4 stars out of 5
I can imagine Mike White handing this in as a stand-alone episode of White Lotus and getting immediately fired and banned by HBO. In Infinity Pool, writer/director Brandon Cronenberg gives us his own version of an existentially bored couple at a tropic resort, but because of that last name, you can probably guess this movie is pretty fucked up.
And can I just say, you know you’re old when you think, “Oh a movie by the son of one of my favorite directors; let’s see what the kid is up to” — and then you find out the “kid” is 43 years old. Sheesh!
OK, where were we, ah yes, tropical resort. Alexander “Please Let Me Get the Little Circle Above the A on the First Try” Skarsgård (editor’s note: not even close) is James Foster, an author with writer’s block hoping to find inspiration on a vacation funded by his supportive-but-don’t-push-me wife Em. They start hanging out with another couple, one half of which is flirty, alluring Gabi. She’s played by Mia Goth who in a real-life Cronenbergian twist, has been impregnated by Shia LaBeouf. Yick!
After a day and night of couple carousing, James finds himself in trouble with the law. And outside the gates of the resort, there is some rough island justice! (Police HQ looks a bit like the rundown government buildings in Papa Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future; it was interesting to see that this movie was filmed in Hungary and Croatia.) Gabi assures James that it can all be taken care of, swept away, which we soon learn is because everybody has a price.
Plot-wise, I’m going to stop right there, as to not spoil the fun. Maybe “fun” isn’t the right word? No, there is certainly some fun, and some dark laughs. Very dark. (Though not as dark as that chocolate my buddy brought back from Germany. Too dark! I digress.) But there is also some wonderfully disturbing content, insane visuals, hallucinatory freakouts, ultraviolence, scary shit, all dancing around some heady ethical questions to a soundtrack by the great Tim Hecker.
I was finding the movie really gripping… then I got a little bored by the “excess”… then Croney pushes the Messed-Up Meter deep into the red and totally won me back. All I can say is, David Cronenberg must be one proud papa.
Movie Review: Infinity Pool
Aquarium Playlist, 2/14/23
EPISODE #525: VALENTINE’S DAY 2023 (CRUSHES)
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Tsunami — “Valentine”
Bruce Springsteen — “Crush on You”
Juniper — “Everybody’s Got a Crush on Chad”
The Clash — ”1–2 Crush on You”
Bad Moves — “Crushed Out”
Let’s Whisper — “This Might Not Be a Crush”
Sweater Girls — “Space Crush”
Yum Yums — “Crush on You”
Kami Lyle with Joey Spampinato — “First Crush”
Brian Wilson — ”I Got a Crush on You”
Frankie Machine — “The Perfect Valentine”
Dusty Springfield — “Wishin’ and Hopin’” r.i.p. Burt Bacharach
De La Soul — “The Magic Number” r.i.p. Trugoy the Dove
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Aquarium Playlist, 2/7/23
EPISODE #524: 2/9/23 “HEROES OF INDIEPOP” PET SHOP SHOW PREVIEW
Jack Silbert, promoter and emcee
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Mary Lou Lord — “His Indie World”
Tullycraft — “Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend’s Too Stupid To Know About”
Wimp Factor Fourteen — “Train Song”
Vehicle Flips — ”Diplomacy, Home and Abroad”
The Gazetteers — “Trapped Inside a Skill Crane”
The Ekphrastics — “Special Delivery”
Laura Veirs — “I See Your Tracks”
Liquorice — “Keeping the Weekend Free”
Franklin Bruno — “Skipped a Grade”
The Human Hearts — ”A Different City for a Different Life”
Makeout Vertigo — “Nervy B”
Joy Cleaner — “Impossibility for Me”
Joy Cleaner — “Dramatization”
Joy Cleaner — “Selling the Mood”
Skateboard Kyle — “Making Our Dreams Come True”
Franklin Bruno — “Tico-Tico”
The Gazetteers — “Poor Little Rhode Island”
Tullycraft — “Twee”
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Movie Review: Women Talking
3.5 stars out of 5
Well, I can’t say the title didn’t give me a heads-up. There is a lot of talking. Do you know that play A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking? Like, multiply that.
The more I read about the true story this is sort of based on, the more I wish this movie was a documentary, or at least “based on a true story.” There is an ultra-conservative, modern-world-shunning Mennonite community in Bolivia where the women were routinely drugged and raped. Holy shit, I want to know more about that.
