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.
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.”
Imagine Noah’s Ark, but with killer CGI animals and a wise-cracking serial killer, and you get the general idea of “Primal,” the latest Nic Cage movie to go straight to VOD.
Frank Walsh (Cage) is a poacher in the jungles of Brazil; a loner who traps exotic animals for export to collectors and zoos in the US. His latest capture, El Fantasma Gato, is beyond rare. Worth maybe $1 million. “It’s a white jaguar,“ he says. “Maybe 350 to 400 pounds. Doesn’t like people.“ “Just like you Frank,“ says his kid sidekick (Jeremy Nazario) in the only comment that passes for character work in the “Primal’s” stripped-down b-movie world.
The action begins with Frank transports the animal on the large cargo ship. Trouble is, the US government is using the same ship to transport a psychopathic killer to justice. Held Hannibal Lecter-style in a cage below deck by Navy doctor Ellen Taylor (Famke Janssen) and Government lawyer Freed (Michael Imperioli), Richard Loffler (Kevin Durand) is a former military man turned international terrorist.
This is a B-movie, so no amount of security, chains or wild animals can stop Loffler from causing havoc on the high seas. Only one man, with a special set of skills and a rare white jaguar, can stop Loffler’s rampage. It’s nature gone wild on the high seas as Walsh snorts, “I’m going hunting.”
“Primal” is the kind of movie Nicolas Cage bangs out between visits to his tax lawyer. It’s a film so far beneath has talent you have to wonder why he signed on. Did he always want to work with a talking parrot? Does he get paid by the cliché these days? Hard to know. What is for sure is that “Primal” is one of those movies where the sheer stupidity of the story supplies the only entertainment value. The thrills fall short and the action is almost nonexistent but it’s almost worth the price of a rental to see Cage try and take down Loffler with a poison blow dart gun or argue with his parrot.
“Primal” will make you yearn for the days when Nic Cage movies like “Con Air,” “Gone in 60 Seconds” and “The Rock” promised and delivered offbeat delights. Cage brings his patented oddball performance style along for the ride but even that isn’t enough to give “Primal’s” bland storytelling and lazy action some zip.
The plot of “Oldboy,” Spike Lee’s new remake of a cult Korean film from 1993, is labyrinthine, relying on twists, turns and suspension of disbelief.
After seeing the film one has to wonder if “Oldboy” isn’t some elaborate real-world scheme of Lee’s. It occurred to me that the filmmaker, who moonlights as a New York University film professor, might well have gone through the convoluted machinations of bringing the movie to the big screen to teach his students how not to make a remake of a well liked film.
Sure, he calls the exercise a “re-interpretation,” not a remake, in the same way that Miles Davis’s version of “My Funny Valentine” is a transformation of the tune and not a cover version, but instead of elevating “Oldboy” onto a different plane, he hits all the wrong notes.
Josh Brolin is Joe Doucett, an advertising executive with an ex-wife, a three yar old daughter and a crippling addiction to booze. He’s the kind of guy who shows upon your doorstep at 3 am yelling, “No one wants to have fun anymore,” when you don’t let him in.
One night, after a bender he wakes up in a cell—actually more like a bare bones Motel Six with no windows but with a television and a mail slot for room service. From the TV he learns that he is accused of the brutal murder of his ex-wife, but is given no clue as to why he has been locked away.
For twenty years he rots in the room, so starved for human contact he fashions a friend à la Wilson in “Castaway” out of a pillowcase.
He emerges from his two decade sentence cleaned up, looking like a movie star, although a somewhat slightly dazed one, in a box in the middle of a field.
A mysterious stranger (Sharlto Copley) contacts him with a deal. Answer two questions and the entire experience will be explained and he will get to see his daughter. Fail and the mysterious goings on will continue.
Along the way the moonfaced Marie Sebastian (Elizabeth Olsen) and bar owner Chucky (Michael Imperioli) try and help Joe get to the bottom of the mystery.
If anyone should have been able to pull this off it should be Josh Brolin. There is no more manly-man actor in the mold of Lee Marvin or Lee Van Cleef working today. You believe him as a slickster with a drink in his hand and a practically indestructible force of nature able to withstand physical punishment that would make Grigori Rasputin look like a wimp.
But yet, in “Oldboy,” you don’t care.
The original movie was an epic tragedy, a twisted story (there will be no spoilers here) driven by revenge and dark secrets. All those elements are in place in Lee’s version, but the focus has shifted to the mystery, which is the least interesting thing about the story.
As a collection of red herrings and mumbo jumbo about “faceless corporations” it’s an incoherent mess of information searching for a form. As a story device it deflects the focus from the mental to the procedural, giving Brolin little to do except glower into the camera.
Add to that a badly botched remounting of the original’s most striking scene—a hammer battle in a long hallway—and you’re left wondering what Miles Davis might have done with this instead of Spike Lee.
