I first learned of Hoboken’s the Jubilee Center in 2008, when one of Yo La Tengo’s Hanukkah fundraiser shows at Maxwell’s raised money for the after-school program and summer camp for underprivileged children. All these years later, I was honored to write an article about the Jubilee Center for the March/April issue of hMAG.
Movie Review: Batman v Superman — Dawn of Justice
2 stars out of 5
Pretty deep into this movie, it hit me: This film felt like it had been plotted out by a couple of 8-year-olds. Except, they weren’t weird, loner, clever 8-year-olds. This would be your garden-variety 8-year-old dummy. “Ooh, then we’ll make THIS happen! Pow pow pow. And then a giant monster could show up and be all smash smash smash!”
I didn’t much like Batman v Superman. And why couldn’t the title just have been Batman v Superman? The extraneous post-colon Dawn of Justice seems like it was spit out of a random action-movie title generator.
Once you have the BvS title, it’s really not too hard to slap together the storyline, right? Because Batman and Superman are both good guys. So there must be some zany misunderstanding why they’re angry at each other. And then they’ll fight, and then they’ll make up, because they’re both good guys. Then they’ll figure out who the real villain is. The End. Nice work, 8 year olds.
So a whole lot of the movie is leading up to the big fight. And because it’s a superhero movie, there’s a bunch of that “can we trust this masked vigilante?” stuff that we’ve seen a zillion times over. Yawn. I won’t gripe too much about how gray and humorless this is, because I already did that for the precursor, Man of Steel. (Fool me twice, shame on me.) Once again, gloomy gus Christopher Nolan is the executive producer. The problem is, Zack Snyder isn’t nearly as talented a director as Nolan. Though the fact that Snyder also directed Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Jeff Gillooly might explain the stupid long title here.
When we eventually get to some action, I started noticing that everything was CGI on top of sound stages, so it never really grabbed me (like the visceral thrills in Mad Max: Fury Road did). For me, a superhero story has a better chance of succeeding if it’s grounded in reality. And if it’s not, the movie better be a whole lot of fun. BvS isn’t either.
Henry Cavill is once again OK but nothing special as (spoiler alert!) Clark Kent/Superman. Amy Adams is back as Lois Lane and now we get Laurence Fishburne as Perry White; maybe the filmmakers should watch Spotlight before trying to portray journalism in the next sequel. Jesse Eisenberg plays Mark Zuckerberg. Oh wait, IMDB says he’s actually supposed to be Lex Luthor. Too whiny/nerdy and therefore annoying. And in one scene he’s stumbling over his words but that is not a trait they decide to use in any other scenes, oh well. As Bruce Wayne/Batman, Ben Affleck is grumpy and unlikeable. At one point he wears this unwieldy battle outfit with inexplicably glowing eyes — it reminded me of the trailer I’d just seen for the much more entertaining-looking Lego Batman Movie. The corpse of Michael Shannon is in this, but doesn’t get much to do. Jeremy Irons is decent as Alfred even if he looks like Hank Azaria.
In a movie that’s entirely too long (2.5 hours that feels like 4), the conflict is wrapped up way too quickly and neatly. And then the movie still takes forever to end. They crassly set up the Justice League movie (well, if Marvel can make all that money with The Avengers….) with Wonder Woman stupidly rocking a Natasha moose-und-skwurl accent. Then they try to insert some emotion but it’s waaaaaay too late. Finally, a plot detail is pointlessly dragged out for a real long time, because if you have any working knowledge of superheroes whatsoever, you can very likely figure out what’s going to happen.
In summary: I didn’t much like this.
Aquarium Playlist, 3/29/16
EPISODE #226: ME
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
De La Soul — “Me Myself and I”
Mose Allison — “Ask Me Nice”
The Beatles — “Ask Me Why”
Johnny Thunders — “Ask Me No Questions”
The Alan Parsons Project — “Don’t Answer Me”
Paraiso — “Tell Me”
The Rolling Stones — “Tell Me”
Veronica Falls — “Tell Me”
Autre Ne Veut — “Tell Me”
Flowers — “Meet Me”
The Babies — “Meet Me in the City”
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band — “Meet Me in the City” (live)
Upset — “About Me”
Beat Happening — “Me Untamed”
Admiral Radley — “Ending of Me”
The Jack’s Aquarium podcast is proudly recorded in Hoboken, NJ.