Instead, this film is based on a novel, “an imagined response to real events.” Well, ok, we do get the basics (shifted to somewhere in the rural U.S., I suppose for relatability) but for me that disconnect created too much distance between reality and fiction, and as the story progressed I didn’t have the visceral reaction I would’ve expected. Or that the real events deserved.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good movie, well-made and well-performed (except Ben “Q” Whishaw, the token nice guy, whose character’s Whishaw-washiness got pretty tiresome). Frances McDormand is not in this nearly as much as the trailer led me to believe. We do get two different Girls With the Dragon Tattoos, Rooney Mara and Claire Foy. And as the women discuss their options — Should they stay or should they go now? Or, should they fight their attackers? — there are compelling topics raised for women in repressive cultures (who I don’t think have HBO Max? Not sure?) and for anyone in an abusive relationship. And different argument archetypes are well-represented: play it safe; let’s compromise; let’s burn it down; thoughts filtered through the young, old, and in-between.
There’s just so much talking.
It feels like a play, mostly in one room, for 104 minutes. When director Sarah Polley cuts away from that room, not enough interesting stuff happens before, wham, we’re back in the room. For more talking. It was in the title.
Aquarium Playlist, 1/24/23
EPISODE #522: PSYCHEDELIA
The Flaming Lips — “What Is the Light?” [ALTERNATE THEME]
Rolling Stones — “We Love You”
Brian Jonestown Massacre — “Anenome”
Wizard Brain — “Lemon Sky”
Sensational Country Blues Wonders — “The Psychedelic Cowboy Song”
interview with Gary Van Miert of the Sensational Country Blues Wonders
Sensational Country Blues Wonders — “There’s a Hole in the Fabric of My Reality”
Melody’s Echo Chamber — “Some Time Alone, Alone”
The Beatles — “Tomorrow Never Knows”
The Monkees — “Porpoise Song”
The Byrds — ”Lady Friend” r.i.p. David Crosby
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Aquarium Playlist, 1/17/23
EPISODE #521: LIVE HIGHLIGHTS 2022
The Who — “Happy Jack” [live, ALTERNATE THEME]
The Lemonheads — “Confetti”
Girls on Grass — “Friday Night”
Kiwi Jr. — “Unspeakable Things”
The Exbats — ”Hey New Zealand”
Oneida — “Beat Me to the Punch”
Mercury Rev — “Holes”
Brian Jonestown Massacre — “Wisdom”
Nina Nastasia — “This Is Love”
Sunshine and the Rain — “I Can’t Change” (demo)
Bush Tetras — ”You Don’t Know Me”
Pavement — “Spit on a Stranger”
Jeff Beck — “Dirty Mind” r.i.p.
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Movie Review: M3GAN
3 stars out of 5
Yes, I’m giving this E, uh I mean 3, stars. Like last year’s Barbarian, the filmmakers here are trying to do something a little different within the horror genre, and I appreciate that. Unfortunately, M3GAN’s filmmakers don’t try very hard. The result is pretty fun and certainly watchable, but ultimately forgettable.
So, we live in world with increasing artificial intelligence, with Alexa, Siri, yadda yadda, and what if toys became sentient and independent thinkers? That would be cool but maybe also kind of dangerous, don’t you think? Eh, let’s not worry about it and just see how it plays out, ok? OK!
Allison Williams, who seemed a lot more compelling on the small screen, is type-A tech wiz Gemma who suddenly becomes guardian of her dead sister’s daughter Cady. She’s not really cut out to be a mom, but maybe this robot doll she’s been working on could help out…. Gemma’s jerky boss gets a whiff of this cool M3GAN project and all he sees are dollar signs! This could be the hottest thing since, I don’t know, imagine a loaf of bread that you didn’t have to just rip hunks off to make sandwiches and stuff! That would be a real-game-changer, right? And M3GAN could be too so let’s rush into production willy-nilly without careful testing or whatever!
Also seemingly rushed into production is young Violet McGraw as Cady, who apparently is only capable of pouting. But not to single her out, because none of the actors here seem particularly good. Nor is the script, which in more talented hands could’ve been a clever cautionary tale about our addiction to smart machines, but instead is just a lazy “what if?” Likewise, the director keeps things moving along but never makes M3GAN truly terrifying. I was hoping for a real over-the-top conclusion but they just stick with light horror paint-by-numbers. And that number is E, dangit!, 3.
Aquarium Playlist, 1/10/23
EPISODE #520: FIRST SONGS ON FIRST ALBUMS
Theme suggested by contest winner Ed Seifert.
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Patti Smith — “Gloria”
The Bongos — “In the Congo”
The Feelies — “The Boy With the Perpetual Nervousness”
Blondie — “X Offender”
The Ramones — “Blitzkrieg Bop”
MC5 — “Ramblin’ Rose” (live)
New York Dolls — “Personality Crisis”
Television — “See No Evil”
Richard Hell & the Voidoids — “Love Comes in Spurts”
Talking Heads — ”Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town”
The Velvet Underground — “Sunday Morning”
The Ambivalent Brothers — “Can’t Talk About It Now”
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
My Highly Subjective List of the Best Movies of 2022
It’s getting to be a bit of a drag for those of who like going out to the movies to see quality releases. Forced by finances, art theaters are devoting a chunk of their screens to big dumb Hollywood dreck. And many movies lucky enough to get a big-screen debut are quickly shuttled off to a streaming service. Nonetheless, I was able to cobble together a list of my favorite films from last year.
