Song Sung Blue

Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman

If you told me in the mid 1970s, when I posed as a cynical teenager, that I would one day enjoy a film about a Neil Diamond impersonator I would have been incredulous, but I found Craig Brewer's Song Sung Blue to be a well made delight. In 1975, I regarded Neil Diamond as cheesy and unhip, yet, by then, he had already composed his most lasting songs. My Neil Diamond epiphany, when I realized he could concoct a solid pop song, occurred around 1985 when I saw The Wygals cover Solitary Man in  concert. I had liked it when I first heard it when I was six in 1966 on the AM car radio, but I pushed my memory of it deep down into my subconscious. Hearing it out of its original context made me regard it anew and, lo, it was a well constructed folk-rock song. Overall, I would regard most of Neil Diamond's oeuvre as gauche and lousy. The dividing line is the Jonathan Livingston Seagull soundtrack which hit number two on the American album charts in 1973. The album is a turkey, the book and film are worse, and the rest of Diamond's career descends into complete dross. His work ethic and live shows made him the demi icon he is today. My consumer advice is to invest in compilations of his Bang and Uni years and avoid the rest like the plague. 

Diamond's niche was to merge Brill Building pop with the burgeoning singer-songwriter (aka Dylan and his acolytes) ethos; much like Carole King. Unfortunately, Diamond's taste hewed too closely to the three main pillars of American popular culture since Stephen Foster put a banjo on his knee: kitsch, schlock, and schmaltz. Certainly, some of Mr. Diamond's songs combine all three of these Yiddish adjectives. He is very much in the tradition of Jewish songwriters like Irving Berlin whose work did not look back to the old country, but embraced American culture wholeheartedly. Like Berlin, Diamond even wrote a Christmas standard, Holly Holy. Song Sung Blue captures the broad appeal of slightly cheesy tunes that people like to sing along to in a bar after a few pops. Diamond's music is a uniter of people in the film whether it be at casinos, Pearl Jam concerts, karaoke, AA meetings or Thai restaurants. Craig Brewer, in his more personal works, has tended to focus on outsiders or down and outers who unite together to create art that brings joy and pecuniary renumeration. This is as true of Song Sung Blue as it is of Hustle and Flow or Dolemite is My Name.

Brewer based his screenplay on a real life Wisconsin based couple who performed in a Neil Diamond tribute act known as Thunder and Lightning during the 1990s. Brewer had seen a documentary about the duo and has turned it into a stirring underdog tale. Now to do a tale of this sort, you need to provide a believable set-up of real life problems that the protagonists must overcome. Otherwise, you veer into predictability and schmaltz: this is the difference between the original Rocky and its sequels. The story of Thunder (Kate Hudson) and Lightning (Hugh Jackman) provides enough hardship for five films, earning its sappy moments. That said, I wasn't totally convinced that Mr. Jackman was a gritty Viet Nam vet with trauma and addiction issues. The dude is just too damn healthy looking. However, Mr. Jackman is the premier song and dance man of his generation, so he is nonpareil in the performance sequences. Ms. Hudson has received unprecedented kudos for her performance, deservedly. 

The opening sequence of Song Sung Blue, a concert of impersonators at the Wisconsin State Fair, which provides the meet cute for the protagonists, establishes the milieu of the film as on the fringes of showbiz. Life is a carnival for these folks, but there is no brass ring in store. The portrait of Thunder and Lightning's efforts to remain above water economically makes this one of the few relatively realistic films on American working class life starring a pair of Hollywood millionaires. As in Dolomite, Mr. Brewer elicits strong supporting performances that give the film background texture. I especially enjoyed the efforts of Ella Anderson, Fisher Stevens, King Princess, Michael Imperioli, and John Beckwith. I also really appreciated the editing of Song Sung Blue. Billy Fox's work gives the picture a propulsive narrative momentum. 

Best Performances of 2025

 

