Craig Brewer
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Like “Ed Wood” and “The Disaster Artist,” it gets its juice from its central figure, a driven, even delusional creative force who doesn’t know good from bad and doesn’t care.
Dolemite Is My Name was written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the screenwriting duo who have a knack for this sort of biopic, based on their past credits, which include Ed Wood, Man on the Moon, and Big Eyes.
In the tradition of such films as “Ed Wood” (the gold standard in this particular niche genre), “The Disaster Artist” and “Bowfinger,” which starred Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy, “Dolemite Is My Name” finds rich material in a story about a filmmaker who refuses to let things like no discernible talent get in the way.
But the film at hand might be better understood as the latest love letter to cult favorites and camp icons by screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who previously wrote the screenplays for Ed Wood , the Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon , and the Margaret Keane legal drama Big Eyes .
Toward the end of the film, however, the director inserts just one brassy montage set to a ’70s funk hit too many, and you begin to wish that screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski had approached Moore’s life with the same focus as in their Oscar-winning script for Ed Wood (1994).
A perfect blend of the acting of one of singular voices in comedy, the writers behind Ed Wood and The People Vs.
In quick succession we're introduced to FBI Agents Donald Carruthers (Ray Liotta, "Goodfellas") and Richard Messner (Ryan Reynolds, 2005's "The Amityville Horror"), dispatched by FBI Deputy Director Stanley Locke (Andy Garcia, "Ocean's Twelve") to protect Aces so he can turn state's evidence; hit woman booker Loretta Wyman (Davenia McFadden, "American Gun") sends lethal lesbians Georgia Sykes (singer Alicia Keys), the catnip, and Sharice Watters (Taraji P. Henson, "Hustle & Flow"), the firepower; Darwin (Chris Pine, "Just My Luck"), Jeeves (Kevin Durand, "Walking Tall") and Lester Tremor (Maury Sterling) are chainsaw-wielding, mad-cap Road-Warrioresque neo-Nazis while torture specialist Pasquale Acosta (Nestor Carbonell) and 'Mission Impossible-style' master of disguise Lazlo Soot (Tommy Flanagan, 2006's "When a Stranger Calls" hark from overseas.
Henson, who played the pregnant prostitute in Hustle & Flow, is the movie's strongest dramatic presence, and Jason Bateman, as a degenerate, self-loathing lawyer, provides the funniest two-and-a-half minutes (is there anything Jason Bateman doesn't make funnier?).
Among the shooters: singer Alicia Keys, in a counter-intuitive but not-embarrassing film debut as a tarted-up killer with a female sniper partner (Taraji Henson from "Hustle & Flow"); a trio of crazy neo-Nazis; and a master of disguise (Tommy Flanagan).
In a hotel across the way, the fabulous Taraji P. Henson (that singing hooker from "Hustle & Flow") sits behind one of the biggest guns I've ever seen.
The cast and crew is made up of Rudy's friends and a host of others that Rudy manages to talk into making the film one way or another, including actor D'Urville Martin (played by Wesley Snipes of “Blade”) who is lured into the project by Rudy offering him the coveted creative job of director.
Beyond Murphy as Moore, we also have: Da’Vine Joy Randolph (TBS’ People of Earth ) as his performance partner Lady Reed; Tituss Burgess (Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt ) as his hapless assistant manager and later assistant director; Keegan-Michael Key ( Keanu ) as a very patrician playwright hilariously engaged to write the decidedly non-patrician screenplay; Wesley Snipes – the eternal Blade – as the alcoholic D’Urville Martin, an established blaxploitation star hired as the movie’s director; and many more, all of whom shine.
The new film Song Sung Blue is based on the real-life story of Mike and Claire Sardina, whose tale was previously recounted in a 2008 documentary of the same title from director Greg Kohs.
Based on the 2008 documentary of the same name by Greg Kohs, “Song Sung Blue” is a stranger-than-fiction story buoyed by committed, musical performances from Jackman and Hudson.
Adapted from Greg Kohs’ 2008 namesake documentary, Song Sung Blue also shares DNA with Craig Brewer’s previous work.
Song Sung Blue, the 2008 documentary and inspiration for Craig Brewer’s fictional retelling, knew this.
