Late last night I finally saw Craig Brewer‘s Song Sung Blue, ånd like everyone else I felt generally pleased and often turned on during the musical performance segments. Who wouldn’t be? Catchy Neil Diamond tunes, re-energized by spirited, sufficiently talented middle-class tribute folk…alive, they cried!

I’ve never been the biggest Neil Diamond fan but on a certain level I felt a genuine kinship with the real-life, Milwaukee-based tribute performers Mike and Claire Sardina, who are fetchingly played by Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson.

Mike and Claire’s heyday was in the ’80s and early ’90s, and it was quite a ride. Serious Milwaukee favorites.

Plus I loved Michael Imperioli‘s supporting turn as Mark Shurilla, a Buddy Holly impersonator who joins Mike and Claire’s band. Ditto Ella Anderson, Fisher Stevens, Jim Belushi, Mustafa Shakir…everyone generates full conviction and good vibes.

There’s a fountain of musical joy that flows from the voices and hearts of Hackman and Hudson, and it’s a serious pleasure during the film’s first half…maybe the first 60% or so. Heart-lifting stuff that really floods the system.

But then they both get walloped with out-of-the-blue waffle irons that struck me, frankly, as too much. These tragedies really happened, yes, but it stills feels like bad plotting.

OBVIOUSLY NOT A SPOILER IF YOU’VE SEEN THE MIKE-AND-CLAIRE DOCUMENTARY, BUT I CAN IMAGINE WHINERS COMPLAINING IF I DON’T WARN: Claire getting hit by an out-of-control car while gardening in her front yard…the fuck? What kind of ridiculously demented asshole-behind-the-wheel would do such a thing? (Another crazy driver slams into the same home 20 to 25 minutes later, and it’s like….again? It’s just too nuts.) And then Mike dying from putting super-glue on a gash in his forehead after suffering a heart attack? It doesn’t feel real. Hell, it feels surreal.

Hudson delivers the spunkiest performance, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she winds up getting Best Actress–nommed. Plus she seems to have gained a little bit of weight for the part, which is kinda commendable in a Robert DeNiro-in-Raging Bull sort of way. (Okay, maybe Hudson didn’t gain weight for the film, but she sure as hell didn’t lose any. She looks filled out in a 40ish sort of way.)

This is going to sound shallow, but I had problems with Jackman’s Neil Diamond wig, which has a kind of three-pointed shape and looks seriously dorky or bulldogish or whatever. It’s too Prince Valiant bouncy on the sides. The real Mike’s hair was far more becoming.

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I’m sorry but last night I gave Henri-Georges Clouzot‘s The Wages of Fear (’53) another viewing, and I came away fully convinced that it’s a slightly lesser achievement than William Friedkin‘s financially calamitous remake, titled Sorcerer (’77). And here’s why:

(1) The first hour of Fear has no urgency or narrative drive. It’s just about the four main characters — Mario (Yves Montand), Jo (Charles Vanel), Luigi (Folco Lulli) and Bimba (Peter van Eyck) — bellyaching about being stuck in the South American town of Las Piedras, which doesn’t look South American at all (pic was shot in the flatlands of southern France), and is certainly not mountainous or jungle-y. The first hour is basically a lighthearted hangout film.

(2) The first hour of the Freidkin version has much more punch and texture, largely due to the riveting backstories of the four main characters — Roy Scheider‘s Jackie Scanlon, Bruno Cremer‘s Victor Manzon, Francisco Rabal‘s Nilo, and Amidou‘s Kassem.

(3) Sorcerer‘s South American shanty town, called Porvenir, also delivers a much more engrossing atmosphere of grit, grime and hand-to-mouth poverty than Fear‘s Piedras, which is all interiors and without much atmosphere (i.e., surrounded by arid flatlands).

(4) In The Wages of Fear, Véra Clouzot‘s Linda, a barefoot cantina worker and Mario’s devoted admirer (lover?), serves no narrative purpose. All she does, really, is smile nonsensically and bat her eyelashes at the camera. (She was the director’s wife, of course — he obviously indulged her and let her do whatever.)

(5) Fear kicks in, of course, once the men begin their journey in the two trucks. This portion of the film is superbly paced, shot, framed, edited. And yet it doesn’t have Sorcerer‘s rickety bridge-crossing scene in the rain and over the raging rapids. Clouzot didn’t have much of a budget — Friedkin spent around $22 million in 1977 dollars, or roughly $125 million in today’s economy.