Movie Review: 10 Cloverfield Lane
3.5 stars out of 5
So, this is a sequel, or maybe it isn’t, or maybe it is. I don’t remember 2008’s Cloverfield all that well except that it was fun and I enjoyed it. And the trailer for this was pretty cool, so, why not?
This one is… fun and I enjoyed it.
I can’t say very much about the movie, because it’s a suspense sort of deal — kind of feels like a Twilight Zone episode for a while — and I don’t want to ruin anything for you. The less you know, the more you’ll enjoy, I think.
So I’ll generally stick with what was in the trailer. You’ve got three people in a well-appointed underground bunker, and maybe there’s something scary outside. Maybe you shouldn’t go out there. For the three characters, the filmmakers went after quality actors, which I appreciate. John Goodman is the “daddy” and he’s reliably great in this. You can’t help but like the guy, yet his physicality gives him a commanding presence that can veer into intimidation. Then you’ve got two somewhat younger characters. John Gallagher Jr., who you may remember from The Newsroom, is an interesting choice to play a dim-witted redneck. John Gallagher Jr. oozes innocence and prep school, not so much “good ol’ boy.” And yet… you can’t help but like the guy. Then there’s Mary Elizabeth Winstead. She’s a solid actress, and here’s a fun fact: When her hair is pulled back, she looks a little bit like Brie Larson. So I had the fun of thinking, “Oh, poor Brie is stuck in a room again….”
As with Cloverfield, 10 Cloverfield Lane subverts the form just enough. The writing is a little bit sharper than your standard scare flick. There are pretty decent laughs. The director enjoys himself by playing ominous music when it’s not actually a dramatic moment (though he plays this card once or twice too often).
Also, really nice title sequence.
Bottom line, if you like this sort of movie, go see 10 Cloverfield Lane; I think you’ll like it. Sure, there’s some dumb stuff in here too, but hey, it’s that kind of movie. And you like that kind of movie.
Aquarium Playlist, 3/15/16
EPISODE #224: ST. PATRICK’S DAY 2016
a preview of Joe Hurley’s All-Star Irish Rock Revue
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Rogue’s March — “Bend in the Road”
Manitoba’s Wild Kingdom — “The Party Starts Now!!”
Gumball — “Here It Comes Again”
Willie Nile — “House of a Thousand Guitars”
Mary Lee’s Corvette — “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go”
Edward Rogers — “It Was Love (So It Couldn’t Last)”
Garland Jeffreys (w/ Phoebe Snow) — “Reelin'”
Health & Happiness Show — “To Be Free”
Laura Cantrell — “All the Girls Are Complicated”
The Pogues — “I’m a Man You Don’t Meet Every Day”
King Missile — “Take Stuff From Work”
Robyn Hitchcock (w/ Deni Bonet) — “Let’s Go Thundering” (live)
The Kennedys — “St. Mark’s Square”
Lianne Smith — “Saturday”
Jack’s Aquarium podcast proudly recorded in Hoboken, NJ
Movie Review: The Boy and the Beast
4 stars out of 5
That’s the movie biz for ya: Somebody wins an Oscar for an animated short about a bear, and suddenly everybody’s churning out bear-themed cartoons. Except, this one is feature length, from Japan (anime!), and has dialogue (with English subtitles).
Am not entirely sure why I went to see Beauty and the… whoops, sorry, The Boy and the Beast. Shaking it up a little, I guess? I’m not a big anime guy; maybe I’d see more of the movies if they came to my local theaters more often. I did see a couple of those Miyazaki films: Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle (and Castle in the Sky is still in my queue).
So that was my frame of reference heading into Boy and the Beast. And I quickly thought, this is not nearly as artful as Miyazaki’s work. And is perhaps too much of a children’s tale for me.
