I loved Song Sung Blue, charting the tumultuous tale of a pair of struggling musicians who form a Neil Diamond tribute act.
It's so much more than a jukebox musical, and if Kate Hudson isn't shortlisted for multiple awards, I'll be flabbergasted. I didn't know about any of the darker plot twists, so won't include spoilers here, but needless to say it's a jawdropping true love story. Hugh Jackman is superb as Lightning, and I loved an early scene that featured a variety of tribute acts, including Michael Jackson and an angry Elvis. Be warned though, you may need to take a tissue, as there was definitely some dust in the cinema during a couple of scenes! As Lightning says, there's a lot more to Neil Diamond than Sweet Caroline. I really believed in the characters.
The Housemaid featured a few plot changes from the successful Freida McFadden book, which I recently listened to (love a good audiobook), and not all of the story translated successfully to the big screen. Having said that, it was enjoyable far-fetched hokum, and Sydney Sweeney can chalk up another great performance for her collection following the underrated boxing drama Christy. One scene with a pair of pliers made most of the audience wince and hide behind their hands, which is one of the joys of the shared cinema experience!
Anaconda wasn't as laugh-out-loud funny as I'd hoped, but I enjoyed the cameos from Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez (they both starred in the '97 original, which is being ostensibly remade here in the wafer-thin plot). In fact, they were more amusing than most of the Jack Black and Paul Rudd stuff, and it was one of those films where the best bits are in the trailer. If you just fancy switching off your brain and enjoying some nonsense, you could certainly do far worse, but part of me wanted the gargantuan snake to devour everyone involved about 40 minutes in, and save us all some time.
Other films in brief...House Of Dynamite (Netflix) is a tense affair from the reliably excellent Kathryn Bigelow, told from several points of view as a nuclear missile hurtles its way towards Chicago, amid desperate attempts to defuse it. You won't take a breath. Locked (Prime) sees Anthony Hopkins play a cat and mouse game with a would-be car thief (Bill Skarsgard). A lean 90 minutes, and you may well find yourself rooting for the bad guy, who it turns out is not so bad after all and just wants to turn his life chances around. He does get tasered rather a lot whilst trying to escape. And The SpongeBob Movie : Search For Squarepants was better than I expected, whilst Bride Hard (Prime) sees Rebel Wilson delivering plenty of laughs as a maid-of-honour who is a secret spy operative, which comes in handy when bad guys infiltrate a wedding in a bid to steal a wealthy family's stash of gold bars.