Based on Greg Kohs’ 2008 documentary of the same name, the narrative follows the decade-long relationship of Mike and Claire Sardina, a couple who met in the 1980s in Milwaukee as state fair musician impersonators and formed a Neil Diamond tribute band, “Lightning & Thunder”.
Based on the 2008 documentary of the same name, it relates the true-life tale of Milwaukee musicians Mike and Claire Sardina (Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson).
Eventually, the film feels more akin to something like Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born in its exploration of romance, music, conflict, and tragedy.
This is a musical, but a diegetic one, a la A Star Is Born…
We’re soon whisked off on an A Star Is Born-style ascent…
…making Song Sung Blue’s highlights exhilarating enough for the Mamma Mia crowd…
…this heartwarming musical romance does for 1970s icon Neil Diamond what Mamma Mia did for Abba…
Hudson even pulling off a credible Midwestern accent (albeit one that sounds more akin to the world of Fargo than Milwaukee)…
Jim Belushi goes all “cheese-head” (right outta’ FARGO) as the tour bus-drivin’ manager.
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (2025)
Directed by Scott Cooper
influenced Song Sung Blue (2025)
Themes
…it’s not as simple as someone being a Bruce Springsteen fan and automatically adoring Scott Cooper’s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere…
Unlike “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” (2025), audience members will not need any clues as to what they were supposed to take away from the film.
Set way back in the 1970s when “blaxploitation” films like “Shaft” (1971) “Superfly” (1972) and “Foxy Brown” (1974) were popular with inner city audiences, Rudy Ray Moore (played by Eddie Murphy) is a struggling singer and stand up comic whose career seems to be going nowhere.
On a Memphicentric note, "The Way, Way Back" may be the first movie to actually include a reference to director Craig Brewer's remake of " Footloose ."
The fact that it’s a Hollywood story, replicated just a handful of times through movie history, a lone print of an “I spent everything on this” movie finding success — “A Fistful of Dollars,” “Night of the Living Dead” “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Deep Throat” followed similar paths — just makes this that much more mutha-f—–g adorable.
Other traps: Ren is from Boston, which always inspires ludicrous Chowderhead accents (see: Tom Hanks in “Catch Me If You Can”) -- yet the movie matches geography with character.
Snipes—who looks like a day hasn’t passed since White Men Can’t Jump, and it’s just not fair—hasn’t had an opportunity to shine like this in decades, and this film marks his grand return to form as well.
Hugh Jackman, in a way, reprises his role as the gung-ho idealist from The Greatest Showman: the ringleader of a band who can motivate anyone with his fervor and aspirations, but also make him a wife guy.
Jackman recently said Anderson gave him the same feeling he had working with Zendaya on The Greatest Showman, and honestly? He’s right.
I still have not seen “The Greatest Showman” (2017), but anyone would have to be under a rock to not know that he is really a song and dance man, not Wolverine.
Jackman is a beloved music man from The Boy from Oz and The Greatest Showman…
…especially from Jackman who is nothing if not a showman (perhaps, the greatest showman???)
…an actor known for "big" performances like "The Greatest Showman (2017)"…
Ya sean dramas que exaltan la añoranza de las viejas glorias ( El ocaso de una vida, 1950), tramas que plasman las emociones generadas por el arte ( Cinema Paradiso , 1988) e incluso homenajes a sus más fallidos representantes que de algún modo lograron destacar en la dura industria creativa ( Ed Wood , 1994), el cine dentro del cine es fascinante por sus historias, así como por lo que representa: la lucha máxima en la industria de los sueños.
In the mid 80’s HBO had a series called , “Dream On,” about a guy who would have flashbacks to tv and movie quotes at certain times in his life.
He takes us past the high camp (exploited in 2001’s SAVING SILVERMAN) of Diamond’s 70s heyday…
…evoking films like John Carney’s Sing Street or Shinobu Yaguchi’s Swing Girls…
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)
Directed by Jake Kasdan
influenced Song Sung Blue (2025)
Themes
…ones that hit every beat that Jake Kasdan’s Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story brilliantly skewered years ago…
No spoilers here, but viewers should prepare themselves for a flashback sequence that uses wildly disconcerting de-aging CGI for Murphy and Hall, the results of which fall somewhere between those Tom Cruise deepfakes and the uncanny valley of Tom Hanks in The Polar Express .