Tom Petty & The Heartbreaker. Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band.
Some artists' identities are so intertwined with the bands they front that to remove them from the group changes their whole musical make-up. It's as if, without the band, they take on a different persona.
Such is the case for Booker T. Jones. You know him better as the keyboard prodigy and leader of pioneering Memphis Soul band Booker T. & The M.G.'s.
(And I bet you didn't even know his last name was Jones until I just told ya.)
Normally I would feel cheated if Booker T. came to town without the M.G.'s, the ensemble that was once the house band for the iconic Stax Records in the '60s and gave the world one of the most well-known instrumental riffs of all time with the bluesy hit, "Green Onions."
To hear him play selections from last year's Grammy-winning album "Potato Hole" however, I will make muzzle my protest.
For Potato Hole, Booker T. temporarily traded in the M.G.'s to record with the groovy, cowpunks the Drive-By Truckers. Neil Young also dropped by the studio to offer some guitar accompaniment.
The result are a mix of scintillating originals and reworks of diverse works like Outkast's "Hey Ya" and Tom Waits "Get Behind the Mule" that prove artistry is not dead and albums can still be gorgeous and alluring without a vocalist to coach the listener along.
Of course, none of these all-stars will be at Wired Live with Booker T., but my guess is that he has a few other tricks up his talented sleeves that should make this live solo experience a night to remember.
Mabel (Piper Kurda) and King George (Bobby Moynihan) in Hoppers.
For the first 15 years of their history, animation studio Pixar delivered one classic film after another, an astonishing streak that included their first 11 movies. Things got bumpy starting with Cars 2 in 2011, and even though the majority of their output has been good-to-great ever since, their releases are no longer considered slam dunks like they once were.
They’re back with an original film, Hoppers, trying to return to form by going back to the animal world. The film centers on Mabel (Piper Kurda), a 19-year-old environmentalist who’s trying to stop a new highway being built by Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm) in the fictional city of Beaverton. Her activism has as much to do with helping displaced local animals as it does with being nostalgic for her youth, in which she spent years observing nature with her Grandma Tanaka (Karen Huie).
She finds an unlikely possible solution when she discovers that her college professors have created a system that allows them to transfer — or hop — their consciousness into animal-like robots. Hijacking a beaver robot, Mabel joins up with the local wildlife, including beaver King George (Bobby Moynihan) to try to convince them to help her execute her plan. But with the highway almost complete and Mayor Jerry willing to do anything to make it happen, Mabel might be too late.
Directed by Daniel Chong and written by Jesse Andrews from a story by Chong, the film cycles through a variety of genres in its 105-minute running time, including comedy, drama, thriller, and even a touch of Pixar-style horror. When Pixar has been at its best, it seamlessly goes back and forth between genres, trusting that audiences will go along with them for the ride, and Hoppers feels like a return to form in that respect.
Humor rules the day as Mabel adjusts to being part of the animal world while her professors desperately try to get her and their robot back. Mabel encounters not only wildly confusing things like “pond rules” (if a predator catches you, you don’t fight it), but also the existence of a hierarchy within the world that involves kings or queens from various animal classes like reptiles, birds, amphibians, fish, and insects. Her one-track mind and the way of the world she is invading clash in a variety of funny ways.
As the film goes along, Chong, Andrews, and the rest of the filmmaking team also find a way to burrow into the audience’s heart. There are many elements that threaten to tip into eye-rolling territory, but the filmmakers consistently pull back before that happens. The number of fun characters on both the human and animal side helps in that regard, as does the simple yet profound message they’re trying to convey.
Pixar has assembled one of the best voice casts in recent memory for this film, including such big names as Meryl Streep, Dave Franco, Melissa Villaseñor, Vanessa Bayer, and the late Isiah Whitlock, Jr. However, due to the sheer number of characters, only Kurda, Moynihan, and Hamm truly stand out. Still, they all fit together well and give the always-stellar animation even more life.
Since the pandemic, Pixar has only released one truly great film (Inside Out 2), but with Hoppers and the seemingly bulletproof Toy Story 5 coming within a few months of each other, they might go back-to-back on that front. Like the classic films from the studio, it has goofy, heartfelt, and exciting parts, mixing together for an enthralling time at the theater.