(6) Both teams have to use nitroglycerine to eliminate a dirt-road blockage (a massive stone in Fear, a fallen tree in Sorcerer), and yet the circumstance that leads to Van Eyck and Lulli’s truck detonating and blowing them to smithereens isn’t shown — an interesting decision on Clouzot’s part, but was it primarily a financial one? It feels like a bit of a cheat. The viewer naturally wants to know what happened.

(7) Montand’s truck-crash death at the end of Fear is caused by his character being in a great, jaunty mood, and is therefore a bit careless. This, I feel, is a bit of a careless ending. It reminded me of a story my dad told me about a guy he met in an AA meeting…a guy whose bumpy life took a joyful turn for the better, which put him into such a happy frame of mind that he started drinking again.

Compare George Clooney’s 2007 Clayton look with the ultra-slender, not-an-ounce-of-fat, rich-movie-star appearance he’s sporting today…he’s probably a good 15 pounds lighter now than he was 18 years ago.

And yet the Clayton thing — slightly puffy-faced, perhaps a bit of a boozer, not-bordering-on-overweight-but-getting-there — undoubtedly enhanced his Clayton character…a “bagman” attorney for a large NYC law firm…a fixer who cleans up messes (a “niche”) and who suffers from a sense of frustration and bitterness, not to mention a touch of low self-esteem.

If Clooney had been as thin back then as he is today, his Clayton performance — his career best — wouldn’t have worked as well.

Is his Jay Kelly performance nearly as good? Yes, nearly. Nominatable, I would say.

I’m sorry that Daisy Ridley’s career has fallen off. I’m sorry, I mean, that she’s apparently been reduced to accepting paycheck roles in second-tier popcorn fare (zombie flicks, a subpar Star Wars spinoff or two, romcoms, minor biopics).

My first reaction to this Bury The Dead poster was “could this be karma payback for admitting ten years ago that she wasn’t up to speed on Cary Grant?”

I want Ridley to find her way out of the thicket. My heart goes out.

I’m not saying Volodymyr Zelensky wishing for the literal death of Vladimir Putin is unwarranted, but literally saying this in so many words is highly unusual.

AI sez.…

“Brick” is a popular New York City slang term, particularly in the Bronx, Queens and Long Island, used to describe extremely cold weather. Originating in the 1980s-90s, it suggests the cold hits as hard as a brick, or refers to cold city buildings.

Meaning: Extremely cold outside. Example: “It’s brick out there”.

Origin: Likely originated from urban slang in New York City (Harlem/Bronx) during the 1980s or 1990s.

Context: Used when temperatures are freezing; sometimes related to the feeling of brick buildings in winter, which are described as being ten times colder than the air.

Regional Usage: Primarily associated with New York City, but also used in neighboring areas like Long Island.

By the time this reasonably decent confrontation scene came along (Rose Byrne vs. Conan O’Brien), I was exhausted from the sheer effort of sitting through this damned thing. Depleted, emptied out, spent.

@vvsfilms

Conan O’Brien is Rose Byrne’s therapist in IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU, coming to theatres on October 17. #IfIHadLegsIdKickYou #MaryBronstein #RoseByrne #ConanOBrien #A24 #VVSFilms #therapy #therapist #moviescene #movieclip #cinema #film

♬ original sound – vvsfilms

✨Rose Byrne’s Closet Picks! ✨ pic.twitter.com/E9Nji7t53m

— Criterion Collection (@Criterion) December 29, 2025

“‘Bonnie and Clyde‘ is a 1968 French-language song written by Serge Gainsbourg, and performed by Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot. The song is based on an English-language poem written by Bonnie Parker herself a few weeks before she and Clyde Barrow were shot, titled “The Trail’s End”. The French song was released on two 1968 albums: Gainsbourg’s Initials B.B., and Gainsbourg and Bardot’s Bonnie and Clyde.” — Wiki page.

The hyena yelps are fantastic.

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So MUBI subscribers should unsubscribe because MUBI France is respectfully acknowledging Brigitte Bardot’s passing or….what, is streaming one or two of her films? Lefty fanatics like Rolo Tomassi…sorry…fanatics like Rolo Tony make me want to vomit.