Splashdown in space: Aquamob return with 2001: An Odyssey Into the Deep
Review by Todd Perley

Aquamob did it again, y'all, once more dipping into the Kubrick well. Last year’s “Wendy, Darling”, a sendup of The Shining was bloody hilarious (emphasis on the ‘bloody’) and I’ve been waiting impatiently for a year for their next blood-soaked, satirical, musical water ballet.

We begin with rival gangs of screeching hominids fighting (and dancing) in the pool, crawling out onto land and continuing their frenzied battle. If you’re in the front row, you’re in the splash zone, so choose your seat depending on your preference, and caveat emptor.

My companions got pool water and monkey blood all over them, an evolutionary Gallagher-esque treat. The creatures find the monolith and learn the lessons of tools and weapons, and one small ape,
played by an adorable little girl of about ten years, uses a stray femur to beat another ape to death. I’m always happy to see children enjoying their bludgeoning.

If audiences of Stanley Kubrick’s film in 1968 were confused by the surreal messages meant to ask more questions than they answer, today’s audience will have the same opportunity to interpret Aquamob’s atmospheric tale. (Who says space can’t have an atmosphere?).

Though the film is heavy and long, there’s really very little plot or dialogue, you may recall, which opens up all sorts of avenues for interpretation and satire. I would recommend refreshing yourself to
the source material. This assignment should be a joy, as the film is just so good, and when’s the
last time you saw it anyway?

To bring things into the 21st century, the HAL-9000 (and AI in general) is on the table for discussion. Creators Cody Evans Gan and Noelle Tollet do not treat this complicated subject in facile black-and-white. AI is neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’, but nuanced between how it can serve, and the danger of humans relying on it too much. Dr. Bowman (Terry Miles) and Dr. Poole (Rebecca Poole) grapple with HAL’s usefulness and traitorous behavior.

Cody Keech appears in a couple roles to give much-needed exposition in amusing ways, first as a Tucker Carlson/Max Headroom-type idiot reporter, and later as the recording the astronauts were supposed to hear once they landed on Jupiter which explains HAL’s conflicted motivation.

The cast is dedicated ... and soooo numerous, with about 30 people performing as actors or damp (and bloody) ballet dancers. The use of water as a Zero-G environment is effective and hilarious. The band The Kissing Disease plays The Doors and David Bowie as well as they play Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra” made iconic in Kubrick’s film (but now on electric guitars).

And there’s a pole dance worthy of Cirque du Soleil on a bizarre contraption neither I nor anyone seated near me had seen before. Yes, I asked everyone around me at intermission, “What IS that thing?” Shrugs, with smiles.

Funny, rockin’, and surprisingly thought-provoking, it’s difficult to say who’s having more fun: the players, or the audience. When the ten year old girl emerges again at the end, held aloft as the Starchild wrapped in umbilical cords and finger-booping Dr. Bowman, the audience roared.

Nobody is doing what Aquamob is doing, and if someone tried, chances are slim they’d pull it off as expertly as this company. I’m going to have another long, fidgety year awaiting the next time they open their pod bay doors, HAL. If we’re sticking with Stanley Kubrick next year, might I suggest Eyes Wide Shut? That could be filthy and absurd.

2001: An Odyssey Into the Deep plays at the Midtwon Hotel through October 10th. Click here for show and ticketing information

​Jersey Boys @ The Saenger Theatre
Review by Lauren Malara

Hey-la, hey-la, Jersey Boys is back! As part of the 20th anniversary tour, this Tony Award-winning musical has returned to the Saenger Theatre. The show is fast, fun, and filled with hit songs. It was no surprise when audience members got up to dance at the end of Act II. Oh, what an opening night, late September, down in New Orleans...

This heartfelt story follows a group of boys from Jersey as they make their way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A code of brotherhood guides the boys as they navigate mobsters and music executives. With spirited and focused performances, you won’t take your eyes off the stage. The cast serenades the audience into a trance, inviting them to step into the past via their incredible legacy of hit songs.

You've heard their hits no matter your age: you might just not realize who recorded these classics: Let's Hang On (To What We Got), Can't Take My Eyes Off You, and Working My Way Back to You are just some of the instantly-evocative singalong numbers.

Oram (Frankie Valli)’s vocal mastery is nuanced, taking the audience on a journey as he learns to walk like a man. In addition to his soothing voice, McCredie (Nick Massi) offers some strong comedic moments.

​Sperduto (Tommy DeVito) plays the closest thing the show has to a villain, but his warm performance can’t give you anything but love. Schoenhofer (Bob Gaudio) is so affable and grounded; as he fights for Valli, it’s hard to remember that big girls don’t cry.

Even if you’ve seen it, make your way back. The songs and story have a lasting effect. You’ll leave the theatre singing and begging to stay.

Jersey Boys plays at The Saenger Theatre through Sept 27th, with matinee and evening shows this weekend. Click here for show and ticketing information
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All quiet on the cold front:
​Pressure (2026, directed by Anthony Maras, now streaming)
Review by Paul Oswell
​
The British weather, for centuries a staple of everyday smalltalk on that fair isle (and I grew up there, so I know of which I speak), now takes to an unlikely center stage as the harbinger of high wartime tension in this film portraying real life events. 

