Song Sung Blue (2025)

Score: 4 / 5

Another musical biopic? No thanks, said I, thinking bitterly of my resolution not long ago to ignore or at least not care about new entries in the genre. But of course I went, somewhat begrudgingly, to Song Sung Blue, perhaps the last big awards contender released this season, if only to see Hugh Jackman do what he does best. And thank goodness I did.

Based not on Neil Diamond but on a real-life tribute band known as Lightning and Thunder, the story is a rare biographical picture of legit musicians who never quite reached fame the same way as other "original" artists. They are, like so many of us, not writers of their own tunes but still profoundly skilled artists whose love of particular music leads them to their own kind of fame while spreading joy. The Milwaukee couple at the heart of the story -- Mike, a recovering alcoholic Vietnam vet, and Claire, a sassy single mother of two -- fall in love in the unlikeliest of places: a state fair impersonator gig: he as Buddy Holly and she as Patsy Cline. But Mike wants to perform as himself, with his self-styled moniker "Lightning." Claire is instantly intrigued by his charisma and passion, and their chemistry sparks immediately. In only their first date, they begin dreaming of careers beyond their daily grind; it's A Star is Born in the Midwest. 

In a whirlwind, their romance becomes a showmance, starring in their own singing duo and touring with rave bookings. Mike's flashy style and vision of stardom is mobilized by Claire; they share the work of arranging music, constructing costumes, and building set lists. They're destined for success both professionally and personally. Claire's two daughters, though at first somewhat hesitant about mom's new beau, soon enough come around to the infectious joy between them. This is true for us as well, and the film knowingly capitalizes on the winning charms of Jackman and co-star Kate Hudson, who by the film's midpoint takes the reins. 

One of the more nightmarish moments in any film this year occurs when Claire is almost killed in a freak accident at home. I was wholly unprepared for this. Apparently Song Sung Blue is based on a documentary by Greg Kohs of the same name, so if you're familiar with that you won't be shocked. I was not familiar, and shock doesn't begin to describe my sensation of the joyful, rapturous rug that is the first part of this film being ripped out beneath me. I should have been prepared for more depth in this fluffy film, as director Craig Brewer (of Dolemite is My Name) wasn't about to let this star vehicle careen into a puff piece. What was surely a lifelong struggle between the couple, their family, and their careers is boiled down into a montage-laden merry-go-round that highlights the somber, heartrending pain of average people with profound dreams fighting against the crushing tide of real life. Drugs and doctors, medical bills and disabilities, and the looming specter of being irrelevant, purposeless, and forgotten: these things are so relatable and rarely seen in such big-budget productions. 

It's not all dreary, of course, and Brewer wisely sidesteps many classic pitfalls of musical biopics in favor of his stars' unique charms. Jackman wields a bit too much power early in the film, but he evens out into a wonderfully rich character as he settles into a life he wants out of sheer love for his family. Hudson, warm and flat early on, transforms into a bitter wretch in the throes of self-pity and nihilism before rising from her own ashes in time for the film's final act. "Nostalgia pays," the characters repeat, and while there's much ado about Diamond's best songs -- and no, the film asserts rightly, "Sweet Caroline" ain't it -- the film works best as a human drama of average people the likes of which deserve this spotlight more than Hollywood usually grants them. 

I won't lie and say I didn't weep in this film, but it wasn't because of its sad moments. Rather, it was a sense of joy pervading the film that helps it make its mark above the miasma of usual fare. Moreover, its finale provides an inexplicable uplift that I absolutely did not see coming. This is a film more along the lines of Florence Foster Jenkins than Walk the Line, and it'll be a comfort watch in my future for sure. As the song says, "God of my day, lord of my night, seek for the way, taking me home."

And yes, the music numbers are all excellent.

Glass Onion (2022)

Score: 5 / 5

Thank goodness they're back at it. Rian Johnson returns with Daniel Craig for another quick-witted, topical whodunnit to follow up Knives Out. And, befitting a sequel, this one is glossier, flashier, and bigger. The Gothic tendencies of the first are still present, but now in chic modern trappings. The self-aware political dialogue of the first is somehow more trenchant and expansive now. Think of this as like Branagh's new Poirot films: the first was more isolated and spooky, the second was more glamorous and brutal. It helps that Glass Onion takes place on a picturesque private Greek island topped with an enormous glass globe, because murder in paradise is always more fun.

