Song Sung Blue (2025)

I am happy to admit that I spent a lot of time thinking that Song Sung Blue was a very different movie. Having not been interested enough to look any further into it, unable to even muster enough enthusiasm to check out the trailer, I believed that this was a Neil Diamond biopic. I was quite wrong, and all of those already familiar with the story, presented in a 2008 documentary by Greg Kohs, would have laughed at my utter wrong-ness.

What you have here is the story of Mike (Hugh Jackman) and Claire (Kate Hudson), a pair of individuals who encounter one another while performing separate musical tribute acts. Once they begin a relationship, the two support one another in ways that help to lift them both up, allowing their double-act, Lightning And Thunder, to become a huge success in their Milwaukee home city. There are some clouds moving in to block the sunshine though.

This is a movie made by the central performances of Jackman and Hudson, with the latter particularly revelatory in a role that has quite rightly garnered her a good amount of praise already. Jackman can do the song and dance man thing in his sleep, he's arguably in his comfort zone when acting in anything that allows him to flex his musical muscles, but Hudson shows that she can easily match him, whether it's in the singing department or the emotional beats. Ella Anderson and Hudson Hensley are both quite delightful, playing Claire's two children who soon become happy to refer to Mike as their father, and King Princess works well in a couple of scenes as Mike's daughter (who lives with her mother, but seems to have a decent enough relationship with her father, considering the demons he has been battling over the years). There are also very sweet turns from Michael Imperioli, Fisher Stevens, Jim Belushi, and Mustafa Shakir, all helping to create a supportive and loving core matching the supporting and loving couple at the heart of the film. 

Director Craig Brewer has been drawn to music-infused stories a number of times throughout his career (and I highly recommend his sophomore feature, Hustle & Flow), but this is probably his most obvious attempt to deliver a crowd-pleaser that should satisfy most viewers. It has the two big names leading the cast, it takes you through some wild highs and lows (IF you are as oblivious of the true story as I was), and the soundtrack is unsurprisingly full of superb songs. Especially if you're a Neil Diamond fan, obviously.

There are problems here though. I don't want to give the impression that this is anything close to a perfect viewing experience. The opening scenes are a bit clumsily thrown together, rushing through various moments until Mike and Claire finally get together, and there isn't often a clear enough depiction of how much time is supposed to have passed in between major events. In a classic case of the truth being stranger than fiction, there's also at least one scene that feels like a cute contrivance, despite it being based on something that actually happened.

Really easy to enjoy while it's on, but another 2025 film that I'm not sure I'll ever rewatch (although I certainly want to check out that doc), Song Sung Blue is at least guaranteed to do one thing . . . it will have you listening to a number of Neil Diamond hits once you have been reminded of how bloody great they are.

7/10

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Undisputed (2002)

Written and directed by Walter Hill, fans of the director may be completely unsurprised to hear that Undisputed is a tough, entertaining, action movie. It's a bit more low-key than many other releases in his filmography, but it certainly holds up as a Walter Hill movie.

Wesley Snipes is Monroe Hutchens, a prisoner in Sweetwater, and the number one boxing champ for ten years. The prison has a major boxing match every few months, with plenty of money to be won and lost, and Hutchens is given due respect because of his fighting prowess. Ving Rhames is George "Iceman" Chambers, a boxing champ who is imprisoned after being found guilty of a rape charge that he denies. Chambers immediately starts to try and throw his weight around, but that doesn't matter. What matters is the inevitable showdown in the ring between the two pugilists.

Despite the prison setting, this isn't really a prison movie. You get very few of the familiar tropes there (no tense shower scenes, for example), but it is also a way to heighten the atmosphere and veritable need for these two men to fight, and decide an ultimate winner.

Snipes is on good form here, and certainly brings his A-game with the physicality, but it is Rhames stealing a number of scenes, giving a performance that feels very much inspired by a troubled boxing talent that rhymes with Schnike Schnyson. Peter Falk is good to see in a supporting role (an old mobster without the memory and wits he once had, but with the right connections), Michael Rooker is impressive as a tough guard who isn't also unnecessarily sadistic, and both Wes Studi and Fisher Stevens do well, each aligned with a respective fighter.

