By Jack Silbert on June 13, 2023
EPISODE #542: CASEY KASEM TRIBUTE 2023
“The New Scooby-Doo Movies” [ALTERNATE THEME]
Terence Trent D’Arby — “Wishing Well” [Billboard No. 1, 5/7/88]
Michael Jackson — “Dirty Diana” [No. 1, 7/2/88]
Cheap Trick — “The Flame” [No. 1, 7/9/88 – 7/16/88]
Beach Boys — “Kokomo” [No. 1, 11/5/88]
The Bangles — “Eternal Flame” [No. 1, 4/1/89]
Fine Young Cannibals — “She Drives Me Crazy” [No. 1, 4/15/89]
Fine Young Cannibals — “Good Thing” [7/8/89]
Prince — “Batdance” [No. 1, 8/5/89]
The Beatles — “Nowhere Man” [long-distance dedication]
Sinéad O’Connor — “Nothing Compares 2 U” [No. 1, 4/21/90 – 5/12/90]
Prince — “Cream” [No. 1, 11/9/91 – 11/16/91]
Michael Jackson — “Black or White” [No. 1, 12/7/91 – 1/18/92]
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Posted in internet radio playlists | Tagged Beach Boys, Beatles, Billboard Magazine, Casey Kasem, Cheap Trick, Fine Young Cannibals, Michael Jackson, Prince, Terence Trent D’Arby, The Bangles
By Jack Silbert on June 6, 2023
EPISODE #541: DRAG SHOW
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Tommy James & the Shondells — “Draggin’ the Line”
The Magnetic Fields — “Andrew in Drag”
Princess Reason — “Drag + Blur”
Sid King & the Five Strings — ”Sag, Drag, and Fall”
Space Daze — “Drag”
Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift — “Love Is a Drag”
The Cars — “Drag On Forever”
Jan & Dean — “Drag City”
Untamed Youth — “Drag Race Tragedy”
Ty Segall — ”The Drag”
Flowers — “Drag Me Down”
Steve Wynn — “Drag”
Elvis Costello — “A Slow Drag With Josephine”
The Apples in Stereo — “Same Old Drag”
The Pogues — “The Old Main Drag”
Monty Python — “Lumberjack Song”
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Posted in internet radio playlists | Tagged Apples in Stereo, Elvis Costello, Emma Swift, Flowers, Jan & Dean, Magnetic Fields, Monty Python, Pogues, Princess Reason, Robyn Hitchcock, Sid King & the Five Strings, Space Daze, Steve Wynn, the Cars, Tommy James, Ty Segall, Untamed Youth
By Jack Silbert on June 1, 2023
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.
Posted in movie reviews | Tagged 10s movies, 20s movies, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Nicole Holofcener, Woody Allen
By Jack Silbert on May 30, 2023
EPISODE #540: -OUT SUFFIX
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Los Straitjackets — “Blowout!”
Yo La Tengo — “Fallout”
Air Waves — “Knockout”
Nick Lowe — ”Checkout Time”
Me in Capris — “Cookout Time”
The New Pornographers — “Whiteout Conditions”
Jackie Wilson — “Baby Workout”
Cheap Trick — “Lookout”
Kid Gulliver — “Beauty School Dropout”
Freezing Hands — ”Good Morning Takeout”
oOoOO — “Burnout Eyess”
Stiff Little Fingers — “Breakout”
The Damned — “Wait for the Blackout”
Ike & Tina Turner — “Save the Last Dance for Me” r.i.p. Tina
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Posted in internet radio playlists | Tagged Air Waves, Cheap Trick, Freezing Hands, Ike & Tina Turner, Jackie Wilson, Kid Gulliver, Los Straitjackets, Me in Capris, New Pornographers, Nick Lowe, oOoOO, Stiff Little Fingers, The Damned, Yo La Tengo
By Jack Silbert on May 27, 2023
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.
Posted in movie reviews | Tagged 20s movies, baseball, documentaries, New York Yankees, Yogi Berra
By Jack Silbert on May 23, 2023
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.
Posted in movie reviews | Tagged 10s movies, 20s movies, 80s movies, 90s movies, Bruce Campbell, LCD Soundsystem, Sam Raimi
By Jack Silbert on May 23, 2023
EPISODE #539: PRIVACY
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
The B-52’s — “Private Idaho”
Delta 5 — “Mind Your Own Business”
Warren Zevon — “Splendid Isolation”
Helen McCookerybook — ”Big Brother”
Skateboard Kyle — “Private Browsing”
Rockwell — “Somebody’s Watching Me”
Michael Jackson — “Leave Me Alone”
Neil Finn — “Recluse”
Oingo Boingo — “Private Life”
New York Dolls — ”Private World”
Drunken Prayer — “Crazy Alone” [quarantine version]
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Posted in internet radio playlists | Tagged B-52's, Delta 5, Drunken Prayer, Helen McCookerybook, Michael Jackson, Neil Finn, New York Dolls, Oingo Boingo, Rockwell, Skateboard Kyle, Warren Zevon
By Jack Silbert on May 16, 2023
EPISODE #538: WEIRD
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Male Bonding — “Weird Feelings”
The National feat. Bon Iver — “Weird Goodbyes”
Pete Yorn — “She Was Weird”
Ex Cops — ”Weird With You”
Radiator Hospital — “Weird Little Idea”
The Special Pillow — “Sleeping Weird”
Grass Jaw — “Weird Hell”
Oingo Boingo — “Weird Science”
Art Brut — “Weird Science”
Juliana Hatfield — ”It’s So Weird”
Radiohead — “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”
Superchunk — “My Gap Feels Weird”
The Garment District — “Weird Birds and Strange Days”
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Posted in internet radio playlists | Tagged Art Brut, Bon Iver, Ex Cops, Grass Jaw, Juliana Hatfield, Male Bonding, Oingo Boingo, Pete Yorn, Radiator Hospital, Radiohead, Special Pillow, Superchunk, The Garment District, The National
By Jack Silbert on May 15, 2023
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.
Posted in movie reviews | Tagged 10s movies, 20s movies, Ari Aster, Joaquin Phoenix, Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze
By Jack Silbert on May 9, 2023
EPISODE #537: LINES
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Pailhead — “Don’t Stand in Line”
Kiwi Jr. — “Waiting in Line”
The Bangles — “I’m in Line”
They Might Be Giants — ”I Can Help the Next in Line”
The Kinks — “Who’ll Be the Next in Line”
Dew Claw — “The Line”
Cait Brennan — “Lines”
Architrave — “Yellow Lines”
Thigh Master — “Mould Lines”
Au Revoir Simone — ”Trace a Line”
Best Hit TV — “Between the Lines”
John Hiatt — “Slug Line”
Gary U.S. Bonds — “Love’s on the Line”
Rolling Stones — “All Down the Line”
Traveling Wilburys — “End of the Line”
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Posted in internet radio playlists | Tagged Architrave, Au Revoir Simone, Best Hit TV, Cait Brennan, Dew Claw, Gary U.S. Bonds, John Hiatt, Kinks, Kiwi Jr., Pailhead, Rolling Stones, The Bangles, They Might Be Giants, Thigh Master, Traveling Wilburys
Jack Silbert, curator