Money Talks - but it Don't Sing and Dance and it Don't Walk

Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson in "Song Sung Blue"

"Money talks.

But it don't sing and dance and it don't walk

And long as I can have you here with me

I'd much rather be forever in blue jeans"

- Neil Diamond, "Forever in Blue Jeans"

These past couple of weeks, we've been trying to catch up on Oscar-nominated films in anticipation of the 98th awards ceremony on March 15.

This is an old habit, from when we ran a movie theater, and a sad one as we no longer have a local theater at which to enjoy these films, and the conversations before and after, with others. It's the conversations with friends and neighbors that make the movies more than entertainment to be consumed -- but rather culture that helps us grow and strengthens our bonds.

"Money talks

But it don't sing and dance and it don't walk..."

Our favorite of the movies we've screened so far is "Song Sung Blue" starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson, who is nominated for Best Actress. Not at all clear why Hugh Jackman was not also nominated for this one.

I was never much of a Neil Diamond fan growing up. His music lives in an uncomfortable nexus between the hard rock we loved in the 1970', the soft pop to which we danced, and the country that was our parents' fave.

Not to mention that "Sweet Caroline" is forever embedded in my cells as it was the #1 tune of our marching band. "Ba ba ba...good times never felt so gooooddddd..."

"Play wiht all you've got:" me marching in 
a high school football game in
Stonington, CT circa 1977-78.

Yeah. We hated marching band, but it was required to be in concert band.

"Song Sung Blue" is actually the true story of a Milwaukee-based Neil Diamond/Patsy Cline tribute band, Lightning and Thunder.

It's Milwaukee. It's working class. Mike (Lightning) and Claire (Thunder) Sardina have a blended family and tough lives where money is short but the songs sing and dance and thus so do they, triumphant trough one tragedy after another.

And it may actually be one of the most honest and moving movies you'll ever see about being in recovery.

We need this now. Check it out.

But instead, the other movies we're getting tend to focus on money and the lives of despicable characters. "After the Hunt," for which Julia Roberts won a Golden Globe but failed to get an Oscar nod, takes on the still-important #MeToo movement within the elite environs of Yale in a way you know that we as women will never see justice in our life times.

The NYTimes called "Marty Supreme," which showcases the excellent acting of the still young Timothee Chalamet, "one of the most exciting movies of the year" -- mostly, it seems, on the basis of it being a terrific love letter to NYC's now lost, once-seething with life Lower East Side.

I miss it, too.

But not enough to praise yet another story of a young man on the make, striving for money and running roughshod over the married women with whom he has affairs to obtain his own goals.

It's an all too familiar story, and one we need to stop lionizing. #MeToo anyone?

The world we're living in is farther from perfect than most of us would presently like.

Movies like "Song Sung Blue" show us the lives and fights of those too often invisible to decision makers. The lives of real people who matter. And it might even give you a new appreciation for the hidden treasure's in Diamond's ouevre.

"Money talks

But it don't sing and dance and it don't walk

And long as I can have you here with me

I'd much rather be forever in blue jeans"

- Neil Diamond, "Forever in Blue Jeans"