!” The Cowsills — “The Prophecy of Daniel & John the Divine (Six-Six-Six)” Jesus & Mary Chain — “Nineteen666” The Natvral— “Lucifer’s Glory” Robert Johnson — “Preachin’ Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)”Beck — “Devil’s Haircut”Prof. Fuzz 63 — “In the Devil’s Workshop Making […]
Aquarium Playlist, 10/28/25
EPISODE #665: HALLOWEEN 2025 The Frogs — “I’m Evil, Jack” [ALTERNATE THEME]The Dracu-Las — “Walking With a Vampire” Renee Maskin — “Scream Queens” Oingo Boingo — “Dead Man’s Party” Fascinations Grand Chorus — “Terror in the Night” The Dungeons of Horrors — “On Halloween You Can Be Anything”The Spinanes — “Halloween Candy”Felice Brothers — “Candy […]
Movie Review: Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere
4 stars out of 5 I try to buy any new Springsteen album on the day of release, and it turns out I’m an opening-day guy for any Bruce biopics too. Had obviously been looking forward to this movie, after so many reports of filming days in Asbury Park, Bruce sightings on-set, etc. And I’ve […]
Jack Silbert, curator