It's the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and a group of old friends gathers for their annual vacation together at the island paradise home of Miles Bron, a billionaire techie and patented idiot played to perfection by Edward Norton, who plays against type to hilarious effect. One wonders if his idiocy has led to paranoia, because the group of friends he amasses are surely close-knit but they each hide devious secrets that only each other knows. They affectionately refer to themselves as "The Disruptors," which reveals their collective narcissism and smug self-righteousness, and their various pursuits smack of shady dealings and ill-gotten gains. Guarding each other's secrets as they do, they might best be described as frenemies.

Much as with the first installment, Johnson both honors and inverts typical whodunnit tropes. Yes, everyone in the large ensemble cast is a suspect, but they're also all deeply conflicted and ambiguous characters. The pool of suspects Johnson treats as a microcosm of social ills: the first film's insular family felt a bit Trumpian in its hyper-fixation on money and entitlement as well as their performative tolerance, and this film's fraternity of friends is more than a little echo chamber-y in its treatment of social media and its condemnation of greedily inspired tech advancements. Johnson also structures his delightfully twisty plot with knowing loops on itself, making it deucedly difficult to predict, much like the first film. Adding in metafictional flair -- such as his numerous gobsmacking cameos from people like Ethan Hawke and the late great duo Stephen Sondheim and Angela Lansbury -- only adds to the festive wackiness and off-the-wall ingenuity.

Daniel Craig leads again as Benoit Blanc (now confirmed to be gay and partnered to Hugh Grant) as the Cajun detective with a mind like a steel trap, although this time he plays more of a character than before. His attention was piqued when he receives an invitation to the Disruptors' vacation: each invitation takes the form of a deviously complex puzzle box Blanc declares to be silly and simple. However, Blanc was more or less recruited by a character played by Janelle Monáe. SPOILER ALERT: it is Monáe who really owns this movie in a dual role of twin sisters determined to bring down Miles for his criminality and dangerous new alternative fuel. And so, Blanc himself is a bit more relaxed and even goofy during the film's first act, which is a memorably blissful change in style for him.

The rest of the cast is uniformly great (including Kate Hudson's model and influencer with a penchant for racist tweets, Dave Bautista men's rights YouTuber, and a surprisingly nuanced Madelyn Cline as his sexed-up girlfriend Whiskey), although I personally felt that Leslie Odom Jr.'s tortured scientist and Kathryn Hahn's shady governor up for a senate election were underused despite being arguably the most dynamic actors of the ensemble. It's nice to see the actors play into or against type intentionally, and I wondered more than once how much of that was intentional to this movie in particular, to tie in with the symbolic ambiguity of its titular structure.

The plot, characters, performances, and themes are all pretty clear, but the layers get more interesting and intricate as they are peeled back. That's the brilliance of Johnson's creation in this series; it's like what Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson did with the Scream franchise in honoring the genre traditions while flipping them on their heads in intelligent and daring ways. Other recent satires like The Menu aren't dissimilar in targeting hot topics with complex, half-joking wit. And Glass Onion takes everything we loved about Knives Out and gives us more of it all, which makes it one of the best movies of the year and a joyous addition to what we can all hope will be a thriving new Netflix series.

Marshall (2017)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Marshall is one of the most pleasant surprises in movie theaters this year. Chadwick Boseman plays a young Thurgood Marshall in the film that takes a close look at the man's rise to influence through one of his early cases. Called into town like a circuit preacher, NAACP attorney Marshall comes to Connecticut to defend a black man (Sterling K. Brown) accused of raping a wealthy white woman (Kate Hudson) and attempting to kill her. The white majority has already assumed the defendant's guilt, and the old white judge (James Cromwell) orders Marshall's silence. Despite the bleak circumstances, Marshall manipulates an insurance lawyer (Josh Gad) as his co-counselor to run the defense, with Marshall guiding him through notes, nonverbal cues, and extensive preparation out of court.