It’s 61 hours before D-Day, one of the Allies’ most important attacks against the German occupation of France. The outcome of the war is still very much in the balance, and everything must go as perfectly as possible. Pressure. American forces have joined the Brits at a secret countryside compound to plan a manoeuvre that requires the utmost secrecy and - since it requires coordinating a huge number of air, sea and land units - as much information about the weather as possible, including barometric…pressure. 

Andrew Scott (Fleabag, All of Us Strangers) is an air force meteorologist, Group Captain James Stagg, who is called away from leave and his pregnant wife to provide rapid and accurate weather predictions to America’s General Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser) and Britain’s General Montgomery (Damian Lewis). 

He arrives to find Eisenhower a bellowing blowhard, and Montgomery a sarcastic toff. All they want is to hear a good weather prediction for their preferred date, and with the Germans on high alert, the clock is very much ticking. To make matters worse, Eisenhower has brought his own guy, Irving Krick, played as the brashest Italian-American weather expert imaginable by Chris Messina. Kay Summersby (Kerry Condon) is Eisenhower’s assistant and is Stagg's only real support as she diplomatically triangulates the clashing egos. 

The generals and Krick want to go ASAP. Stagg foresees storms on the horizon and advises delaying. None of them believe him as it’s currently sunny outside, and his detractors seem unable to imagine any weather that’s not right in front of them. They want locked-in assurances, but Stagg can’t give them. Cue a series of heated debates and montages of nerdy scientists making weather charts. It’s sadly not the most visually intriguing activity as it mostly involves writing tiny numerical figures and lines on big maps. The music swells. People roar at each other about cold fronts. But what’s that building up in the background? That’s right. The pressure.

A typical scene has Fraser barging into a room and hollering at the top of his voice (every line from him is delivered at a volume loud enough to scare the neighborhood cats) about how sunny it is and why can’t he launch his bombs from the clear skies? Then Messina calls Scott a limp-wristed buffoon with no balls and Scott slowly becomes more and more indignant. 

These are the kinds of things that the cast shout in a very melodramatic manner: 

“The fate of the war hinges on this! There's only one imponderable left! I need a forecast!”

“This is the English Channel, gentlemen, I can’t guarantee anything!” 

“Get me the upper atmospheric readings from Dunstable!” 

The most dramatized light shower in history moves things along, and the deadlock is broken (no spoilers about who won the war, just in case you haven’t caught up yet). 

I understand that it’s a serious subject - there were huge casualties on both sides and I don’t want to trivialize the unimaginable sacrifices made that day. It’s also not an uninteresting story on paper; the weather really did play a huge part in the planning, and Eisenhower regularly talked about the value of the Allies’ superior meteorologists in the aftermath. 

It’s just very challenging to translate very dry, academic work into a cinematic drama, and some of the more esoteric problems verge on sounding silly when grown men are yelling them into each other’s faces. Maybe a film to half watch on a rainy afternoon. I’m not sure when that would be, you’d have to check the forecast. 

Pressure is currently streaming.
​

Cooking up an origin story: Tony (2026, director Matt Johnson)
Review by Connor McLaughlin

The film opens with the title card ripped straight from Chapter 2 of Kitchen Confidential, "I was—to be frank—a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking."

This message is quickly realized when we are introduced to a cocky, fake-it-till-you-make-it, 19-year-old Anthony “Tony” Bourdain. As a student at Vassar College, he aspires to be a writer and applies for a writing fellowship in New York. He confidently tells everyone, including his family and his college crush Nancy Putkoski, he got it. He did not get it.

Aimless and embarrassed, he impulsively follows Nancy to Provincetown, Massachusetts for the summer. He has no money, no writing fellowship, and no plan - except to work at a local seafood restaurant, The Flagship, in exchange for a place to stay at the head chef/owner’s house. To make matters worse, Tony Bourdain has no restaurant experience either.

What follows is a delectable and briny bildungsroman that feels effortlessly charming and self-contained for a genre so overcooked. It would be an understatement to say that Anthony Bourdain holds a special place in the zeitgeist and perhaps only 'providence' could explain what he meant to the world at large. Thankfully, writer-director Matt Johnson can also explain it.

Coming straight off the success of this year’s Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, Johnson withholds and strips down the usual chaotic tendencies of his previous work, but still he maintains an astute eye for character and tone. Johnson is not interested in telling the story of Bourdain becoming a maverick, the young Elvis of bad-boy chefs. or his mythos. Instead, the filmmaker treats this young lout as a practically complete unknown, whose mouthiness and angsty essence could be anybody’s.

As for casting Dominic Sessa: man, he is truly great. From the chain smoking to his frizzled look, reminiscent of a young Elliot Gould, Sessa continues to deliver dynamically interesting performances that seem to walk straight out of the 1970s. His role as Bourdain is not so dissimilar from his breakout role in Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, but there are more than enough idiosyncrasies to differentiate the roles.

Emilia Jones as Nancy continues to impress with her versatility, as does Leo Woodall. However, the real heart and scene-stealer of the film is Antonio Banderas as the owner of The Flagship. His role as “Chef” is heartbreaking, hilarious, and never showy, but he reminds the audience why he's one of the most underrated actors working today.

In short, Tony is a chef’s kiss of a movie. The film’s structure is straightforward, satisfying fare. It's akin to a meal that you’ve had plenty of times before, but the recipe goes off script just enough to make you feel something truly special by the end... and, not least, hungry for some raw oysters.

Tony is playing in theaters across the city