4.5 stars out of 5
When 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, when I learned this movie was based on a Murakami short story (one I haven’t yet read), I knew I had to see it. I am pleased to report that Drive My Car is perhaps the best movie I’ve seen this year.
There is a lot going on in this film and it fills 3 hours comfortably. The basics: Kafuku (played with subtlety by Hidetoshi Nishijima) is an actor and director, married to Oto, a screenwriter. He is diagnosed with glaucoma, threatening his ability to drive his beloved car. Also troubling for him: Oto is unfaithful. Something bad happens. And we haven’t even seen the opening credits yet.
The bulk of the film is set later, in Hiroshima (!), where Kafuku has been hired to direct a production of his specialty, Uncle Vanya. They want Kafuku’s innovative method of casting actors who speak different languages. (For his audiences, subtitles are projected on a screen.) So characters communicate in Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, even sign language, with some English thrown in from the crew. Kafuku is staying on an island an hour outside the city; the festival staff inform him they’re required to hire a driver to transport him in his beloved car. (Curb Your Enthusiasm fans will get an unintended laugh when he meets the driver.)
Over the course of the movie they deal with control and the loss of it, death, guilt, love, sin, fame, stoicism, youth vs. experience, surrendering oneself, the difficulty of communication and the satisfaction of overcoming that, etc. The director/co-writer Ryûsuke Hamaguchi deftly interweaves sections of Uncle Vanya (during rehearsals, and also played on tape during Kafuku’s commute) to mirror what’s going on in Kafuku’s life and mind.
What maybe impressed me most of all about Drive My Car was a maturity of thought, a realization that over time we can admit our errors and, with luck, move on. It’s a lovely, quiet, thoughtful film that I highly recommend.
Movie Review: Drive My Car
Movie Review: Licorice Pizza
4 stars out of 5
In 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 out there — joyfully so — and wins this match.
I can’t say enough about the leads, Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim. As you likely know, Cooper is the son of Philip Seymour Hoffman, and in terms of sons of deceased actors in 2021 movies, he wipes the floor with Michael Gandolfini. Cooper effortlessly shifts moods: enthusiastic, happy, sad, cocky, determined, conniving, disappointed, jealous, lovestruck, often with a sense of wonder in his eyes. Watching this incredible debut performance, I became thrilled by the notion that we have decades of another Hoffman to look forward to (assuming he continues working — there’s nothing else listed on his IMDb page, arrrrggghhh!!).
Then there’s Alana Haim of the popular sister act HAIM and how is it possible they’ve been around for NINE YEARS already? How old am I, fer crissakes? This is her debut as well, and she pretty much matches Cooper in the acting department. Her “Alana” does not suffer fools, especially foolish young Gary Valentine (Hoffman), and she’s built a sturdy emotional fortress around herself. Yet occasionally she shows us a glimpse of vulnerability. Add in that Haim is s-e-x-x-y in a nerd-magnet sort of way and very comically gifted, and, well, I’d watch these two actors do anything.
Which P.T. Anderson basically lets them do, setting them loose in the obstacle course of 1973 Los Angeles. Here they deal with young vs. old, fame vs. obscurity, the greater good vs. personal gain, religion, fads, phoniness, platonic relationships and the insane jealously that often results, etc. etc. etc. And oh we also get Waitress from Sunny as Gary’s stage mom, and Sean Penn as a fading action star, and Tom Waits as who the hell knows but it’s vintage Waits, and Bradley Cooper as actual-person Jon Peters, and no spoilers but there are names in the credits that will make you smile from ear-to-ear. P.T. then places them variously in a runaway truck, on a nighttime golf course, at Shabbat dinner, in the — wait, is that the campaign office from Taxi Driver?? — and on and on. What a rush!
OK, so there isn’t really a plot beyond “will they or won’t they” and Alana coping with their zany age difference. But there are big laughs and sweetness and groovy tunes. So go enjoy yourself at the movies, you’ve earned it!
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 — “Green and Desperate”
Saw in previous years, obtained records in 2021:
Early Riser — “Skeleton”
Constant Insult — “Best Seller”
Grace Bergere — “A Little Blood”
Graham Norwood — “Ago”
Sensational Country Blues Wonders — “Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar”
Disq — “How Are You”
This Is the Part Where You Help Me — “Baited Colony”
Heavy Lag — “Ditch My Shadow”
Hate Club — “Eat More”
Cup — “Tokyo Night Janitor”
Jack Silbert proudly records The Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Movie Review: Red Rocket
3.5 stars out of 5
Red 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 cements his understanding of the not-working class, swapping a run-down Florida motel for the scrubby outskirts of Texan oil refineries. Simon Rex stars as Mikey, back in town from Los Angeles, showing up at the door of Lexi (Bree Elrod) because he has nowhere else to go. Baker deftly allows the backstory to unfold slowly: Turns out Mikey is married to Lexi, and also he is a porn star, and also [no spoilers].
