CTV NEWSCHANNEL: RICHARD’s MOVIE REVIEWS FOR WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 26, 2025!
I join the CTV NewsChanel to talk about the gameplay of “Marty Supreme,” the slithery charms of “Anaconda” and the tuneful “Song Sung Blue.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Posts Tagged ‘Jim Belushi’
CTV NEWSCHANNEL: RICHARD’s MOVIE REVIEWS FOR WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 24, 2025!
I join the CTV NewsChanel to talk about the gameplay of “Marty Supreme,” the slithery charms of “Anaconda” and the tuneful “Song Sung Blue.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SONG SUNG BLUE: 3 STARS. “conventional biopic about unconventional dreamers.”
SYNOPSIS: The based-on-a-true-story of Thunder & Lightning, a Milwaukee husband and wife Neil Diamond tribute act, “Song Sung Blue” is a story of music, bejeweled tunics, love and following your dreams.
CAST: Hugh Jackman, Kate Hudson, Michael Imperioli, Ella Anderson, King Princess, Mustafa Shakir, Hudson Hensley, Fisher Stevens, and Jim Belushi. Directed by Craig Brewer.
REVIEW: Based on the true story, “Song Sung Blue” is a conventional biopic about unconventional dreamers.
When tribute circuit entertainers Mike and Claire (Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson) meet for the first time, more than musical notes that spark between them. She does a spot on Patsy Cline; he’s an everyman who eeks out a living playing in bands, and shaking his hips as everyone from Elvis to Don Ho.
Together, as a romantic couple they are Mike and Claire, stepparents to daughters Angelina and Rachel (King Princess and Ella Anderson) but at night at the local bar, or, by a strange turn of luck, opening for Pearl Jam, they are Lightning & Thunder, a Neil Diamond tribute band.
What begins as an upbeat Judy and Mickey, “let’s put on a show” soon turns into a story of resilience as tragedy strikes the couple just as their star is beginning to rise.
Based on the 2008 documentary of the same name by Greg Kohs, “Song Sung Blue” is a stranger-than-fiction story buoyed by committed, musical performances from Jackman and Hudson.
Jackman leaves any trace of Wolverine behind to embrace Mike’s passion as a showbiz outsider clamoring for his big break. A Vietnam War veteran and an alcoholic, he turns Diamond’s pop songs into anthems of catharsis, giving voice to Mike’s unspoken trauma. Jackman’s musical numbers, and there are quite a few of them, are joyful reminders of the healing power of music.
Like Jackson, Hudson delivers in harmony and heart, handing in a performance that blends her musical and dramatic chops in a showcase role.
Both leads hand in terrific work, so it’s a shame that they are trapped in a mawkish movie that has difficulty navigating its passage from lighthearted musical romp to its deeper themes of disability and addiction. The whiplash storytelling cranks up the melodrama, blunting the emotional impact of Mike and Claire’s off-stage trials and tribulations.
When it’s a got a good beat, you can dance to “Song Sung Blue,” but when it shifts focus from the music—or “beautiful noise” as Diamond might have called it—it hits sour notes despite Jackman and Hudson’s best efforts.
YOU TUBE: THREE MOVIES/THIRTY SECONDS! FAST REVIEWS FOR BUSY PEOPLE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make the bed! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the gameplay of “Marty Supreme,” the slithery charms of “Anaconda” and the tuneful “Song Sung Blue.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
BELUSHI: 4 STARS. “cautionary tale of excess, a tragedy of a talent taken way too soon.”
John Belushi was only famous for five years before his untimely death at age 33 but in that short time his unique comedic quality left an indelible impression that resonates almost forty years later. A new documentary, now streaming on Crave, looks at his meteoric rise and tragic fall.
Director R.J. Cutler uses the usual devices to tell the story. He mixes and matches archival material, animation, ephemera from Belushi’s life—handwritten letters, home movies etc—and news footage but his ace in the hole, the thing that gives “Belushi” its emotional wallop, are the audio interviews that tell the story.