Hill directs with his usual good eye for some solid action beats (there are few people who have more consistently made manly movies that successfully blend bone-crunching violence with real art), but things fall down slightly in the script, which he co-wrote with David Giler. It is hard to know who we are really supposed to be rooting for, and what they might have done to deserve any extra support. Okay, a revelation about why Snipes is inside helps to show him in a better light, but he's still a prisoner serving a long sentence. And Rhames is still in there on a charge of rape, with his character doing himself no favours in the way he maintains a cocky and unapologetic stance.

Quality throughout, if inessential, Undisputed is worth a watch. If only to get through it and on to the sequels, which are allegedly more fun. I will be finding out soon.

7/10

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Hackers (1995)

You know what all the cool kids were up to in the 1990s? They were showing off their computer hacking skills, whizzing around on rollerblades, listening to The Prodigy, and playing pre-release versions of Wipeout (not the gameshow, the classic Playstation game). How do I know this, despite not being one of the cool kids at that time? Because that's what every one of the leads does in Hackers, and this is a film populated almost exclusively by characters deemed to be cool.

There's a dangerous virus that threatens major harm to a big corporation, unless a payment of $25M is made, and things have been set up to pin the blame on a bunch of teenage hackers. Jonny Lee Miller is Dade, Angelina Jolie is Kate, Jesse Bradford is Joey, Matthew Lillard is Cereal, Laurence Mason is Nikon, and Renoly Santiago is Phreak. They're the good guys. Fisher Stevens is a man who works for the big company being threatened, and he likes to go by the name The Plague. He's not with the good guys. Nor is Agent Dick Gill (played by Wendell Pierce). To be fair, the hackers don't do much to make themselves look innocent as the authorities try to get to the bottom of this major, dangerous, security breach.

Hackers is ridiculous. It's a number of cool and funky moments strung together by an unbelievable plot that surely felt dated just a few years after it was initially released. The script by Rafael Moreu alternates between amusing and cringe-inducing, and director Iain Softley doesn't do anything in half measures, whether it's the fashion choices, soundtrack, or graphic design displaying the hacking sequences (main headshot of character, camera rotates around, and keystrokes and symbols are illuminated around them). But that's not necessarily the wrong way to treat this material, which is why the ridiculousness of it all ends up making it a fun viewing experience.

The relatively young cast helps, with a lot of likable performers on the cusp of reaching the next level in terms of success and recognisability (both Miller and Lillard would do very well just a year later, with Trainspotting and Scream, respectively). Miller is a lot of fun in the lead role, the cocky outsider who quickly gets in with the hacking clique, Jolie is some kind of ubercool cyber-pixie, and everyone else does their best to show that they're separate from the non-hacking plebicites that surround them. Fisher Stevens is also a lot of fun in his role, all arrogance and disdain for those around him, Wendell Pierce does well, and Lorraine Bracco is good with her underwritten role. And you even get a small role for Penn Jillette, and a fleeting cameo from Dave "Eurythmics" Stewart.

Although it's never going to be a film that you first think of when wanting something to watch for an evening, you could do a lot worse than this. It knows exactly what it is, it is very much of the time it was made, and it's difficult to hate. I enjoyed it, and I wouldn't rule out rewatching it at some point.

6/10

YES, I just pre-ordered this release.
Americans can pick up this one.

Super Mario Bros. (1993)

Mario Mario (Bob Hoskins) and Luigi Mario (John Leguizamo) are a pair of plumbers who don't seem to be having much luck lately. After losing out on another job to a competitor they end up stopping when their van temporarily breaks down. And that's when Luigi meets Daisy (Samantha Mathis), a young woman working on an archaeological dig. Move forward a couple of scenes and, for reasons I won't go into right now, Daisy has been whisked away into an alternative dimension, and Luigi and Mario set out to rescue her in a strange land overruled by the harsh, power-hungry King Koopa (Dennis Hopper).