The film, which takes place in 1941 and concerns a case involving racism, sexism, and classism (along with healthy doses of adultery and corrupt justice), is surprisingly entertaining. It's an old-fashioned courtroom drama with a dash or two of thrilling moments at home or on the street. In fact, it's the kind of movie we're used to seeing older white men lead, and the fact that Boseman takes command of the screen is never once preached about or unnecessarily highlighted. He rocks the role with style and sarcasm, wit and strength, and not a little sexy suavity. I'd compare the film to A Time to Kill or even To Kill a Mockingbird in its scope and gravity, but his performance joins the ranks of Paul Newman and Henry Fonda.

Sure, Marshall is a serious picture, but the film also includes earned comedy and smart social commentary that keep the proceedings light, helped mostly by Gad's character's uncomfortable situation. Marshall, accomplished and stylish in his fabulous suits and cocktail hours with Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, immediately claims dominance over Gad's Sam Friedman. He manipulates and toys with Friedman until he really needs him, and then their oddball-buddy relationship takes glorious wing. It quickly becomes clear the two have more than met their match with the unjust judge: More than once during the screening, I heard outraged exclamations from viewers as the judge allowed ludicrous objections and struck vital information from the record.

Even out of the courtroom, though, the film examines some fascinating power dynamics of race, religion, education, and sex. We often view Friedman as a joke, but he is clearly respected in his family -- his brother and co-worker (John Magaro) works diligently to aid him -- and synagogue. One scene sets up a possible conflict with a member of his congregation before the parishioner gives him money to support the case; the setting of a restroom doesn't help our (or Friedman's) discomfort. Likewise, Marshall is a very different man when he's with his wife, or when he's confronted with violence in a bar or on a train platform.

I'm not sure how much of the film is truly factual or not, but I doubt that's the point. Its period work and heavy plotting serve to engross us in the drama of 1940s discrimination and injustice, to entertain us and make us think. It has nary a dull moment, breezily moving along some sticky situations and keeping us focused on the timely things 2017 America still needs to hear. As a mystery, Marshall is fairly flat, but as a pitch-perfect old-school courtroom drama and a fabulous depiction of a real-life hero, it's a damn good picture.

IMDb: Marshall

Deepwater Horizon (2016)

Score: 2.5 / 5

In case you forgot, this picture will make you angry at BP all over again. Without going near the dangerous waters of the real-life events at Deepwater Horizon, I can say that this film works on its own terms and packs a few not-so-subtle punches. For the most part, however, it's exactly what I expected it to be.

Turning an enormous tragedy into a small-scale disaster, Deepwater Horizon never feels necessary, and worse, never feels inspired. Rather than augmenting its familiar story with powerful performances or Big Themes (as we see in most major disaster flicks), this film plays it safe and small, sticking strictly to the action. While there are some nice touches to the action, it never has much heart to it. Thankfully, there is enough distraction that I never laughed out loud at the thin dialogue and frantic editing. The sound mixing and sound editing are notably impressive, and the apparently practical set design is a study unto itself.

So, technically, the movie is dazzling. However, there are almost no characterizations of the considerable cast, making the ensemble drama just that. We see some nice performances -- John Malkovich is particularly delightful -- but nothing worth gushing over. As such, the fatalities of the film fall pretty flat, and the emotional climax is more climactic because of the fiery background effects than because of the performances of our leads. In fact, the most emotional scene I saw happened about halfway through, as a nearby ship views the explosive oil spewing into the night sky. A bird flies in, crashing through the bridge of the ship, coated in oil and shrieking as it smashes into windows and desks before dying. If there is a central visual message from the film, that is it.

The film's worst sin, though, is its flat sense of inevitability. Seemingly after each of the initial scenes, the camera cuts away to the base and its underwater pipes, showing the immense pressure and looming catastrophe before the film has even set up its narrative focus. There's never a moment when we don't know exactly what's going to happen. Because of this, I was disappointed in director Peter Berg, who has proven himself fully capable and even talented in helming an action-thriller. Here, though, I couldn't see a creative inspiration at work. Instead, I see substance ignored in favor of technical skill; a routine form of shallow entertainment, as mindless as it is predictable.

IMDb: Deepwater Horizon