In 2012 author Tanner Colby released a book called “Belushi: A Biography,” an oral history of the life and times of the “SNL” star. Colby did dozens of interviews with the people who knew Belushi best, Lorne Michaels, Dan Ackroyd, Harold Ramis, and friends and family, including John’s wife Judith. Those interviews form the backbone of the film, bringing with them a conversational, intimate and wistful feel.
The story beats are familiar. An uber talented rebel with a sensitive side finds enormous fame—at one point he had the number one comedy show on TV, movie in theatres and album on the charts—but is undone by personal demons. That’s the story in broad strokes. Filling in the small details is the expertly edited oral history who provide first hand details and impressions on Belushi’s life.
Most devastating of all are the handwritten letters from John to Judith that Cutler brings to life. From the playful tone of the early letters sent while they were courting to the final notes, written in desperation as drugs and depression debilitated the actor, these notes, written in a messy scrawl and often containing funny self-help lists, provide more insight into the Belushi’s mind frame that no talking head interview could ever hope.
“Belushi” has gaps. The warts and all depiction of Belushi’s drug habits is front and center but the misogyny of the early “SNL” days, for instance, is brushed over in a quick passage.
Having said that, the doc packs an emotional punch in its final moments as Belushi’s nearest and dearest express regret for allowing their friend to lapse back into heavy drug use. It is heartbreaking stuff on a personal level for them. For the rest of us, as Belushi fans, the cutting short of his potential feels like a cautionary tale of excess and a tragedy of a talent taken way too soon.
WONDER WHEEL: 1 ½ STARS. “feels cobbled together from other, better movies.”
Personal details run deep in Woody Allen’s films. His life has been fodder for his stories. Sometimes overt, occasionally self-indulgently, most always accompanied by some sort of neurosis his writing reveals much about who he is. “Wonder Wall,” however, may top everything that came before with its story of a man who carries on with both mother and stepdaughter.
Set on Coney Island in the 1950s, “Wonder Wheel” stars Jim Belushi as Humpty, a carousel operator with Kate Winslet as Ginny, his actress-turned-waitress wife. They live in a dowdy apartment with budding pyromaniac Richie (Jack Gore), her son from a previous marriage. It’s a miserable existence. He’s an unhappy recovering alcoholic who prefers fishing to his wife’s company. Approaching forty, she’s unhappily working at a local clam house, battling migraines caused by the endless din from the surrounding amusement parks. “I am not a waitress in a clam bar,” she says. “There’s more to me than that. I’m playing the part of a waitress in a clam bar.”
Ginny’s only consolation is lifeguard and wannabe playwright Mickey (Justin Timberlake). He’s “poetic by nature with hopes of one day writing a classic,” and
she eats it up until Carolina (Juno Temple), Humpty’s estranged daughter shows up, on the run from some nasty mobsters (Steve Schirripa and Tony Sirico).
Woody Allen has made almost fifty films ranging from lush romantic comedies and introspective dramas to art house explorations and musicals. “Wonder Wheel” feels like a combination of all of the above, and yet less because it feels as though its been cobbled together from fragments of his other, better movies. Nostalgia, over-romanticized sense of place, dangerous relationships, psychiatry and highbrow set decoration like references to “Hamlet and Oedipus” abound but it is all been-there-done-that.
Once upon a time Allen’s films clocked in at a svelte 90 minutes but in recent years have grown flabby. “Wonder Wheel” times out at 101 minutes but feels much longer. The stagey, heightened acting style recalls amateur hour Tennessee Williams and seems not only stuck in time, but actually have the ability to stop time. As Humpty Belushi only reminds us how good a role this might have been for John Goodman. Winslet seems to be channelling a heroine from a more interesting movie and Timberlake, as the movie’s in-demand love interest and Greek Chorus, shows none of the ease and grace so amply on display in his singing and dancing. Only Temple fights her way through the muck to emerge as a compelling character.
At the beginning of the film Mickey warns us that what we are about to see will be filtered through his playwright’s point of view. Keeping that promise, Allen uses every amount of artifice at his disposal—including cinematographer Vittorio Storaro’s admittedly sumptuous photography—to create a film that is not only unreal but also unpleasant. “Oh God,” Ginny cries out at one point. “Spare me the bad drama.” Amen to that.
