Song Sung Blue (2025)

Yes, there are some sad and dramatic parts, but overall this is a feel good movie about a real life Neil Diamond impersonator and his partner. Jack and I liked it a lot. Kate Hudson earned seven of the movie's 13 nominations as Claire AKA Thunder (including a Best Actress Oscar nod). Of course Hugh Jackman as Mike AKA Lightning is fabulous. And Michael Imperioli as a Buddy Holly impersonator and Mustafa Shakir as a James Brown one are wonderful as well. Ella Anderson plays Claire's daughter Rachel and King Princess is Mike's daughter Angelina.

Craig Brewer directs and wrote the script based on Greg Kohs' 2008 documentary of the same name. Brewer apparently took poetic license and there are a number of inaccuracies. But this one is not a documentary.

Scott Bomar is credited as the composer, however, the Apple Music soundtrack is almost all covers of songs by Diamond and others, played and/or sung by the cast.

Hudson was last blogged for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Jackman for Deadpool & Wolverine, Anderson for The Glass Castle, and Brewer and Bomar for Dolemite Is My Name. Best known for 86 episodes of The Sopranos (1999-2007), Imperioli has a long resumé, including eleven episodes of Californication (2014), seven of The White Lotus (2022), and the movie One Night in Miami..., though I didn't mention him in these pages. Shakir is new to me. I liked Princess in her eight episodes of Nine Perfect Strangers (2025) and Kohs has made four more feature documentaries since his Song Sung Blue.

Rotten Tomatoes aren't quite feeling cherry with a 77% average, but its audiences are so good, so good, so good at 97. We rented it on March 16 and now it's also available on Peacock.