This is being marketed as a comedy and there are many laughs, but there’s a real underlying sadness at play. Mikey is a charmer and a low-rent hustler, a grown-ass man tooling around town on a bicycle. Rex plays him with a Bill Murray-esque energy and a vague effeminate quality that undercuts his proud hetero-studliness. It’s the kind of character that, against your better judgement, you root for, until you don’t anymore. Because Mikey is a user of anyone who shows him kindness: Lexi, worshipful neighbor Lonny, on-the-edge-of-18 Strawberry (Suzanna Son) who works at the donut shop. The 2016 presidential race hangs in the background here and it’s fitting, as we learned that a big percentage of the country, like Mikey, only cares about themselves.
While Dafoe was The Florida Project’s moral center, this movie really doesn’t have one, so it’s pretty bleak. There’s a real lonesomeness too, captured nicely in shots of empty nighttime streets in the dull glow of refinery lights. Lonny and Mikey, disconnected from the rest of the world, usually drive on the access road instead of the highway.
Structurally, the first two thirds of the movie doesn’t have much plot, and then the final third has too much. With one twist I became much more involved in the story and yet with the next I felt somewhat distanced. And without a strong ending, Red Rocket fizzles out a bit.
Movie Review: Spider-Man — No Way Home
3.5 stars out of 5
I 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 title for an earlier installment. Hey, it’s Alfred Molina from the days when these movies weren’t such cynical money-grabs! And Willem Dafoe! And, uh, that guy from Wings! And Jamie Foxx, was he in a Spider-Man movie?!? Oh yeah, one of those crappy Andrew Garfield jobbers.
There are a bunch of thrilling, well-executed action sequences in this, so if you like that sort of thing, you’ll likely enjoy the movie. And if you’ve bought the “Marvel Universe” hook, line, and stinkers — all the films, all the shows — then you’ll have extry fun connecting all the dots. But for the rest of us, you not only get that sneaking suspicion that you’ve seen it all before; in this one they actually laughingly elbow us in the ribs, confirming that we have seen it all before! And will probably see it again, and again, and again.
Tom Holland, Zendaya, and the heavy-set kid are again believable and likable as young pals, this time applying for college. There is some decent humor and in-jokes. But again it feels like the movie was plotted out by a focus group of 8-year-olds, and that Holland’s people insisted that he doesn’t have to wear a mask a lot, even when that doesn’t make any sense. Cumberbatch’s jokey Dr. Strange still doesn’t ring true to me. And brace yourselves for a lot of Psychology 101 in the back stretch. I can’t get too upset: the sweet-spot demographic for these movies is teenage-and-below, and for that crowd I think life lessons on the importance of friendship, self-awareness, and self-worth are a worthy addition. Bottom line, I enjoyed this movie, but all the multivitamin multiverse stuff was a nagging reminder how much better and cooler Into the Spider-Verse was.
Personal highlight: As Peter Parker is returning to school, we hear “Scraper” by Liquid Liquid. So while all the nerds were waiting for the obligatory bonus scenes in the end credits, I was waiting to see the names Sal Principato, Dennis Young, Scott Hartley, and Richard McGuire up on the big screen. Awesome!
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 — “Tall Girl”
Sunflower Bean — “Puppet Strings”
Amy O — “Planet Blue”
Pale Lights — “Streamlining” [CLOSING THEME]
Jack Silbert proudly records The Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Movie Review: Belfast
3.5 stars out of 5
Yes, 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 is, I’ve had very little grasp of “The Troubles.” This movie, loosely based on writer/director Kenneth Branagh’s own childhood, helped fill in some gaps. That history looms large in this coming-of-age tale which I liked if didn’t really love.
I did not have a lot of Branagh experience to base expectations on. I’d only seen two previous films he’d directed: Dead Again (1991) and the meh Murder on the Orient Express (2017). I know he used to be with Emma Thompson, and that the dude digs Shakespeare. He knows his way around a motion picture, and having been a kid in Belfast in the late 1960s, was certainly able to summon innocent recollections of the time and place. I just wish he could’ve done it with a tad more skill and depth.
The cast is solid but there aren’t any real standout performances. Jude Hill plays our 9-year-old protagonist Buddy. He looks like a young Conan O’Brien, is quite likable, comes dangerously close to hamming it up but holds it together throughout. I was most impressed with Dame Judi Dench as the grandma. It’s a sweet, down-to-earth portrayal, and the deep lines on her face speak volumes. I guess she’s playing about a decade younger, while trusty Ciarán Hinds is playing a decade older as the charming grandpa.
The movie is shot in black-and-white, though rather than looking sumptuous, reminded me of switching to a B&W filter on Instagram. Oh and there is a ton of Van Morrison on the soundtrack, which definitely fits, but alas his modern-day anti-Covid safety stance somewhat spoiled the listening experience for me. (Maybe Branagh took advantage of a heavy discount on Van the Man’s out-of-flavor catalog?)