But the concept was pretty cool. We’re in the Shibuya neighborhood of Tokyo in the present day, where we meet 9-year-old Ren (not Stimpy_. He’s sad because his mom just died, plus his folks were divorced and dad isn’t around, so Ren runs away. (Say that five times fast.) Through a mysterious alleyway, he soon finds himself in an alternate world inhabited by walking, talking, clothes-wearing animals. This city is much more old-timey-looking, maybe because goats can’t work an iPhone.
Ren, the human boy, becomes the pupil of Kumatetsu, a slobby bear dude who is in the finals to become the city’s new lord. (He renames Ren as Kyuta, because Kyu = 9.) And here I was starting to think, OK, I’ve seen this all before: Unwilling Oscar Madison-type has to adopt some cute brat, throw in some My Bodyguard and Karate Kid, they’ll both end up learning from each other and loving each other, yadda yadda yadda. Would likely be a satisfying but overly familiar underdog-prevails story, perhaps with actual dogs.
Then something kind of groovy happened. One of the characters mentions that a pupil’s training — in the classic art of fighting, but also in life — will last a number of years. So we soon training-montage fast-forward to Kyuta as a 17-year-old, and then things start to get really interesting. He finds his way back to Shibuya, where he meets a girl and searches for his dad. But he’s still able to cross over into downtown Beastville. Will the two worlds collide?
What I liked about teenage Kyuta’s storyline was that it brought many more mature themes into the mix. So we end up with a pleasing blend of ideas: makeshift families, choosing your own path, the joy of learning, friendship, cutting oneself off from emotions, vengeance, Moby Dick, and overcoming the darkness that lurks within us all. The film has a little fun with that concept; in the beasts’ traditional one-on-one battles, etiquette rules the day, and swords must always remain sheathed. And they worry about having humans in their community, because they believe all humans are ultimately consumed by evil.
Add in a few action sequences and some sweet animation, and this is certainly worth checking out. Sorry, no outside pic-a-nic baskets allowed.
Who Else Was the Fifth Beatle
Yesterday we learned of the passing of legendary Beatles producer George Martin. Obits were quick to note that he was often referred to as “The Fifth Beatle.” However, Martin was not the only individual to be bestowed with that honorary designation. SiW has compiled the following list of the other people most frequently known as “The Fifth Beatle.”
• Billy Preston
• Buzz Aldrin
• Cubs great Ernie Banks
• Spiro Agnew
• Liverpool lad Fitz “Fifthy” McFipherson
• The late Alfred Russel Wallace, noted beetle enthusiast
• Speedy the Alka-Seltzer kid
• Golda Meir
• The Four Tops
• Ringo Starr
Aquarium Playlist, 3/8/16
EPISODE #223: WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH 2016
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Björk — “It’s Oh So Quiet”
Daddy Issues — “All My Girls”
Household — “Desperate Times”
The Marshmallows — “Battle of the Sexy”
Nice Try — “No Big Deal”
Bern & the Brights — “Beautiful Morning”
k.d. Lang — “Miss Chatelaine”
Skeeter Davis — “Bus Fare to Kentucky”
Lydia Loveless — “Head”
A Nero — “Out of my Mind”
The Supremes — “Love Is Like an Itching in my Heart”
The Shop Assistants — “Safety Net”
Kirsty MacColl — “They Don’t Know”
The Motifs — “Jour de Fete”
The Sundays — “Here’s Where the Story Ends”
Jack’s Aquarium podcast proudly recorded in Hoboken, NJ
Aquarium Playlist, 3/1/16
EPISODE #222: SUPER TWOS-DAY
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Yo La Tengo — “By Two’s”
Bruce Springsteen — “Two Hearts”
The Human Hearts — “Two Knives”
Against Me! — “Two Coffins”
Brakesbrakesbrakes — “Two Shocks”
The Go-Betweens — “I Need Two Heads”
Neutral Milk Hotel — “Two-Headed Boy”
Obits — “Two-Headed Coin”
Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou — “Two Strangers”
The Schramms — “Torn in Two”
Lightships — “Two Lines”
The Fireman — “Two Magpies”
The Magnetic Fields — “Two Characters in Search of a Country Song”
The Feelies — “Two Rooms”
Jack’s Aquarium podcast proudly recorded in Hoboken, NJ
Jack Silbert, curator