3 stars out of 5
Last time I wrote about a French thriller, and because I’m a goofball, I nearly made a joke about French ticklers — but ultimately thought the better of it. Sanctuary, however, could use a tickler or two to spice things up. I have been a fan of Margaret Qualley since The Leftovers, and after all the abuse she took in Maid, I was eager to see her taking charge as a dominatrix in Sanctuary. I’d read it was a dark comedy, which is right up my (qu)alley. But really, it’s more of a psychological thriller and battle-of-the-sexes/David vs. Goliath satire, while not being wholly successful at any of it.
Qualley is Rebecca, high-end dominatrix. Christopher Abbott, who I didn’t know before and won’t remember after, is Hal, hotel-chain heir. Rebecca feels that, for all the — ahem — work she’s done with Hal, she is entitled to a share of his massive inheritance. Hal disagrees. Now, from here, they could’ve gone in a more comedic War of the Roses direction, or else amped up the dark sexiness a la Body Heat or Body Double. But the writing (by a guy whose previous experience is primarily in the sound department) and direction (by a guy with only one prior feature credit) just isn’t sharp or smart enough to pull off either. All we seem to get, repeatedly, is “she is surprisingly good at business, and he isn’t!”
Also, as the great majority of the movie is set in one hotel suite, it feels much more like a play, with the inherent too-much talkiness. Though the claustrophobia does add to the rising sense of tension.
Qualley is reliably solid — her inner confidence serves the character well. She’s looking more and more like mom Andie MacDowell, and I’m waiting for Sarah Sherman to do a wicked impression of her on SNL.
This is one you can likely wait till it’s streaming, and unfortunately, won’t have to worry much if the kids walk in.
Movie Review: Sanctuary
Movie Review: The Night of the 12th
4 stars out of 5
When I’ve been in a steady art-movie groove, I have had a reliable pleasure: French thrillers. They’re generally a notch above Hollywood thrillers, or at least the cool accents and unfamiliar settings make them seem that way. But the pandemic has been particularly hard on art-house theaters, with their audiences apparently unwilling to return in big numbers for the cinema experience. Many such theaters have closed. Locally, I’m so thankful that the Clairidge in Montclair, New Jersey, reopened under new management, but to survive, some screens are now devoted to mainstream releases. The overall result, nationwide, is fewer screens for truly independent film. And of course, fewer French thrillers for me.
So I was quite glad to see The Night of the 12th listed at the Clairidge. I was immediately transported from north Jersey to southeastern France, the city of Grenoble, where the longtime police captain has retired and been replaced by loyal detective Yohan. Early in his new tenure, a young woman named Clara is murdered in a nearby suburb, and the investigation begins.
For about the first 45 minutes, this plays out in interesting but not particularly unique procedural fashion: leads, suspects, questioning. The environs keep things fresh, as we’re at the foot of a French Alps ski resort in the off-season; one scene takes place at a bowling alley up the hill. And Yohan blows off steam by cycling at night around a Velodrome. This ain’t Blue Bloods.
As the story goes on, it becomes more and more compelling, challenging gender assumptions about the victim and about members of the police force, who are extremely bro-y with each other. Clara had many dates and sexual partners; are the detectives blaming the victim’s murder on her lifestyle? I was glad to see that one of the three screenwriters was female (Pauline Guéna), adding that perspective especially as — after a time jump — we now have a female member of the detective squad and, importantly, a female judge who takes a fresh look at the case.
Aside from gender issues, director/co-writer Dominik Moll also clearly gives us two characters at different ends of their careers. Yohan (Bastien Bouillon) has a friendly face, and a thorough, by-the-book manner, but is clearly getting frustrated as the case remains unsolved. Veteran detective Marceau (Bouli Lanners), meanwhile, is gruff and can no longer keep his emotions in check as his personal life begins to overwhelm his professional one.
I found the film quite satisfying, and much more nuanced than your average thriller. Even if you don’t like foreign movies, you may want to dip a toe in, as overseas offerings might be all that’s left if the writers’ strike drags on.
Aquarium Playlist, 6/13/23
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.
Aquarium Playlist, 6/6/23
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.
Movie Review: You Hurt My Feelings
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.
Aquarium Playlist, 5/30/23
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.
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.
Aquarium Playlist, 5/23/23
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.
Aquarium Playlist, 5/16/23
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.
Jack Silbert, curator