Branagh’s screenplay is easy enough to follow, and successfully captures a family caught in societal and interpersonal upheaval. It has a few too many one-liners for a realistic story, leaves a couple of loose ends, and contains a leap of logic or two.
Bottom line: It’s a good small film but in this crowded field of quality end-of-year films, you can wait to sruth, uh, I mean, stream this one.
Movie Review: West Side Story
5 stars out of 5
The 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 I can say is: Wow.
OK, OK, I’ll say a little bit more. I tend to avoid musicals due to all the clichés of the form: the phoniness, corniness, slickness, and, sure, the randomly bursting into song thing. Watching this film, though, I didn’t notice an ounce of cliché. It’s big, bold, visceral, thrilling. There isn’t a wrong note, musically or cinematically.
Yes, it’s set in 1957, but the underlying social issues totally resonate today: gentrification, fear of immigrants taking over, the lack of realization that we’re all immigrants, police profiling (Latino Lives Matter), rage boiling over into bloodshed. At their crudest, the Jets come across like Proud Boys, and it’s chilling. The Sharks ain’t exactly the glee club, neither. There’s blanket distrust of anyone who isn’t Puerto Rican and the twin desire/repulsion of assimilation.
In the middle of it all: our star-crossed lovers, Tony and Maria, portrayed by Ansel “Baby Driver” Elgort and New Jersey’s own Rachel Zegler. Elgort’s Tony is a big, dumb, sweet kid, with lessons learned from violence in his past. Zegler’s Maria is innocent but tired of being treated like a child; respectful but unwilling to be pushed around. Both actors are phenomenal. When the closing credits said “And introducing Rachel Zegler” I was pleasantly stunned by her lack of experience. As Jerry Orbach once said, “You’re going out there a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star!”
Across the board, the performances are top-rate. Ariana DeBose kills it as Anita, showing us all the emotions. Mike Faist is te-riff-ic as Riff; cocky, troubled, scared. Newcomer Josh Andrés Rivera is great as Chino — kind, nervous, above the fray until he isn’t anymore. Corey Stoll is having a good year between playing Uncle Junior among the many saints and now non-singing Lt. Schrank here. And Rita Moreno lends the proceedings all sorts of gravitas, the young Anita grown into the wise old Valentina, with a gut-punch song at the ready too.
The music is indeed glorious — not rock but something close. (I don’t know what became of these kids Bernstein and Sondheim but they showed a lot of promise.) Catchy, finger-popping, toe-tapping, heart-thumping. And rather than coming across as characters randomly bursting into song, Spielberg makes it a natural flow. Like conversation can no longer do justice to their swelling feelings, and the only thing that can possibly come out is music. Same deal for the knockout dancing.
The streets and sets look amazing — not fake but hyper-real. The camera is a wide-eyed observer, not missing a carefully-rendered detail. And if you’re not a sucker for the love story, check yer pulse, you might not have one. Steven Spielberg remains at the very top of his game, delivering perfection in yet another genre. See it on the big screen if you can.
Aquarium Playlist, 12/14/21
EPISODE #465: HOLIDAY SPECIAL 2021
Darlene Love — “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home” [ALTERNATE THEME]
Laura Cantrell and Michael Shelley — “Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus”
The Spaminato Brothers — “The Very Best Gift of All”
The Porchistas — “3 a.m. Santa”
worldsucks — “Must Be Santa”
The Polyphonic Spree — “It’s Christmas”
Nicole Atkins — “Every Single Christmas”
Swansea Sound — “Happy Christmas to Me”
Jack Skuller — “Empty Stocking Blues”
Phoebe Bridgers — “Christmas Song”
Gordon McIntyre — “Me and You and the Ghosts of Christmas Past”
The Beths — “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
The Monkees — “The Christmas Song” r.i.p. Michael Nesmith
The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl — “Fairytale of New York”
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Aquarium Playlist, 12/7/21
EPISODE #464: 10th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL (RADIO IX)
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Hank Williams — “Happy Rovin’ Cowboy” [Health and Happiness Show theme]
soundbite — Jack on WNYC’s Morning Edition, 12/19/12
Gary Stewart — “Ten Years of This”
Mac McCaughan — “I Hear a Radio”
Hearty Har — “Radio Man ’56”
All Ashore! — “Radio Sunshine”
Freedy Johnston — “Radio for Heartache”
R.E.M. — “Radio Song” [BBC’s Into the Night Nicky Campbell session]
Robyn Hitchcock — “The Devil’s Radio”
Marshall Crenshaw — “Radio Girl”
Steve Wynn — “Bring the Magic”
Talking Heads — “Radio Head”
soundbite — listener Hoboken Jack legal ID on WFMU’s Michael Shelley show
Wussy — “Teenage Wasteland”
The Yardbirds — “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago”
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Jack Silbert, curator