Best Actress

Zhao Tao                           --          Caught By the Tides

Anya Taylor-Joy               --          The Gorge

Cate Blanchett                  --          Black Bag

Sally Hawkins                  --          Bring Her Back

Diane Kruger                    --         The Shrouds

Best Actor

Ethan Hawke                    --          Blue Moon

Josh O'Connor          --  The Mastermind, The History of Sound, Knives Out 3,

Takeshi Kitano                 --          Broken Rage

Leonardo DiCaprio          --          One Battle After Another

Jackson Yee                     --           Resurrection

Best Supporting Actress

Marisa Abela                    --           Black Bag

Amy Madigan                  --           Weapons

Eszter Tompa                   --            Dracula

Chase Infiniti                   --            One Battle After Another

Tatiana Maslany              --            The Monkey

Best Supporting Actor   

Jacques Develay              --            Miséricordia

Delroy Lindo                   --            Sinners

Keith Carradine               --            The Devil and the Daylong Brothers

Benicio del Toro              --            One Battle After Another

Bobby Cannavale            --            Blue Moon

In the Hand of Dante

Oscar Isaac as Dante

Julian Schnabel's In the Hand of Dante has been derided as the biggest cinematic fiasco since Megalopolis, but, as with the Coppola flick, I found it to be intriguingly uneven. Schnabel adapted the film, along with Louise Kugelberg, from Nick Tosches' 2002 novel. The novel itself is an extremely haphazard affair, alternating from sublimity to self-indulgence. Both novel and film tell parallel stories. In one, a fictionalized Nick Tosches becomes entangled with gangsters wrangling over some original Dante manuscripts. The other, weaker half of the film gives a cursory sketch of Dante's life and spiritual quest. Oscar Isaac plays both Tosches and Dante. Some other members of the cast double up with different roles in each segment, but Schnabel does not go whole hog Wizard of Oz on us. The Dante episodes are shot in beautiful color and within the Academy aspect ratio. The modern segment is shot in widescreen black and white. Schnabel and cinematographer Roman Vasyanov present us with a series of gorgeous images, but there is little in the way of narrative coherence.

Most of this is due to the defects of Mr. Tosches' novel. In the Hand of Dante marks the point in his oeuvre where the self inflation of the author's ego starts to obscure his real gifts. I esteem Mr. Tosches as much as any modern American writer, but for an author to parallel his own life with that of Dante struck me then, and now, as artistic hubris. Furthermore, Mr Tosches' portrait of himself is comical in its self-regard. The Tosches' character in the book and film is ridiculously expert in the most varied circumstances imaginable. He's an erudite scholar (Ok, I buy that one), an irresistible lover, a stone cold killer with a gun, and a debonair man about the world. He can bust chops with wise guys or parse ancient wisdom with Italian scholars. The plot of the novel is perfunctory, but allows room for Tosches' lively and learned digressions on a host of topics. Some of the best moments in the film feature Isaac's beautiful narration of Tosches' prose. I have been a devoted reader of Tosches since he started out in music journalism. If you want to sample the best of this peerless writer, I'd recommend Country, Hellfire, Dino..., and his first novel, Cut Numbers. In the Hand of Dante ranks with Under Tiberius at the bottom of Tosches' barrel.  

Oscar Isaac as Nick Tosches

Schnabel was and is, of course, a painter, and the screen pulsates with visual beauty. I dug the gorgeous shots of the sky, but there are a number of moments when the film's audacity tumbles into ludicrous folly. The most egregious example is the vision of Gal Gadot (playing Dante's wife and Tosches' gal) as Botticelli's Venus on the half shell. It registers as inane rather than breathtaking. Luckily, Schnabel has assembled an interesting cast that helps to animate this grandiose folly. Oscar Isaac ably captures the saturnine intensity of Tosches. He is a much better fit to the role than Johnny Depp who was originally attached to the project. When Isaac as Tosches cranks up Jumping Jack Flash, ingests pills, and slurps bourbon, he is able to conjure the Dionysian fury that lurked inside of the writer. Schnabel is enough of a New Yorker to excel at casting his wise guys and goodfellas. Al Pacino has a cameo that contains his best acting of this century. John Malkovich is always an asset, especially when, as in this film, he is not taking the proceedings too seriously. Best of all is the very affecting Louis Cancelmi.

Gerard Butler

The big surprise for me of the film was how good Gerard Butler was as a Mafia hit man. Butler's brash machismo meshes perfectly with his role. He and Isaac have some good comic riffs as two sides of the same coin. Unfortunately, Schnabel neglects to shape the performances of the less talented members of his cast. Jason Momoa attempts to play a hit man with an undecipherable accent. Martin Scorsese is embarrassingly bad with a ridiculous beard affixed on him as if out of the old Steve Martin, Theodoric of York skits. Just because he is a visionary filmmaker doesn't mean Scorsese can play a visionary seer. Even worse is Gal Gadot. I spent half of the film saying to myself, "gosh, I don't remember Ana de Armas ever being this lousy" before I caught on. In the Hand of Dante is, overall, a mess, but, at least, might introduce people to a singular writer. The film also features Franco Nero, Benjamin Clementine, and Sabrina Impacciatore. In the Hand of Dante is available to stream on Netflix.