It's hard to pin down just where Super Mario Bros. went so wrong in the transition from videogame to big screen outing, but the main thing to point out, surely, is that the film does absolutely nothing to please fans of the game. Taken just as a film, it's an interesting failure. Taken as a film version of the Nintendo property, it's just a failure.

Leguizamo is the better of the central pairing, having some fun as the open-minded and optimistic Luigi, while Hoskins does okay, wobbly accent aside. He at least looks the part. Mathis is there to be put in peril, and she does that. Thankfully, Hopper livens up every scene that he's in. Film fans know that Hopper can be a great villain, and this is a family-friendly baddie that he portrays with gusto. Fisher Stevens and Richard Edson both provide some amusement as a couple of idiotic goons, and Fiona Shaw is just as good as she always is in the role of Lena, the woman by the side of Koopa who also has plans of her own.

Perhaps it's because this was the first major theatrically released movie based on a videogame, but it's hard to think of what writers Parker Bennett, Terry Runte and Ed Solomon were thinking when they cobbled this script together. Yes, there are videogame elements incorporated into the movie, but they're not prominent enough and at no time does this film actually feel like Super Mario Bros. It may have been difficult, admittedly, but the groundwork for more creativity was easily laid out when the premise involved throwing the characters into another dimension.

Directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel don't help. Super Mario Bros. may well be one of the drabbest, ugliest "big" movies to ever see the inside of cinemas. The design, the colour scheme, even the shot choices, almost every decision just feels wrong. It's all so wrong that it's hard to believe that Morton and Jankel weren't on some kind of mission to sabotage their own movie.

But that cast, thank goodness for that cast. There IS fun to be had here. Yes, you have to sit through a lot of rubbish to get to the good bits, but I disagree with anyone saying that this movie is entirely worthless. It's bad, no arguing with that, but it's not unwatchable. If only I'd been writing this blog back in 1993 perhaps I could have allowed them to quote me on the posters: "Bad, but not unwatchable".

4/10

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The Burning (1981)

Developed by the Weinstein brothers (Harvey helped to come up with the story while Bob wrote the screenplay with Peter Lawrence), The Burning is, arguably, the most beloved of the many slashers that immediately began to flood the market in the 1980s after the success of Friday The 13th, which was itself created due to the success of Halloween.

It all starts, as so many slashers do, with a prank that goes horribly wrong. A mean caretaker, named Cropsy, is badly burned by some kids who just wanted their revenge for him spoiling their time at summer camp. Fast forward a few years and it's all fun and frolics with a bunch of horny teenagers at some other summer camp. But some musical cues and POV camerawork let viewers know that Cropsy is hanging around. And he's not happy.

With some interesting music provided by Rick Wakeman, great special effects by Tom Savini, and THAT fantastic set-piece, it's certainly easy to see why The Burning lingers in the memory long after the end credits have rolled. Of course, that doesn't mean that everyone will love it.

It's simplistic stuff, directed with little flair by Tony Maylam, but it's effective, both for what it shows onscreen and what it often implies, thanks to the famous slasher flick that it most closely resembles.

Brian Matthews and Leah Ayres are acceptable, if slightly bland, leads and Brian Backer tries his best, despite his character - the youngster who doesn't make friends easily - being just a bit too sullen to gain any sympathy. Larry Joshua plays one of the nicer bullies that this subgenre has given us, understandably smitten with Carrick Glenn, but the most fun for modern audiences is in seeing the few stars who appear here before becoming much more famous a few years down the line. Holly Hunter has a small role, Fisher Stevens is memorable and Jason Alexander is like a smaller version of the Jason Alexander that we've all come to know and love over the years. It's good to know that he was always ready and able to be a smartass when the situation needed it.

If you're looking for something fresh and complex then look elsewhere. In fact, if that's the case then most entries in the slasher subgenre probably aren't for you. But if you're looking for a film that throws together a bunch of kids and camp counselors, setting them up to be killed by a memorable madman, then this is as good a choice as any. Indeed, it's one that you kind of have to check off "the list" if you're a fan of the horror genre, in my opinion.

8/10

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