10) Decision to Leave What begins as a fairly standard detective story/neo-noir from Korean writer/director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) slowly builds and builds — plot-wise, emotionally, psychologically — to the level of a Shakespearean tragedy.
9) White Noise Noah Baumbach does an impressive job adapting Don DeLillo’s beloved satirical novel for the screen. Consumerism, media sensationalism, the medical establishment, and blended families all get skewered in a tale perfect for our pandemic times. Not much plot but lots of fun and smart laughs.
8) The Batman Robert Pattinson — leading a very strong cast — is terrific as tortured soul Bruce Wayne, and the filmmakers choose a wise path by placing the story in a realistic world with actual problems. (Imagine that!) Don’t worry, there’s plenty of cool action too. The result is, in my opinion, the best superhero movie in recent history.
7) Barbarian I don’t know if this is the first AirBnB horror flick, but I like the modern touches here, including a #metoo’d actor, police profiling, and more. Writer/director Zach Creggers takes reliable horror tropes and smartly shakes them up a bit. Cleverly constructed, scary as shit, and occasionally very funny, Barbarian kept me guessing.
6) Crimes of the Future At age 79, David Cronenberg has delivered perhaps his most f’ed up movie ever. Human evolution has sped up, with people growing new organs within and without themselves that have unclear functions. Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux are lovers and performance artists, making spectacle of these mutations for hipster crowds. Viggo is terrifically messed up, and Kristen Stewart is a delight as a government lackey fascinated by his world. Also there’s a cop story in here somewhere.
5) Funny Pages Owen Kline — son of Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates — has written and directed a self-assured feature debut which is by turns funny, sad, disturbing, and offbeat. And very Jersey. It’s a coming-of-age tale for Robert, ready to leave his comfortable home and high school in Princeton and pursue his gritty underground-comic dreams in Trenton. (WFMU and the Princeton Record Exchange also get nods.) Things don’t go exactly as planned for Robert, and people are strange when you’re a stranger, but it all allows him to grow.
4) Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio Paired with co-director/animator Mark Gustafson, del Toro gives us not only the clearly best family film of the year, but one of the overall best as well. Del Toro smartly picks and chooses from different versions of the Pinocchio tale, while also inserting his own twists, notably setting the story in early fascist Italy. (Even a wooden boy understands that Mussolini is a clod and war is for suckers.) The movie is flat-out gorgeous, and the voice talent is top-notch — Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Christoph Waitz, Tilda Swinton, Ron Perlman, and especially Ewan McGregor as a certain charming cricket. But ultimately this is a story of fathers and sons, friendship, and the course of life itself, leading up to an incredibly heart-filled conclusion.
3) Moonage Daydream We perhaps didn’t need yet another David Bowie documentary, but director Brett Morgen found his own road in by focusing on identity — how Bowie thought of himself, and how he presented himself to the wider public. Morgen, with full access to the Bowie archives, follows his through line via incredible concert, interview, and news footage. Sit back and be transported.
2) The Banshees of Inisherin We start out with a funny, ultra-simple tale, with a rural Irish island playing as much of a part of any of the characters. It’s played out by a powerhouse cast: Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as the feuding friends leads, and also Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan. Things eventually take a darker turn (as things have been known to do), and we end up with an exploration of friendship, responsibility to others versus responsibility to ourselves, and nothing of short of the search for meaning in life itself.
1) The Fabelmans Steven Spielberg puts aside the sharks, space aliens, and big easy heart-tugs, and finds magic in his very own American suburban story: a boy growing up wanting to make movies. He tells it all — family strife, bullies, anti-semitism, girls, and that strong allure and safe haven of a camera — with humor, compassion, humility, well-earned insight, and an undeniable mastery of filmmaking. A perfect movie with an absolutely amazing ending.
Honorable mentions: Montana Story, Smile, Jurassic World: Dominion, The Bob’s Burgers Movie, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Worst movie: I had high hopes for Confess, Fletch — and hopes for Jon Hamm getting a movie series — but I confess that this was boring and too far-fetched.
New releases I saw this year: 32 (including 4 foreign films from 2021 not included in last year’s ratings: the excellent Happening, the very good The Worst Person in the World and Hold Me Tight, and the pretty good The Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy)
My best-of lists from: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017/16, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009
You can check out all my movie reviews by clicking here.
Jack Silbert, curator